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.”