See major errors in yellow.
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THE ABC Four Corners program on Monday alleging the Israeli mistreatment of Palestinian children, created with The Australian’s Middle East correspondent John Lyons, was laced with sensationalism, inadequate scepticism and fact-checking.
It recycled uncorroborated allegations by arrested Palestinian minors and then wove a conspiracy theory based on them.
The story claimed that Unicef “found” the allegations to be true. Actually, the UN agency merely “found” that these concerning allegations exist.
If these stories are true, they involve clear breaches of Israeli law and those responsible deserve punishment.
But, in the heat of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, horror stories of the sort alleged here - electric shocks, being strapped to a giant cross, threats of rape - are often untrue or grossly exaggerated, and require corroborating evidence.
Indefensibly, the story was repeatedly promoted as providing evidence that Israel has a “new policy” of “targeting Palestinian children”. No evidence was provided for this apart from an unsubstantiated claim by radical Israeli activist and lawyer Gaby Lasky.
In fact, data on the website of Gerard Horton - a critic featured in the story - show that Israel’s arrest rate against juvenile Palestinians has been steady or declining and is comparatively low.
Israel reportedly arrests 700 juvenile Palestinians annually from a population of 2.5 million. Victoria, with a population of 5.4 million, had 29,198 juveniles arrested over 2012-2013 for violent crimes - a rate roughly 19 times higher per capita.
Furthermore, Israel has recently taken meaningful steps to improve conditions for arrested Palestinian juveniles, something that Four Corners almost completely avoided mentioning. Unicef, a major source used for the story, noted in its October 2013 progress report that Israel was co-operating closely with it and had implemented a number of its key recommendations.
The report concentrated only on young “children” accused of “stone throwing”, giving the impression these cases are typical of Palestinian juveniles arrested by Israel. Actually, Israel does not imprison or try children under 12, and the vast majority of juveniles arrested are 16 or 17. Last year, Israel detained no more than 12 Palestinians under 14.
Many of the juveniles arrested are involved in genuine terrorism, including shootings, bomb plots and murder, but stone-throwing at cars is actually a serious offence. In NSW, it carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. Palestinian stone-throwing has killed at least 12 Israelis over recent decades and injured dozens if not hundreds.
A core complaint in the story was that Israeli and Palestinian minors are not treated the same, but it was never explained that this is because of Israeli compliance with the international law of occupation. Were Israel to apply Israeli law to the West Bank, rather than the law in place there in 1967, this would be legally tantamount to annexing it.
Further, the story obscured the fact that Israel has to confront a wicked problem of trying to respect human rights and protect the lives of its citizens against numerous networks operating among a civilian population full of Palestinian minors bombarded with messages inciting them to violence.
As has been widely reported, including in this newspaper, Palestinian children are constantly exposed to messages in the media and at school lionising terrorists, and urging violent “resistance” against Israel. Four Corners ignored this reality.
Thus the late night arrests of some juveniles is designed to save lives, not intimidate Palestinians. When Israeli forces make daylight arrests in Palestinian towns, they are attacked by local gangs and terror groups, leading to bloodshed. In December, two people were killed and eight injured from such arrest efforts.
Likewise, Israeli attempts to gain intelligence from those arrested was presented as part of a conspiracy, when this is exactly what law-enforcement authorities anywhere would do after arresting a minor involved in violence associated with a larger group or organisation.
Finally, the story featured quotes irrelevant to Israeli treatment of Palestinian juveniles from an extremist settler, Daniella Weiss.
It was never mentioned that there have been three offers of Palestinian statehood made by successive Israeli governments. Hopefully, a Palestinian leadership willing and able to agree to a lasting peace will soon accept these offers.
Israel may not be getting its response right in some respects, but it is improving its treatment of arrested minors, as Unicef attests.
This issue deserved a more temperate, professional and balanced treatment.
Colin Rubenstein is executive director of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council.
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