Human Rights Watch (HRW) Misleading Report on Palestinian Child Labor

Human Rights Watch (HRW) latest report "Ripe For Abuse: Palestinian Child Labor in Israeli Agricultural Settlements in the West Bank" reflects the organization’s obsession with Israel, as well as its sloppy and distorted research.

Illustrated by a  deliberately misleading 2010 photo of a Palestinian child working on a Palestinian farm, widespread exposure in social media have already forced HRW to issue a correction.

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Rife with error,  the report's accompanying publicity video featured  HRW researcher Bill Van Esveld asserting blatant falsehood-  that Palestinian children "have no option to work on Palestinian farms. Most of them don't exist anymore."

Via CAMERA:

But this claim is belied by the facts. The Palestinian date sector has enjoyed significant growth in recent years. According to a report published by Paltrade and the Ministry of National Economy, among others ("The State of Palestine National Export Strategy 2014-2018"):

Palestinian fresh fruit exports have grown at a rate of 52%, compared to global import growth of 21% over the same time period.

The main fruit exports from the State of Palestine are nuts, dates, grapes, strawberries and almonds. The bulk of export growth for the sector has been driven by a rise of exports of dates. Palestinian exports of dates have risen from US$324,000 in 2007 to US$1.2 million in 2010, reflecting an absolute growth of over 250%.

Indeed, Nakheel Palestine for Agricultural Investment, located in the Jordan Valley, "cultivates a total of six Date Palm farms in Jericho, on the Palestinian side of the Jordan Valley, with a total number of 20,000 trees stretched along an area of 3000 Dunums."

CAMERA has asked HRW to correct Van Esveld's erroneous assertions that Palestinian children have no choice but to work in Israeli settlements and that "most" Palestinian farms "don't exist anymore" and to explain why Palestinian children would choose to work in Israeli settlement farms when Palestinian farms are situated nearby.

David Elhayani, head of the Jordan Valley regional council, denied HRW's allegations, and has stated “there were no children among the 6,000 Palestinians" employed by the regional council.

Human Rights Watch, recipient of a $100 million dollar donation by George Soros  has long been accused of  having bigoted agenda against Israel. "Ripe For Abuse: Palestinian Child Labor in Israeli Agricultural Settlements in the West Bank"  is just the latest in a series of biased, and disproportionate attack pieces on Israel.