B’Tselem - 'Shooting Back' Project

"I am shooting back"

B’Tselem is an Israeli human rights organization that monitors human rights in the Palestinian Territories and namely violations against Palestinians. I heard about them when watching news on DemocracyNow on Aug 1st 08 and there was a talk about civic activity of making videos at demonstrations which later help demonstrators when accused of some misconducts and later sued (e.g. at the Republican Convention 4 years ago and now preparing for Democratic Convention in Denver etc.). These people created organizations called I-Witness Video and the founder Eileen Clancy talked about a recent case when a cyclist was pushed off his bike by a by-standing policeman during 'Critical Mass Ride'.

This was compared also to another similar project - "Shooting Back", which is in general about giving cameras/video cameras to people whose rights are infringed to empower them and talk about their life conditions via camera.

So I looked up "Shooting Back" and found another DemocracyNow link leading to an interview with a film maker from the B'Tselem organization.

Going to B'Tselem pages, it is interesting to see videos, but also reports on Palestinian abuses and also the death toll of the conflict (from 9/2000-6/2008).

So for example, there were:
4748 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces
45 Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians
236 Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians
244 Israeli security force personnel killed by Palestinians
577 Palestinians killed by Palestinians

I was surprised to see the number of Palestinians killed by Palestinians - very high! Why? Mainly killed in exchange of gunfire..., also in clashes between Fatah and Hamas... Among the victims of Israeli security forces, they were very often young guys who were exchanging fire with them; and also very often just innocent people being in the wrong place where an attack took place... Read more on their site, interesting with all the names given. (Finally there are names.)

What was also shocking is the statistics on death "following an infringement of the right to medical treatment in the Occupied Territories". 6 this year; 15 last year....


P.S.
"Shooting Back" as I read on another web site was originally started as a project in the early 1980s when UPI (United Press International) photographer Jim Hubbard was documenting lives of homeless people and children always wanted to look through his camera, he realized that they could document their world themselves. In 1989 Hubbard created the Shooting Back organization teaching photography to children at risk. "The name was coined from a spontaneous comment by one of the young participants in the program: when asked why he was photographing his own world, the homeless child responded, 'I am shooting back'."