Francesca Albanese, the controversial United Nations special rapporteur covering the Palestinian territories, saluted five Palestinian “human rights” organizations as doing “indomitable” work — derived from the Latin, ”indomitabilis,” translating to “untamable.” The indomitable five were stalwart, like Albanese, in advocating for International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the former defence minister.
https://x.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1859746202713235774
There is no cognizable standard defining which groups genuinely promote human rights, and the consequences of being denounced by such organizations — like the UN — can be dramatic, as this example clearly demonstrates.
So we decided to analyze the trustworthiness of such organizations based not on how they present themselves, but on the substance of their actual work. After all, with mounting evidence of UN employees and assets being employed from both Gaza and Lebanon to support and even directly wage a terror war against Israel’s citizens, it is well past time for the world to consider — to audit — those waging legal and diplomatic wars against Israel.
For decades, we’ve seen claims that there is an industry — savvy, sophisticated, well-funded and influential — that has usurped terms like “human rights,” “civil society” and “democratic” in order to advance interests with a more insidious agenda.
It is imperative to attempt to ascertain the agendas, natures and purposes of such groups. But, setting aside the apparent subterfuge, we decided to turn to a more readily quantifiable question: to what extent are these organizations even possessed of expertise in international human rights law? Surely, discourse in international law requires demonstrable expertise. And expertise — unbiased expertise — demands a fair weighing of the merits of all sides to a conflict and cannot be applied outside the context of actual events.
We thus analyzed all public statements we were able to identify, 105 in total, made by the five “indomitable” work-doing human rights organizations that Francesca Albanese praised for their unwavering support of ICC warrants against Israeli politicians. Among these statements, since Oct. 7, 2023, we found only six mentions of the Israeli hostages, despite their circumstances being a key reason for Israel’s ongoing military actions.
In the rare instances the hostages were mentioned by members of the indomitable five, they were referenced perfunctorily within broader discussions about the war, not as relevant factors worthy of consideration. PHCR Gaza mentioned the hostages in three of its 42 published statements, Al Mezan, twice in 35, Al-Haq, once in 28, and two of the five “human rights” organizations — Addameer and DCI Palestine — made no mention at all of the Israeli hostages.
Intrigued by this evidence of disregard for victims of actual crimes against humanity, we sought out a broader corpus of human rights statements to measure “experts’” sensitivity to the plight of the hostages. After all, hostage-taking is universally condemned and prohibited under international law in other conflicts; it is a heinous war crime and no legitimate scholar disputes this.
We identified 143 different sources of international law and human rights expertise in which scholars, collectively, had expressed 100,196 statements about what Israel, Hamas, Yahya Sinwar or Netanyahu “must” or “should” do. Our analysis included statements made by these experts over the period from Oct. 11, 2023, to Oct. 16, 2024 — the date of Sinwar’s death.
Roughly 66 per cent of our sources, 95 out of 143, are esteemed academic journals or law reviews. The rest are think-tanks, research centres and governmental organizations. We aimed to gather a comprehensive lens across traditional academic scholarship, policy analysis think tanks, international organizational perspectives and regional expertise.
What we wondered is this: what do experts argue each side in this war “must” or “should” do?
Directive legal advice encompasses specific recommendations or instructions from legal experts on actions that should or must be taken to comply with their position. Conspicuously, our findings show that the great majority, 83.5 per cent, of experts’ directive statements came in the form of legal advice aimed at Netanyahu or Israel. Just 16.5 per cent came in the form of legal instruction for Hamas or Sinwar.
Troublingly, when lecturing Netanyahu or Israel on what to do and why, hostage references were significantly underrepresented by these experts. They were only 4.9 per cent of such statements. This reveals a truly systematic framing bias, where the context — the humanitarian, moral and legal justifications — for Israel’s actions is barely audible.
When it comes to Israel, we found that international law experts adopt a conspicuously stronger prescriptive tone, framing Israel as more scold-worthy than Hamas. Israel receives about five times more directive legal advice. Experts’ statements about Israel are evenly split between direct statements — telling Israel what to do — and contextual analysis — analyzing why Israel’s actions are problematic.
An example of direct advice comes from Harvard Law Review: “Netanyahu should consider regional peace,” Alabama Law Review: “Netanyahu should facilitate civilian protection,” and the Indonesian Journal of International Law: “Netanyahu must engage in peace negotiations.”
Similar phrasing repeats itself across the journals and other sources. That’s partly because it’s common practice for experts to cite other experts, or even themselves. Circular and self-justifying, this does nothing to bolster the actual credibility of the argument, but it is a useful tool for swaying global narrative and opinion. Out of the 100,196 statements analyzed in our dataset, 12.7 per cent (12,704 statements) contain expert self-references, such as “experts maintain” or “scholars suggest.”
Notably, when issuing advice, experts often referenced or built upon the opinions of their peers, creating a network of interconnected analysis. Experts leaned on other experts’ opinions when issuing such advice. This circular reasoning appeared in statements such as: “Diplomatic sources indicate that Netanyahu should protect civilian lives” in the Arkansas Law Review, “Legal scholars conclude that Netanyahu should ensure proportionality” in the Illinois Law Review and “Humanitarian law specialists emphasize that Netanyahu should accept mediation efforts” in the UC Davis Law Review.
Israel thus faces intense scrutiny on multiple fronts: urgent calls for action, castigation through expert analysis, weaponized public opinion and consequent external diplomatic (and legal) punishment and internal political pressures. Meanwhile, Hamas escapes similar levels of examination and consequence. The analyzed sources reveal a glaring disparity, with directive advice for Hamas/Sinwar occurring at a ratio of approximately 1:5 to Israel/Netanyahu.
An argument can be made, of course, that experts lean on Israel so much more than on Hamas since Israel is a beacon of human rights and might therefore be more enlightened by the entreaties of experts.
But by downplaying or ignoring the Israeli hostages, the experts distort the plot. Even though the hostage crisis provides legal legitimacy for Israel’s response to the October 7 atrocities, experts focus heavily on other matters like (unverified reports of) civilian casualties, or (factually weak claims of) humanitarian concerns. Yet, as previously mentioned, our analysis shows that, among experts professing advice, Israel’s actions are overwhelmingly presented in isolation from the hostages.
Notably, the former attorney general of Canada, Irwin Cotler, is part of a small minority of human rights scholars who consistently mentions the Israeli hostages in his public statements about the war.
Narrative plays a crucial role in international law, more so than in many other disciplines, because it is rooted in purported international norms. These norms get shaped by the expert opinions of jurists — individuals who have completed law school, passed the bar exam and published opinions in law journals or white papers. Their opinions gain traction and may be considered significant by international bodies. And, as we noted in an earlier analysis, academic opinions that are heavily biased against Israel are disproportionately represented on Wikipedia pages about the conflict, pages that claim to be neutral. This creates a self-perpetuating cycle of systemic anti-Israel bias online, as Wikipedia is then cited in academic papers, social media, news sites and even in AI systems.
Francesca Albanese, her own agenda under scrutiny for potential violations that could impact her objectivity, has been unyielding and hyperbolic in her criticism of Israel. She, too, seems incapable of acknowledging the context of the Israeli actions she condemns, though she seldom publishes her opinions in academic literature or backs them up with independent credible evidence. Her exhortations against Israel then gain more influence online. Consider her initial response to October 7: “Today’s violence must be put in context.” Indomitabilis.
National Post
Neil Seeman is a big data researcher, lawyer and entrepreneur. Jeff Ballabon is senior counsel for international and government affairs at the American Center for Law and Justice.