Human Rights Watch and nonviolent mass action: a footnote

Readers will remember that back on November 22 I wrote a post here that strongly criticized the press release Human Rights Watch put out that day critizing the Gazans’ use of mass nonviolent action to prevent Israel from demolishing an apartment building in Jabaliya refugee camp. Indeed, they had strongly implied the action constituted a “war crime.”
My JWN post summarized the main points in an exchange of emails I had had over the preceding hours on the topic with Sarah Leah Whitson, the director of the Middle East division of HRW. (I have sat on the M.E. advisory committee of HRW since 1992 or so, and have seen a number of directors of the division come and go. It’s a high-stress job for reasons we can discuss on another occasion.)
On December 13, I participated by phone in a meeting of the ME advisory committee. To my disappointment, the Nov. 22 press release was not discussed.
Today, to my huge surprise and delight, I discovered (hat-tip to Philip) that back on December 16, HRW issued a follow-up statement that completely reversed the positions they had enunciated in the November 22 press release. Interestingly, they published that statement at the top of the web-page that still, lower down, contains the Nov. 22 release and has the same URL as the Nov. 22 release always had.
Here, inter alia, is what the Dec. 16 statement said:

We regret that our press release below (“OPT: Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks”) gave many readers the impression that we were criticizing civilians for engaging in nonviolent resistance. This was not our intention. It is not the policy of the organization to criticize non-violent resistance or any other form of peaceful protest, including civilians defending their homes. Rather, our focus is on the behavior of public officials and military commanders because they have responsibilities under international law to protect civilians.
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It has also become clear to us that we erred in assessing the main incident described in the press release. We said that the planned IDF attack on the house of a military commander in the Popular Resistance Committee, Muhammadwail Barud, fell within the purview of the law regulating the conduct of hostilities during armed conflict. We criticized Barud for reportedly urging civilians to assemble near the house in order to prevent the attack, in apparent violation of that law. Our focus was not on the civilians who assembled, their state of mind, or their behavior (such as whether they willingly assembled or not), but on Barud for risking the lives of civilians.
We have since concluded that we were wrong, on the basis of the available evidence, to characterize the IDF’s planned destruction of the house as an act of war. If the planned attack against the house – a three-story building housing three families – was, in fact, an administrative action by the Israeli government aimed at punishing a militant for his alleged activities, the law regulating the conduct of hostilities during armed conflict would not apply and could not be violated.
An important consideration in this regard is whether the IDF had reason to believe that the house was being used for military purposes at the time of the planned attack. To date, Human Rights Watch has not obtained conclusive evidence as to whether the house was being so used, but eyewitnesses we have been able to speak with, including two journalists on the scene, claim they saw no such evidence. The IDF, moreover, has not responded to our requests to explain what military objective it could have had in targeting not a militant but his home after having ordered it vacated.
We recognize that it is important to view the planned destruction of Barud’s house in light of Israel’s longstanding policy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, sharply increased in Gaza since June, of demolishing houses not as legitimate military targets but as a punitive measure. HRW has repeatedly criticized Israel for unlawful demolition of houses.
Our intention in issuing this press release was to underscore one of the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian law: the obligation of warring parties to take all feasible measures to spare civilians from harm. This includes the important principle that parties to a conflict, including military leaders and civilian officials, may not use civilians to “shield” against a military attack or otherwise unnecessarily put civilian lives at risk. Unfortunately, judging by the response, we did more to cloud the issues than clarify them in the press release…

By issuing this statement HRW has conceded many of the exact same arguments I made in my emails with Sarah Leah, and in my public blog post.
I strongly welcome HRW’s readiness to reconsider their position in the light of new arguments and new evidence, and to acknowledge openly that their November 22 press release had been wrong.
If I have one remaining quibble with them it would be over their notable lack of courtesy in failing to send the text of this retraction to me at the time, or indeed, at any point since then. Over the past 18 days I have been completely unaware of the fact of their retraction, which I learned about only by following a link to it on the Tabula Gaza blog.
Given the intensity of the exchanges between Sarah Leah and me at the time of the November 22 press release, I would consider it only common courtesy for her to have sent me, or had one of her many staff people send me, a copy of the retraction.
Indeed, you would think that all the M.E. advisory committee members should have been informed of the retraction, as a matter of course.
But the main story here is a good one. They did accept the main thrust of my arguments (and the results of a bit of additional investigation of their own.)
So thank you for doing that, Sarah Leah.