So many of Israel’s blindly ardent defenders in the west make the claim that Amnesty Internatinal and Human Rights Watch criticize Israel “disproportionately”. This past week, HRW executive director Ken Roth wrote a good op-ed in the Jerusalem Post in which he stoutly defended the organization’s record.
Since I’m on HRW’s Middle East Advisory Committee, I am happy to provide that link to Ken’s piece. Ah, but I just checked: they require registration. So here is the full text:
- The truth hurts
By KENNETH ROTH
Apr. 1, 2004
As the UN Commission on Human Rights meets for its annual session in Geneva, one can understand why Israel feels picked on. Many commission members are abusive governments that will spend an inordinate amount of time condemning Israel while doing everything possible to protect themselves and their allies from critical scrutiny.
It would thus be understandable if the Jerusalem Post were to criticize the commission or others who apply a similarly blatant double standard. But in recent months, the Post’s opinion pages seem fixated instead on Human Rights Watch – an organization with a long record of objectively reporting on not only Israel’s conduct but also abuses by Palestinian groups and repressive governments throughout the region and the world.
Human Rights Watch reports are taken seriously by the press, the public, and policymakers of nearly all political persuasions, including the Israeli government. Yet it is precisely this credibility that seems so irksome to the Post’s opinion writers. At a time when Israel desperately needs a hard-nosed, honest evaluation of its human rights practices, the Post’s opinion writers seem determined to demonize those who are most capable of providing that assessment. Sadly, truth is rarely an obstacle to these attacks.
Any objective assessment would show that, horrendous as the terrorist
attacks on Israel have been, the Israeli government has chosen to mount a
defense not within the ample leeway provided by international human rights
and humanitarian law but in violation of that law. Assassinating suspects
when they could be arrested, punishing families for the acts of one of
their members, employing abusive interrogation techniques, imposing
punitive restrictions on the Palestinian population that go well beyond
security requirements, building a security barrier not on the Green Line
but with deep incursions into the West Bank to protect settlements that
themselves violate the Geneva Conventions – all of these flout fundamental
legal norms that Israel itself has subscribed to, along with most of the
rest of the world.
By fueling hatred for Israel among Palestinians, this disregard for human
rights has arguably made Israel less safe. And it does enormous damage to
Israel’s global reputation, transforming the country in the eyes of many
from a sympathetic victim of terrorism to another (particularly powerful)
human rights abuser. Yet one is hard-pressed to find an honest discussion
of these abusive practices or their consequences on the Post’s opinion
pages – in contrast to much of the Israeli press.
The lead attacker in the Post is often Gerald Steinberg of Bar-Ilan
University. For example, in a March 9 op-ed, he wrote that Human Rights
Watch “was present in Durban when the NGO community hijacked a UN
conference on racism to promote its own racist anti-Zionist agenda.”
Steinberg leaves the impression that Human Rights Watch must have joined
this racist campaign, making it easy to reject the objectivity of Human
Rights Watch reports on Israeli conduct. However, even if mere “presence”
were a crime – many Jewish groups were also “present” in Durban –
Steinberg neglects to mention the inconvenient fact, widely reported in
the press at the time, that Human Rights Watch publicly disassociated
itself from the NGO’s manifesto because of its unfounded attacks on
Israel.
In the same article, Steinberg condemns Human Rights Watch’s “consistent
silence” in the face of Palestinian suicide bombing “with the one
exception” of our major October 2002 report – an “exception” that
supposedly “proves the rule” of our indifference. Yet a simple review of
our website would have shown 11 other condemnations of Palestinian bombing
attacks on civilians – condemnations that Steinberg conveniently ignores.
Steinberg betrays a similar sleight-of-hand in his December 18 op-ed. He
accuses Human Rights Watch of “condemning victims for defending
themselves” as if there were no difference between advocating surrender
and insisting that Israel’s defense be conducted consistently with the
same international law governing everyone else’s security forces. He
charges Human Rights Watch with “protecting Middle Eastern tyrants” as if
we hadn’t spent 15 years documenting and condemning abuses by a wide range
of Middle Eastern governments.
