Data published by the US State Department about the number of Palestinian acts of violence against Israelis in 2019 cites only about one-tenth the number of incidents that Israel reports for the same period.
According to the State Department Israel 2019 Human Rights Report, published in March, Palestinians committed 101 acts of violence against Israeli civilians in the West Bank, "primarily stonethrowing ."
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
However, the number of incidents recorded by the IDF and the Shin Bet security agency for 2019 is much higher. The IDF reported that over the course of 2019, there were 290 incidents of Palestinians throwing Molotov cocktails at Israelis and 1,469 stonethrowing incidents. The Shin Bet reported a total of 1,327 Palestinian terrorist acts for 2019.
The data about Palestinian attacks on Israelis has been collected by the group Boomerang, which advocates for Israel and publishes a weekly report on terrorism statistics. At the start of 2020, Boomerang head Azri Tubi sent the US Embassy in Jerusalem a detailed report that documented all attempts by Palestinians to harm Israelis in Judea and Samaria throughout 2019. However, the information does not appear to have influenced the State Department's report.
Tubi contacted the embassy staff member who authored the US report and asked why the report appeared to ignore the figures his organization had supplied. He also questioned the staff member about why the embassy was willing to accept data provided by left-wing organizations, but not Boomerang.
Tubi was told in response that the report was indeed compiled "selectively."
"Our report is not intended to serve as a catalog of all claims of human rights violations in the given year, but rather as a document describing facts relevant to concerns about human rights," an embassy representative told Tubi.
When Israel Hayom contacted the US Embassy in Jerusalem to follow up on Tubi's queries, the response received was that "the methodology used to collect information for reports on human rights is standard worldwide, and includes consultation with host governments, international organizations, and civil society organizations.
"We consistently request information from the Israeli government on these issues, including when compiling the report. Information and statistics provided by the Israeli government are included in it," the representative said.
Tubi told Israel Hayom that "rather than admitting the truth and apologizing for a false, biased report that has been published for dozens of years, the State Department is opting to continue to play dumb and claim that it is operating objectively.
"The authors of the report should be reminded that behind the numbers of hundreds and thousands of Palestinian attacks against Israeli, there are people who have been stabbed and had Molotov cocktails thrown at them, or rocks," Tubi said.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
