Activities

• Actively pursues its political agenda in the Israeli courts and the Knesset.
• B’Tselem’s publications reflect its political agenda – “dissent” and opposition to Israeli policy. Under the leadership of Hagai El-Ad, beginning May 2014, dissent was prioritized claiming, “little room is left among the Israeli public to allow for criticism of government policy.”
• In October 2016, Hagai Elad appeared before a special session of the UN Security Council initiated by Egypt, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Angola, asking the UN to take “decisive international action” against Israel. In his presentation, Elad made no mention of Palestinian terror attacks or incitement.

Apartheid Rhetoric

• B’Tselem is part of a network of NGOs that promote artificial and manufactured definitions of apartheid to extend the ongoing campaigns that seek to delegitimize and demonize Israel. (Read NGO Monitor’s Policy Paper “False Knowledge as Power: Deconstructing Definitions of Apartheid that Delegitimise the Jewish State.”)
• In July 2022, during President Biden’s trip to Israel, B’Tselem paid for a series of billboards reading “Mr. President, this is apartheid.”
• In February 2022, B’Tselem signed a statement defending a report published by Amnesty International accusing Israel of apartheid. According to the statement, “The debate around the crime of apartheid of which Israel is accused, and its geographical scope, is not only legitimate, but absolutely necessary. We wholeheartedly reject the idea that Amnesty International’s report is baseless, singles out Israel or displays antisemitic animus.”
• In May 2021, in the context of the 2021 Gaza conflict, B’Tselem tweeted, “Bombing residential towers – that do not constitute a military target and make dozens of families homeless – is a war crime…The architects and leaders of the Israeli apartheid regime, who do not consider Palestinians as equal human beings deserving full human rights, should be prosecuted for this war crime” (emphasis added).
• In March 2021, B’Tselem and Kerem Navot published, “This Is Ours – And This, Too,” accusing Israel of “appear[ing] more determined than ever to continue upholding and perpetuating an apartheid regime throughout the area under its control.” The report was funded by the government of Norway.
• In January 2021, B’Tselem launched a discriminatory and hateful campaign, under the banner of “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.” As part of the campaign, B’Tselem attacked Israel’s role as a haven for the Jewish people (the Law of Return) and used the phrase “from the river to the sea” – echoing long-standing Palestinian terminology for the destruction of Israel. (Read NGO Monitor’s analysis: “From the “River to the Sea”: B’Tselem’s Demonization Crosses the Line.”)

