State Department Inconsistent in Human Rights Report

By Louise Cainkar and Jan Abu-Shakrah

During the last days of the Ford administration, Congress passed legislation prohibiting US development assistance to "any government which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." Since then, before Congress can vote on the proposed US foreign aid program, the State Department must report on the human rights practices of every nation for which US aid is requested. While the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1986 is often quite forthright in its reporting and criticism of human rights abuses around the world, it does not give the unvarnished truth about Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. While it contains numerous reports of Israeli human rights violations, the Country Reports' objectivity and use as an analytic tool is undone by its untenably narrow perspective, its omissions, its minimizing of Palestinian grievances, and its value-laden language.

Draft reports on the human rights situation in an area are typically prepared by staff in US Embassies, reviewed and amended by State Department human rights and geographic desk staff, and finally amended and approved by high-level administration officials, including members of the National Security Council. The final report is often a product of negotiation between staff concerned with human rights, and staff and political officials concerned with the overall direction of US foreign policy. In the State Department's 1986 Country Reports for the Israeli-occupied territories, political expediency apparently overrode consistency in applying human rights criteria. This becomes evident when one compares the section on the occupied territories with sections on South Africa, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and the Soviet Union.

Selective Use of History

The report on Afghanistan briefly summarizes Afghani history, discusses the objectives of the Soviet occupiers, analyzes the occupation's effect on the indigenous population, and tends to support the concept of the validity of indigenous resistance to a foreign occupation. For example, the report does not dispute the Afghani people's right to resist the Soviet occupation, and claims that the "vast majority" of Afghanis support the resistance. In addition, the State Department admits that there is a relationship between belligerent occupation and human rights situation in (Afghanistan) without a political solution that includes complete withdrawal of Soviet forces."

In contrast, the Country Report on Israel and the occupied territories omits crucial information on Palestinian history: there is no mention of the destruction of Palestine in 1948, Israel's seizure of the majority of Palestinian-owned land, the destruction of a viable Palestinian economy, and the exile of more than 50 percent of the Palestinian people from historic Palestine. These facts, having been repeatedly documented by a variety of international organizations, scholars, and Israeli civil rights groups, are virtually indisputable. Yet there is no discussion of these Israeli practices in the Country Report. As a result, Israel's policy of destroying Palestinian homes, displacing Palestinian civilians, limiting Palestinian land and water use, illegally transporting its civilian population into the occupied territories, denying Palestinian refugees and exiles the right to return to their homes and the right of family reunion cannot be placed in its proper historical context.

Turning to Israel's policy of destroying the Palestinian economic infrastructure in the occupied territories, which forces thousands of Palestinians into exile each year, the Country Report says Israeli "limits on economic enterprise, especially that which would compete with Israeli products, are also a source of contention." However, the State Department's report on Afghanistan strongly censures the "deliberate destruction of the country's agricultural infrastructure." by Soviet occupation forces.

The section on Afghanistan indicates that, when the State Department chooses to do so, it can sketch a historical portrait, discuss the occupier's policies and their effects on the indigenous people, and support the idea that an occupied people have the right to resist occupation. The section on the Israeli-occupied territories suggests that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began in 1967, that it is a conflict between ethnic groups which are otherwise equal, that indigenous Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation is illegitimate, and that with a little fine-tuning, Israel's occupation can be made smoother and more palatable to those in the West Bank and Gaza.

