Realizing change through monitoring, reporting, and fact-finding: B’Tselem’s work regarding OCL

[Jefferson23]

B'Tselem was founded as an information center, out of a perhaps naïve belief in the power of information. If people knew what was happening a few miles away, where the Israeli military maintained its occupation of the Palestinian population, the problems of violence and oppression would be solved – or so we hoped. Monitoring, reporting and fact-finding (MRF) were the primary tasks of the organization: taking testimonies from victims and eye-witnesses to human rights violations, cross-checking this information with other sources and producing comprehensive reports that place these violations in their broader legal context.

That was 25 years ago. Fairly quickly we came to understand that ignorance regarding the human rights violations is not the primary problem. Even when presented with clear evidence regarding human rights violations, people found ways to explain, and deny and justify – a phenomenon studied by criminologist Stanly Cohen, one of B'Tselem's founders, in his book States of Denial.1 More and more documentation of the violations themselves was not going to overcome these mechanisms of rationalization.

Over the years, we developed new strategies to advance human rights: conducting domestic and international advocacy, promoting criminal accountability, and using new media tools to mobilize the public. Yet MRF remains the backbone of B'Tselem's work – it is the necessary first step of any strategy to make change.

There are probably more journalists in Israel-Palestine than in any other conflict zone on earth. With the development of the internet, we all have access to more information than ever before. But an abundance of information is not necessarily helpful, if that information is unreliable. In fact, much of the information regarding human rights produced in our context is manipulated to advance the agenda of one side or the other. For this reason, B'Tselem relies solely on its own documentation or the work of trusted sources.

in full: http://phap.org/thematic-notes/2014/april/realizing-change-through-mrf-b%E2%80%99tselem%E2%80%99s-work-regarding-operation-cast-lead