Political Activities

• Accuses  Israel of “apartheid,” perpetrating “war crimes,” “beating and abus[ing]” Palestinians, “demolition of [Palestinian] houses as punishment,” and forced “deportations.”
• In January 2022, B’Tselem was a signatory on a statement condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. The statement called on the donors of the designated NGOs to “maintain and even increase their funding…Defunding the designated NGOs based on unsubstantiated allegations and designations will cause irreparable damage to Palestinian civil society at large and would undermine decades of humanitarian and human rights work.”
  • In October 2021, B’Tselem was a signatory on a statement referring to the designations as a “draconian measure that criminalizes critical human rights work.”
  • Following the designations, B’Tselem Director Hagai El-Ad tweeted, “Proud to be in solidarity with @alhaq_org‘s director @SJabaren, and with other Palestinian human rights defenders. Al-Haq and @btselem proudly won international awards together, and together we will defeat this apartheid.”
• In December 2020, B’Tselem, alongside a number of Israeli, Palestinian, and international organizations, issued a declaration headlined “Israel must provide necessary vaccines to Palestinian health care systems.” The NGOs falsely claim that Israel has “legal obligations” to “ensure that quality vaccines be provided to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and control,” while altogether ignoring that Palestinians residing in Jerusalem are part of the Israeli health care system; that under the Oslo Accords the PA is responsible for health care of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza; and that the PA has adopted its own vaccine policy for its population.
• In July 2020, in the context of the Black Lives Matter protests, Hagai Elad compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the death of George Floyd, stating that “I think about us and the Palestinians, and see the picture of George Floyd in my mind. We have our knee on their necks while holding an argument with ourselves on how we wish to continue doing so.”
• In September 2019, B’Tselem published a report titled “Playing the Security Card: Israeli Policy in Hebron as a Means to Effect Forcible Transfer of Local Palestinian” stating that “For 25 years, Israel has been openly pursuing a policy of segregation in the center of Hebron…Some features of the regime employed in Hebron recall certain aspects of the apartheid regime in South Africa.”
  • The report was funded by the European Union.
• In June 2019, B’Tselem was a signatory on a statement calling on the German Bundestag to revoke its joint resolution defining BDS campaigns against Israel as antisemitic.
• During the 2018 violence on the Gaza border, B’Tselem launched a campaign titled “Sorry Sir, I cannot shoot,” calling for Israeli soldiers to “refuse to open fire” on the protestors. According to B’Tselem, Israel “has made Gaza a huge prison, yet forbids the prisoners even to protest against this, on pain of death.” B’Tselem ignored the violent nature of the protests, which have consisted of an organized armed attack on the Israeli border and IDF positions, attempts to destroy and breach the border fence, and sustained arson, rocket, and mortar attacks on Israeli civilian communities.
• In March 2018, B’Tselem released a report titled “Minors in Jeopardy: Violation of the Rights of Palestinian Minors by Israel’s Military Courts” making numerous false and misleading claims about the IDF and Israeli military courts. The report relied on an inaccurate March 2013 UNICEF report that alleged “widespread, systematic and institutionalized” ill-treatment of children within the system. (For a complete discussion of these inaccuracies, See NGO Monitor’s reports “The Origins of “No Way to Treat a Child”: Analyzing UNICEF’s Report on Palestinian Minors” and “No Way to Represent a Child: Defense for Children International Palestine’s Distortions of the Israeli Justice System.”)
• On November 27, 2017, B’Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad participated in a conference in the French Senate calling for “international action against the occupation…Implementation of Resolution 2334 is a necessary first step in the right direction. In the end, the goal is to present Israel with a compelling choice: end the occupation, or face the consequences of continuing to be a non-democratic occupier.”
• In October 2017, B’Tselem and Hamoked published a joint report, “Unprotected: The Detention of Palestinian Teenagers in East Jerusalem,” that is part of an international NGO-led campaign of demonization that falsely accused Israel of abusing children’s rights. The publication also suffered from fundamental methodological flaws, highlighting the appropriation of human rights for political objectives.
• On September 14, 2017, Adam Aloni, a researcher at B’Tselem, participated in a conference in France titled “From the Balfour Declaration to Today: A Colonial Tragedy,” stating that “As long as the occupation continues, Israel cannot be considered a democratic country like other Western countries…without action from the international community, we never seem to end this injustice. It is time to take decisive and non-violent action.”
• At a June 2017 UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) conference titled “United Nations Forum to Mark Fifty Years of Occupation,” Hagai El-Ad remarked that “[T]his accusation [of antisemitism] is a propaganda line by the Israeli government… this is being deployed systematically as a silencing tool with a very clear agenda. The clear agenda is to successfully perpetuate the occupation while continuing to minimize international consequences…This is an injustice of historical proportions but without similarly appropriate consequences. The world’s conscience rejected slavery. The world’s conscience rejected apartheid. The world’s conscience has yet to reject the occupation.”
  • Other speakers included Wesam Ahmad (Al-Haq), Dalit Baum (American Friends Service Committee), Muna Haddad (Adalah), Omar Shakir (Human Rights Watch), Mustafa Barghouthi (Palestinian National Initiative), Jessica Nevo (Coalition of Women for Peace/Zochrot), Rebecca Vilkomerson (Jewish Voice for Peace), and Tania Hary (Gisha).
• On February 15, 2017, B’Tselem participated in a Knesset conference on 50 Years of Occupation with the message that “Israel must choose between peace with the Palestinians, and the road to apartheid or war.”
• In May 2016, B’Tselem published “The Occupation’s Fig Leaf: Israel’s Military Law Enforcement System as a Whitewash Mechanism,” a report that argued, among other things, that “the state ensures that the military law enforcement system will remain in the sole purview of the military… in which only the junior ranks are (ostensibly) investigated, while senior commanders and civilian superiors are absolved of accountability for unlawful acts committed under their authority.” Following the issuance of the report, the organization announced that it “will no longer refer complaints to the Israeli military law enforcement…We will continue reporting violations but will no longer help a whitewash mechanism that also, in advance, absolves senior military and government officials of responsibility for the policy they set out.”
• On February 24, 2016, B’Tselem, along with HaMoked, released a report “Backed by the System,” funded by the EU, alleging “Abuse and Torture” in Israeli prisons. The claims come from terrorists and suspected terrorists who were imprisoned in late 2013 and early 2014, and who were referred to the NGOs by their relatives. In contrast to the impression created in this report, only 14 of the 116 prisoners complained about “physical violence” during interrogation, and these allegations cannot be independently confirmed.