Report Downplays Palestinian Reports of Abuse

In discussing human rights violations in other countries, the Country Report uses language such as, "many persons gave accounts of," "reports by," and "many sources indicate." However, Israeli human rights violations which have been well-documented by Palestinian and international human rights organizations as well as by Israeli attorneys are treated as if they were random complaints unsupported by professional documentation. In its section on Nicaragua, the State Department notes that "reports of the beating of political prisoners and intense 'psychological torture' by government authorities are common." With regard to the Soviet Union, the State Department reports, "So many Soviet political prisoners suffer both mental and physical abuse and mistreatment during interrogation, trial and confinement, according to a wide variety of sources, that such treatment must be regarded as a systematic policy and practice." The State Department's section on Israeli torture begins "Torture is forbidden by Israeli law and Israeli authorities say they do not condone torture." This subtle adoption of the official Israeli perspective is followed by several instances beginning with "Palestinians complain...." No attempt is made to reconcile these complaints, themselves downgraded by US officials, with official statements of Israeli officials. Since it can be assumed that every government will say it does not condone torture or mistreatment of prisoners, perhaps for the sake of consistency the State Department might reprint every government's statement opposing the torture or mistreatment of prisoners, or dispense altogether with official statements and proceed directly to the evidence at hand.

Inconsistent Reporting, Meek Conclusions

In addition to overlooking certain Israeli human rights abuses, the State Department's Country Report does not use the same language to describe similar human rights abuses committed by Israel and other states. For example, while the report at least notes that Israel maintains a residual presence in South Lebanon and continues to support the South Lebanon Army, it makes no mention whatsoever of Israel's continual bombing raids on Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, or Israel's practice of hijacking vessels and kidnapping their passengers in international waters. These omissions seem clearly intentional because human rights violations of other governments outside their borders are discussed in other reports. For example, the section on South Africa includes the following passage:

"In May (1986) the South African Defense Forces launched simultaneous raids on alleged ANC training camps in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. In addition, attacks were made against Lesotho and Swaziland which were widely believed to have been launched by South African commandos. Several people, including refugees under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, were killed or injured in these raids." (emphasis added)

The section on the Soviet Union states: "Abroad, the Soviet Union continues its occupation of Afghanistan and its support for the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia which have resulted in widespread and egregious human rights violations."

By and large, this type of inconsistency characterizes the brief section on Israel and the occupied territories. While the individual reports on Nicaragua, South Africa, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union contain clear information on particular instances of human rights abuses and the pattern into which these particular instances fit, there is no similar attempt to assert the severity of Israeli human rights violations in Israel, the occupied territories, or south Lebanon.

The State Department has been highly selective in its use of historical and factual material, and when the Country Report on Israel and the occupied territories does draw on occasional conclusion, it is nearly always meek. According to the Country Report, the human rights situation for the Palestinians is "complex," rather than bad. With respect to Israel's observance of the Geneva Conventions, we learn only that "major differences have arisen" between US and Israeli interpretations. The Country Report notes that, in South Africa, "Police often quelled demonstrations with excessive force," which the State Department defined as the use of "tear gas, birdshot, whips and rubber bullets, and at times, live ammunition." Reporting the killing of two Bir Zeit University students in December, 1986, the Country Report notes that IDF soldiers, "enforcing security regulations...opened fire on the demonstrators." While there was no objective difference between the way South African and Israeli forces "quell demonstrations," South Africa was strongly rebuked while Israel was not.

The Unspoken Agenda

Had the State Department's report on Israel and the occupied territories used the same criteria and language found in the reports on South Africa, the Soviet Union, Nicaragua and Afghanistan, it would have constituted a strong indictment of Israel and Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Instead, in the words of the Jerusalem Post, the report was a "generally mild critique."

Rather than a forthright and honorable report and analysis of Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights, the State Department's Country Report on Human Rights Practices was turned into a compromised and inconsistent document by the apparent desire to top officials in the Reagan administration to avoid forthright criticism of Israel. Had a complete and honest report been issued, the letter of the law would have required that US officials question continued aid to Israel. Instead, the intention to continue enormous sums of US aid to Israel predetermined the content, style, and conclusions of the report on Israel and the occupied territories.

Louise Cainkar is director of the Chicago branch of the Database Project on Palestinian Human Rights. Jan Abu-Shakrah holds a Ph. D. in sociology and directs the Jerusalem office of the DataBase Project, a sub-unit of the Arab Studies Society. This report was condensed from a longer analysis by the Database Project, available in May.