Sandra O’Neill, a California activist in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS) who manufactures grotesque falsehoods about Israel, has managed to peddle her fabrications, including the shooting deaths of small Palestinian children, to a Chico, Calif., newspaper. In the last month, Chico News and Review, which describes itself as “your independent alternative news & entertainment resource,” published a letter-to-the editor by O’Neill (Nov. 10, 2011, “A security issue?”), and a Nov. 24, 2011 news article (“Middle East activism”) by Christine G.K. LaPado, in which O’Neill was the subject and main interviewee.
According to LaPado’s article, O’Neill “returned Nov. 1 from a three-week trip to the Palestinian West Bank, Israel and the Golan Heights.” Writing about her trip in the Nov. 10 letter, O’Neill charged: “While I was there two Palestinian children, ages 6 and 4, were shot and killed by trigger-happy watchtower guards because they were playing too close to the 30-foot-high separation wall.”
Fortunately for Palestinians, but unfortunately for Ms. O’Neill, Palestinian groups, as well as the United Nations, keep detailed records of all Palestinian fatalities resulting from conflict with Israelis. A close examination of these sources, including the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), and the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), reveals that no Palestinian children whatsoever of any age were killed by Israelis in the three week period that Ms. O’Neill was in the region (Oct. 11-Nov. 1). (In fact, none were killed for the entire month of October.) The relevant weekly reports by OCHA and by PCHR are here: OCHA Oct. 5 -11, OCHA Oct. 12-18, OCHA Oct. 19-25, OCHA Oct. 26-Nov. 1, PCHR Oct. 6-12, PCHR Oct. 13-19, PCHR Oct. 20-26, and PCHR Oct. 27- Nov. 2.