Steinberg is not alone. Even Saul Singer, the Post’s editorial page
editor, ignores the facts in discussing the US government’s recently
released report on Saddam Hussein’s atrocities, including his 1988
genocide against the Kurds. Writing on February 26, he says it is
“striking” that “there is no similar report by a non-governmental agency,
such as … Human Rights Watch” – again, suggesting that our reporting on
Israel must be biased if we don’t even report on a genocidal killer like
Saddam. Yet even a cursory review of Human Rights Watch’s website would
have shown extensive publications on Saddam’s atrocities – publications
that the Israeli press covered prominently – including what is widely
considered the definitive account of the 1988 genocide.
This disregard for basic facts is not only a problem for those like Human
Rights Watch who are targeted by these calumnies and fictitious
allegations of bias. This fantasy-based discourse also does a deep
disservice to Israel, since it discourages understanding of a major cause
of increasing Palestinian animosity toward Israel and growing global
disquiet about Israeli government practices.
The issue, I stress, is not Israel’s right to defend itself from the
scourge of suicide bombing but the method of defense. In many parts of the
world, public horror at the bombing and sympathy for the Israeli victims
too often gives way to outrage at Israeli indifference to the same body of
international human rights and humanitarian law that prohibits deliberate
attacks on civilians.
It would be in Israel’s interest for Post readers to understand this sad
reality. Yet the Post opinion pages might lead them to believe that the
problem lies not with Israeli government conduct but with the supposed
bias of groups like Human Rights Watch. If only it were so simple. Yes,
some governments and organizations exaggerate Israel’s misconduct or apply
a double standard; but others, like Human Rights Watch, conscientiously
try to call it as it is. If supporters of Israel want to defend its
government effectively, they should make such distinctions. Only by
rejecting the false and reflexive attacks too often found on these pages
is it possible to undertake the honest inquiry that alone will help Israel
to address the difficult political and security situation it faces today.
Certainly, HRW is the best of the ‘human rights’ organisation bunch.
However, perhaps someone from HRW could address the question as to why there are 9 pages of articles on Israel on their site, yet only 4 pages on Sudan, when 2,000,000 people have been are are still being killed there? I would suggest that this signifies disproportionality.
The Jerusalem Post should not be targeting HRW when there are far worse offenders out there – I still have much respect for HRW’s honesty re: Jenin.
However, instead of writing to the Post in such an antagonising and condescending manner (would he ever have addressed the Palestinians in this manner?) about Israel supposedly flouting the Geneva Convention at every opportunity, Roth could give some practical suggestions as to the appropriate response to deal with Palestinian terrorists and those who aid and abet them or are knowingly concerned with their terrorist activities.
Should, for example, the IDF have arrested Yassin? Given that he surrounded himself with civilians and militants, such an arrest would have likely involved door-to-door combat and may well have resulted in numerous civilian casualties. Would that have been the better result than a targeted killing, assuming that Yassin himself was not killed in the process?
Helena, as for you being on the HRW’s Middle East Advisory Committee, with the utmost respect, I would hardly consider you a paragon of even-handedness on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Roth could give some practical suggestions as to the appropriate response to deal with Palestinian terrorists and those who aid and abet them
For starters, how about ceasing settlement activity and halting the ongoing seizure of Palestininian land.
No Pref – Your ‘fix root causes’ response doesn’t deal with the immediate threat of a terrorist who wants to kill civilians. What should Israel do?
PS I will save the whole settlement/’Palestinian land’ issue for another debate. Suffice it to say that it is amazing how many ‘liberals’ think it is OK to have a Judenrein Palestinian Territories.
Lewis,
Not a single one of your boringly predictable, canned remarks ever deals with the immediate and ever present threat of Israeli governments that freely and without remorse kill Palestinian civilians by the thousands, destroy their homes, their livelihoods, and take their land for its own use.
As for your standard-issue canned remark about judenrein Palestinian territories – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Discussions? Roundtables? “Roadmaps”?! All leading to nowhere! Israel has learned this hard lesson a very long time ago! Europe, unfortunately, will learn this lesson soon!
Peace to all!
> Discussions? Roundtables? “Roadmaps”?! All leading to nowhere! Israel has learned this hard lesson a very long time ago!
Yeah right, the Camp David peace agreement between Egypt and Israel never caused a day of peace between those two countries, what a waste of time!
Of course, Israel never unilaterally withdrew from any discussions, roundtables and roadmaps, it was always the Palestinians because they were always in the better bargaining position?
> Europe, unfortunately, will learn this lesson soon!
