METHODS AND SOURCES

My sources include field interviews, newspaper reports, and scholarly publications.^[3] For the Israel-Palestine study I make use of interviews conducted during 1992–94, first for Human Rights Watch, and then for my own academic purposes. In 1992, I wrote a report on the actions of Israeli undercover units seeking to arrest or kill Palestinian activists, interviewing dozens of Palestinians as well as Israeli soldiers, bureaucrats, and journalists.^[4] The next year, I analyzed Israeli methods of interrogation in the West Bank and Gaza, interviewing over sixty former detainees and dozens of Israeli and Palestinian lawyers, activists, and officials.^[5] I used a translator for Arabic-language interviews, but spoke in Hebrew with Jewish Israelis. To this I have added quotes and insights from fortyfive semi-structured discussions with Israeli military veterans interviewed during 1992–94.

For the Serbian case, my sources are similarly diverse. In early 1996, I traveled to Croatia and Bosnia for the International Committee of the Red Cross, a Geneva-based humanitarian group, studying their efforts to protect civilians and prisoners of war. This project included 100 interviews with expatriate and local employees of international agencies, as well as Croatian and Bosnian officials. Virtually all my informants were involved in efforts to monitor, control, and analyze patterns of state violence. In 1997, I went to Belgrade on my own behalf, asking questions about Serbia's involvement in Bosnia and about violence in ethnically mixed areas of Serbia and Montenegro. Relying again on translators, I interviewed over 100 human rights advocates, academics, former fighters,

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journalists, and local politicians. In spring 1999, I traveled to Albania's border with Kosovo for Human Rights Watch, interviewing ethnic Albanian refugees fleeing Serbian ethnic cleansing. For reasons of confidentiality, most informants in both the Israeli and Serbian cases are not identified by their real names. In some cases, I cite a specific interview and identify the informant by a first-name pseudonym. In a handful of instances, I supply the informant's actual full name.

This book also draws on discussions with investigators studying armed conflicts worldwide. Hundreds of researchers travel the globe each year for Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and others, researching state violence and amassing a wealth of practical, empirical knowledge. Some of this appears in written reports, but much remains tucked away in individual memories, available only through discussions and interviews. Finally, my analysis also relies on comparative insights from my work for Human Rights Watch in Turkey, Nigeria, and Chechnya.