Lawfare

• In December 2022, B’Tselem was a signatory on a joint letter to the ICC Prosecutor stating that “We are all committed to assisting your office in advancing the ongoing investigation of the Situation in Palestine.”
• On October 3, 2022, B’Tselem wrote to the ICC to “stop Israel from committing a war crime in South Hebron Hills.” According to the submission, “Israel’s apartheid regime is forcing ‘1,000 or so Palestinian residents of the South Hebron Hills into a humiliating bare-bones existence…there are certain Israeli officials who are responsible for its current execution…the responsibility of top Israeli echelons for the criminal policies being currently applied in the South Hebron Hills is undoubted.”
• In April 2021, B’Tselem welcomed the decision of the ICC to launch a formal investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the “State of Palestine.” According to B’Tselem, “This is a long-awaited and a critically important step towards ensuring the rule of law and ending impunity, while ensuring accountability for Israel’s crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.”
• On April 13, 2020, B’Tselem participated in a webinar on “Israel-Palestine at the International Criminal Court,” featuring speakers from Human Rights Watch (HRW), Al-Haq, and Center for Constitutional Rights(CCR).The webinar advanced the NGOs’ long-standing campaign to pressure the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open an investigation of Israelis over alleged war crimes.
• In March 2020, B’Tselem stated that “The ICC can – and must – investigate the situation in Palestine.” According to an email, “Israel may finally have to start considering the price for its crimes against the Palestinians. We hope the court will make the right decision to back the Prosecutor’s position and rule: there is jurisdiction, and there will be an investigation.” B’Tselem also published  a press release and position paper that accused Israel of using the Holocaust to justify its policies vis-a-via the Palestinians, “the very values that the ICC is meant to safeguard – the values that the world has been trying to promote since the end of World War II, in response to the unspeakable atrocities committed during that dark chapter in history. With shameless cynicism, Israel is trying to use these very horrors to justify continued oppression, land grab and killings at its own hands.”
• In a January 2020 Ha’aretz op-ed, Hagai Elad alleged that the Israeli legal system “works to ensure impunity for Israeli security forces who kill, abuse or torture them [Palestinians]” and claiming that “For Palestinians, quite literally, the International Criminal Court is their court of last resort” (emphasis added).

Supporting 2009 and 2014 UN Investigations

• B’Tselem contributed to the campaign for a United Nations investigation into Israel regarding the 2014 Gaza War, stating that “Israel’s law enforcement system, in its present form, cannot investigate alleged violations of international law by Israel in its recent operation in Gaza.” B’Tselem called for an investigation “[i]nvolving independent international observers.”
  • Following the release of the UN Commission of Inquiry report (“Schabas/Davis”), B’Tselem criticized Israel for “whitewash[ing] suspected wrongdoings” and blamed “senior government and military officials” for “lethal policy.” NGO Monitor’s review shows that B’Tselem was the most referenced NGO in the report, with 69 citations.
• B’Tselem, which campaigned for an “independent and credible investigation” of the 2009 Gaza War, “provided assistance to the investigative staff of the Goldstone mission from the beginning to the end of its research.” Following the publication on September 15, 2009, which referenced B’Tselem more than 56 times, B’Tselem continued supporting Goldstone and lobbying the governments of the United States, the European Union, and others to legitimize the report’s extreme biases and endorse its recommendations.
  • B’Tselem Executive Director Jessica Montell claimed that “Israel has only itself to blame” for Goldstone’s one-sided conclusions and recommendations. She also stated that Israel was “shoot[ing] the messenger and bury[ing] its head in the sand.”