Yeah right, those guys have been pursuing an active, vicious policy of peace, reconciliation, trade, education and dialogue, how dare they! That can not be allowed to continue, and wait, let me guess your thinking, it will be the flood of Islamic terrorists that will wage war against them, right? You better post further afield to wake those Euros up, most of Europe believes the current U.S. administration is the greatest threat to peace.
An interesting article on the current direction of Europe by Bat Ye’or:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12857
Shirin – sorry for boring you with my canny response. Certainly, your response was uncanny. Here’s a thought… perhaps if the Palestinians don’t want to die, they should stop attacking Israel.
> However, perhaps someone from HRW could address the question as to why there are 9 pages of articles on Israel on their site, yet only 4 pages on Sudan, when 2,000,000 people have been are are still being killed there? I would suggest that this signifies disproportionality.
I agree that Israel is receiving more coverage than the Sudan over the same time period. As I suggested before, that could have to do with the length of the conflict and therefore the number of observers available. But excluding that possibility and the fact that the reports on Israel include reports condemning the Palestinian groups, don’t you think your argument can be also made with respect to U.S. administrations and U.S. media? That is, there is an excessive concentration on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict compared to other conflicts, including Sudan, Indonesia, the Caucuses, the conflicts in Sierra Leone and the Congo relative to size of populations effected?
I find the extra attention paid to the Israel/Palestinian conflict understandable given the historical links of the U.S. to that region, comparable to the attention paid by Portugal to East Timor, France to Algeria, Australia to Papua New Guinea etc.
The media will write articles on areas that are of interest. However, I would have thought that AI and HRW should be focussing more on areas of concern rather than areas of interest.
As for the focus of US administrations on Israel, I would suggest that this is more of a response to UN and other biases and widespread criticism of US support for Israel, than any natural state of affairs.
Between 1948 and 1967 (and particularly after 1956), the US administrations did not care much for Israel. This was largely because of two main factors:
– Israel was seen as leaning politically towards socialism (particularly when the kibbutz movement was strong)
– Israel was seen as being allied more with France and Britain for historical reasons
Until the Soviets started striking alliances with the arab states, the US had little interest in Israel. For that matter, Israel thought that it had a natural ally in the Soviet Union.
It is almost a historical accident that the US now focusses so much on Israel, but this is largely a relic of the cold war and the anti-Israel sentiments that were fostered by the Soviets and their allies. See, for example, Ion Mihai Pacepa, Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief. A VERY interesting read.
from http://turntheflag.blogspot.com:
“I’m a vet and a registered Republican, and I am sick and tired of what the Bush Administration is doing to our nation.
They have led us to an unjustified war based on lies. American servicemen and women are dying every day in Iraq for a lie and for the Bush Administration’s plan to divvy up the Middle East oil assets among their friends in the oil business.
Our Treasury has been plundered. Our economy is a shambles. And the President knowingly and willfully LIED about the Weapons of Mass Destruction – and has the audacity to JOKE about it…
..Now is the time for us to let our voices be heard. I love our flag and honor the thousands of men and women who have died to establish and preserve the values our nation was founded upon – Life, Liberty, Equality and Freedom of Expression.
This is not an unpatriotic act (The Flag Code Title 36, U.S.C., Chapter 10). This act symbolizes the highest of American virtues – the courage to stand up against tyranny and inhumanity. To defend our Constiution against all enemies – foreign and domestic.
Friday, April 30 is Turn The Flag Day. Our nation is in distress, and we will hoist the inverted Stars and Stripes to the top of the mast in cities and towns across the nation.
Spread the word and join us.”
No Pref – Your ‘fix root causes’ response doesn’t deal with the immediate threat of a terrorist who wants to kill civilians.
Your “ignore the roots causes” response is guaranteed to make the problem worse.
What should Israel do?
A more relevant question for Americans is “what should the US do”? The answer is obvious – stop pursuing a policy of blind support for Israel which has inflicted serious damage on us, not to mention the Palestinians. Sadly, our politicians are afraid to do this because of the power of the “Israel First” crowd.
Lewis? perhaps someone from HRW could address the question as to why there are 9 pages of articles on Israel on their site, yet only 4 pages on Sudan, when 2,000,000 people have been are are still being killed there? I would suggest that this signifies disproportionality.
I would suggest that it is because HRW is a US-based organization and its people feel they have a particular responsibility to call for ethical accountability of governments that receive huge gobs of our taxpayer dollars… Which is something like: Israel–4 billion; Sudan– zero.
