Benchmarking the Mess and Trauma of Occupation

Jessica Montell, the executive director of B’Tselem, an Israeli NGO dedicated to rectifying what it recognizes as human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, spoke at the New America Foundation in conjunction with the opening of a satellite office in Washington.

The organization seeks to provide credible information on claims of abuse in the Palestinian territories, in part by distributing cameras in the West Bank and Gaza. The group was awarded the Carter-Menil Award for Human Rights in 1989. “The only thing the Israeli army is afraid of is YouTube,” Montell told the audience.

“The official rhetoric around settler violence is that these are hoodlums and criminals who we must reign in, but on the ground we see almost no enforcement.”

Montell also suggested that camera distribution has had unexpected consequences: “Palestinians walk around with the cameras (we’ve given them) no matter what. The batteries run out, it doesn’t matter….The camera is actually a deterrent…settlers who see Palestinians holding cameras often won’t attack.”
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Participants

Featured Speaker

• Jessica Montell
  Executive Director, B'Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories)

Respondent

• Daniel Levy
  Director, Middle East Policy Initiative
  New America Foundation and The Century Foundation

Moderator

• Steve Clemons
  Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation
  Publisher, www.TheWashingtonNote.com

Related Links

• Jessica Montell's PowerPoint Presentation (PDF, 14 pps.)