Machsom Watch

Activities

• Member of the radical Coalition of Women for Peace.
• “Conduct[s] daily observations of IDF checkpoints in the West Bank, along the separation fence and in the seamline zone.” Reports, photos, and videos are published in Hebrew and English, employing emotive and politically charged language that contributes to the demonization of Israel.
• Frequently interferes with and provokes IDF soldiers. A YouTube video shows activists harassing a soldier at a checkpoint, haranguing him for engaging in “apartheid.”
• An exhibition of photos taken at Israeli checkpoints refers to the “policy of suppression and dehumanization that pervades the nature of control over another nation,” “collective punishment,” and “apartheid roads.” Machsom Watch also claims that the delay in checking documents at checkpoints is aimed at imposing “an illegal means of ‘educational punishment’.”
• In October 2021, Machsom Watch was a signatory on a statement condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the statement, “The Minister of Defense’s designation of prominent Palestinian civil society organizations, among them our colleagues in the Palestinian human rights community, as terrorist organizations, is a draconian measure that criminalizes critical human rights work.”
• In September 2021, Machsom Watch published an article falsely accusing Israel of preventing water from reaching the Palestinians, stating that “This is apartheid at its worst.”
• In April 2020, Machsom Watch was a partner for the 15th annual “Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony” hosted by Parents Circle Families Forum and Combatants for Peace. The ceremony represents a narrow, one-sided part of Israeli civil society, and promotes a Palestinian narrative that draws an immoral equivalence between terror victims and terrorists.
• Following the March 2011 Palestinian terror attack in Itamar in which five members of a family were murdered in their sleep, including three small children, Machsom Watch activists, including spokesperson Raya Yaron, visited the Palestinian town of Awarta to comfort the relatives of those who were arrested for the murders. Yaron was photographed hugging the mother of one of the alleged murderers.
• Together with Coalition of Women for Peace, Mossawa, Israel Social TV, Women Against Violence, Israel Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), Zochrot, and Alternative Information Center (AIC), Machsom Watch wrote to the Norwegian Government Pension Fund, calling “upon the Norwegian people to join us in our efforts and to stop investing in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.” The letter accused a number of Israeli and international corporations of “provid[ing] specifically designed equipment for the surveillance and repression of Palestinian population through restrictions of movement and collective punishments.” The campaign resulted in the Pension Fund’s divestment from the Israeli company, Elbit Ltd. Mossawa, Women Against Violence, and Israel Social TV are also NIF grantees.
• Ha’aretz reported that IDF troops caught a member of Machsom Watch climbing the security barrier to receive a package from a Palestinian on the other side. When the woman saw the soldiers, she reportedly threw the package back over the fence and fled the scene.