Lack of Verifiable Sources Regarding Fighting in Gaza 2012-2014

• B’Tselem played a central role in allegations regarding civilian casualties during the 2014 war in Gaza. B’Tselem presented “initial” and “preliminary” data, which were inherently unverifiable and based solely on information from Palestinian sources in Hamas-controlled Gaza. As the Israeli member of the UNOCHA NGO “Protection Cluster,” B’Tselem provided the appearance of credulity to the casualty claims disseminated by UNRWA/OCHA officials and repeated widely by journalists, political leaders, and others.
• On September 20, 2016, B’Tselem published a report titled, “Whitewash Protocol: The So-Called Investigation of Operation Protective Edge,” arguing that the IDF investigations are illegitimate because “there has been no investigation of policy issues, including the policy of targeting inhabited homes, which resulted in the Israeli military killing hundreds of people….” On this basis, they argue that in the IDF, “there is no accountability [], only whitewashing.”
  • As documented by NGO Monitor, B’Tselem’s arguments in this report were fundamentally flawed and not fact-based nor legally-based.
• Two years after the 2014 Gaza war, B’Tselem published what it claimed was “data [] based on a meticulous, exhaustive investigation” into the identities of over 2,200 reported Palestinian fatalities during that conflict, and the circumstances of their deaths. B’Tselem states that the number of fatalities “casts doubt on Israel’s claim that all the targets were legitimate and that the military adhered to the principle of proportionality during the attacks and took precautions to reduce harm to civilians.” B’Tselem, however, presented faulty information on civilian casualties in alleged attacks against “families bombed at home,” such as misleadingly portraying a number of combatants as innocent civilians.
• On January 28, 2015, published a report, “Black Flag: The legal and moral implication of the policy of attacking residential buildings in the Gaza Strip,” falsely alleging that there was a “black flag of illegality flying over” Israeli military tactics during the 2014 Gaza War. The report was an expansion of a highly inflammatory infographic during the war on “Families bombed at home, Gaza, July-August 2014. ”As extensively documented by NGO Monitor, the report and corresponding infographic were not based on facts, evidence, or serious legal analysis

Employees

• In June 2023, Yuli Novak assumed the role of B’Tselem’s executive director. 
  • Novak previously served (2012-2017) as the executive director of Breaking the Silence.
  • In June 2023, Novak claimed that “As an Israeli, it is my duty and right to firmly demand an end to the occupation and the replacement of the apartheid regime with a democracy.”
  • In September 2018, Novak published an article asking, “what we would prefer the Palestinians to do: to join an armed struggle or, perhaps, that they simply put up with the situation and let them continue to conquer, rob, oppress and kill without interfering?”
• In March 2019, B’Tselem hired Simone Zimmerman to lead the group’s US political operations. Zimmerman is a co-founder of IfNotNow (INN), a US-based fringe group using highly polarizing tactics in attacking American Jewish institutions citing supposed “support for occupation.”
  • Zimmerman also briefly served as “national Jewish outreach coordinator” for US Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. She was dismissed as a result of profanity-laced social media posts, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sanctioning “the murder of over 2,000 people” during the 2014 Gaza War.
• On November 2, 2017, International Advocacy Officer Sarit Michaeli implied that Israel is to blame for sexual abuse of children in Gaza. Commenting on a Ha’aretz article in which a Palestinian psychologist claimed that “more than a third of the children I saw in the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza told me that they had been sexually abused,” Michaeli tweeted, “Two million people locked in a big prison for a decade, and they freak out. Who would believe it?”
• On January 8, 2016, Israeli investigative news program “Uvda” featured an expose showing B’Tselem employee Nasser Nawaja and Ezra Nawi, a radical activist from the NGO “Ta’ayush,” discussing informing the Palestinian Authority security services about a Palestinian man who allegedly intended to sell land to Jews in the West Bank. The sale of Palestinian land to Israelis is punishable by death under Palestinian law, and according to Nawi, suspects are tortured and then killed.
• In 2014, journalist Tuvia Tenenbom published a book, “Catch the Jew,” in which he recounts a conversation with B’Tselem “researcher” Atef Abu a-Rub, who accused Germany of “giving money to the Jews” and then referred to the Holocaust as “a lie.”
• Former CEO Jessica Montell has said: “I think the word apartheid is useful for mobilizing people because of its emotional power. In some cases, the situation in the West Bank is worse than apartheid in South Africa.”
• In April 2010, staff member and NGO activist Lizi Sagie resigned after the organization came under pressure for statements made on her personal blog, including: “The IDF Memorial Day is a pornographic circus of glorifying grief and silencing voices,” “Israel is committing Humanity’s worst atrocities…Israel is proving its devotion to Nazi values…Israel exploits the Holocaust to reap international benefits.”