Helena… I would hardly consider you a paragon of even-handedness on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Why’s that, Lewis? Because I believe that each one of God’s children is of equal worth?
Helena
Given that Egypt got 2.2 billion last year from the US and Jordan got 1.6 billion, would you suggest that the human rights groups should be similarly focused on their abuses? The argument that it is all about US support is disingenuous, particularly given the amount that Israel returns to the US, for example, by way of technology transfer and purchase of US equipment.
Even if correct, this is one of the most immoral arguments I have ever heard. Since Sudan doesn’t receive much money from the US government, it is OK then to only pay lip service to the millions killed there… How can any person interested in human rights even say such things with a straight face?
As for the even-handedness point, it is precisely because you do not believe that each one of God’s children is of equal worth. Your lack of sensitivity to Jewish refugees from arab countries (amongst other things) more than convinced me of that one.
lewis, bad as Egypt and Jordan are in their own ways, neither is involved in anything near as destructive as the Israeli occupation of Palestine, which has been going on for 37 years.
US aid to those two countries, by the way, is concentrated on the security sector. The US government is not that interested in reforming the repressive policies of those governments. If we did, to whom would we be able to make “extraordinary renditions” of US prisoners for the purpose of having them tortured?
Lewis,
Your arguments are totally twisted and illogical. I never suggested that HRW should “pay only lip service” to the situation of the non-governing groups in Sudan. And indeed, HRW does considerably more than that. (And have you looked at the huge amount of excellent reporting work HRW has done on Jordan and Egypt? No? I thought not… Mere lack of evidence never stopped you trying to build an argument.)
As for my alleged lack of sensitivity to Jewish refugees from arab countries, the last time I wrote about that issue I recommended that the claims these Jewish people have should be addressed in the context of a broad regional conference. What is insensitive about that?
Calm down, friend. Get a grip. Do your homework.
Helena –
As I noted previously, HRW is one of the few human rights NGOs that I have any time for. So, yes, I am grateful for the two pages of links they have to human rights in Jordan and the six pages to Egypt.
The point regarding disproportionality remains, although less so than with other NGOs. Human rights violations are of a completely different order of magnitude in Egypt and Jordan than in Israel. In one week in September 1970, Jordan killed more Palestinians than Israel has since 1948 and there are occasional crackdowns on radicals from time to time to keep them in check (eg in Ma’an in 1998 and 2002) leaving people dead in their wake (and are largely ignored by the rest of the world).
Try being a homosexual in Jordan. See what happens if you criticise the head of state over there.
It isn’t a particularly good existance for women over there either, particularly if they offend the ‘family honor’. Honor killing there is a ‘religious tradition’ according to the following:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3088828.stm
What about free elections? Nope, the upper house is appointed by the king, who can disband parliament at will (as he did in 2001)
Freedom of speech? Remember how Al Jazeera’s (JihadTV) licence was yanked in 2002 for criticising the gov’t?
Religion, particularly for the Baha’i (imagine the outrage if the head rabbi of Israel made a commensurate comment to the following)?
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=20095
… and Jordan is at peace with Israel and doesn’t have to deal with the Palestinian uprising (they dealt with theirs already, and far more brutally than Israel ever did).
So, yes, I’ve done my homework, and most arab countries get a free pass when it comes to human rights (which IMHO is reverse racism). Yes, they get the occasional criticism from HRW… but the level of criticism is disproportionate. Don’t forget, Jordan is supposedly the most moderate arab country in the region.
As for the Jewish refugees, your comment would be fine if you advocated similar treatment of Palestinian refugees (as contemplated by Resolution 242). Other examples of differential treatment include the right to self-determination for Jews vs Palestinians and the standards by which you judge both sides of the conflict.
If Israel conducted itself in the same manner as the PA, you would be highly critical (with ample justification).
For the record, I am in favour of Israel voluntarily refusing further monetary support from the US govt. My concern is of Israel becoming ‘welfare dependent’. As for Egypt, I still haven’t worked out what the US gets back in return for its $2bn a year.
For anyone interested, the following links to a response in the Jerusalem Post to the Ken Roth article. Although some of the responses are valid (such as regarding Roth’s suggestion that Yassin should have been arrested), I do not agree with the author on several points (eg HRW playing a leading role in the demonisation of Israel – it is just a bit player).
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1081315305036
Re: Israel
The truth hurts….