Israeli Government, AIPAC Stepping Up Attacks on Human Rights Watch
As a Jewish progressive, one of the most disturbing elements about Israel’s recent trajectory has been an increasingly tendency by the Israeli government and by hawkish Jewish organizations to respond to criticism of Israel’s human rights record by lashing out against human rights groups. The Jerusalem Post, for example, has a report on how the Israeli government is planning to step up attacks on Human Rights Watch not by contesting HRW’s work on the merits, but by assailing the organization as somehow hypocritical for raising funds from private Saudi individuals. And Matt Duss observes that AIPAC has been emailing journalists with a story making the same argument.
Anyone genuinely interested in a good-faith exploration of whether or not Human Rights Watch ignores human rights abuses by Saudi Arabia or by other states in the region can easily enough click over to their website and find their comprehensive work on the Middle East and North Africa. You will swiftly see that the idea that HRW is some kind of Israel-bashing organization is nonsense. Their currently featured item is about just the subject you’d expect—the recent clampdown in Iran. The headline is “Iran: Detainees Describe Beatings, Pressure to Confess”. They also did a July 8 item highlighting broken promises on women’s rights from Saudi Arabia. They’re highlighting work on torture in the United Arab Emirates and on how administrative detention undermines the rule of law in Jordan.
This is vital work taking place in a large number of countries. Countries that, as the Israeli government is usually the first to point out, tend to treat their citizens really poorly. Smearing the organization doing this kind of work is very damaging. There aren’t, after all, a lot of people doing credible work of this sort. And part of the reason HRW is credible is that they call it like they see it—they don’t zero in on particular countries to serve a geopolitical agenda. Which means that when Israeli policies violate international law or human rights norms, Israel gets criticized. If this makes Israelis uncomfortable, then maybe instead of lashing out with unsupported accusations of of bias they ought to reconsider their own actions.
69 Responses to “Israeli Government, AIPAC Stepping Up Attacks on Human Rights Watch”
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July 15th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Good work on this Matt.
You are exactly right.
The criticisms of HRW that frequently crop up in the US cannot be sustained by reference to the actual work of this organization.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
“……an increasingly tendency by the Israeli government and by hawkish Jewish organizations to respond to criticism of Israel’s human rights record by lashing out against human rights groups.”
I believe this is generally referred to as “shooting the messenger”
July 15th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Matt- I was wondering if you could respond specifically to Jeff Goldberg’s post on this:
He appears to have researched this a bit and it is possible that an individual with HRC might have been a bit overzealous in their fundraising. While I often disagree with Goldberg, he appears to be attempting to be even-handed here.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Jewish progressive my ass, you tribalistic savage. Nobody cares what food you eat and what songs you sing; keep your silly identities to yourself.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Wow just wow. Goldberg has completely lost it.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Sounds familiar, like the organized neo-conservative denigration of Hans Blix in 2002 in order to set the stage for invading Iraq — i.e., in order to suppress the truth that the WMD justification was a massive lie. When the attack becomes ad hominem, it is a blatant admission of being wrong on the merits.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
You might want to read this post regarding an email chat between Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic and Ken Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch concerning HRW’s soliciting funding in Saudi Arabia by bragging about the group’s “battles” with the “pro-Israel pressure groups.”
He concludes
“In other words, yes, the director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division is attempting to raise funds from Saudis, including a member of the Shura Council (which oversees, on behalf of the Saudi monarchy, the imposition in the Kingdom of the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic law) in part by highlighting her organization’s investigations of Israel, and its war with Israel’s “supporters,” who are liars and deceivers. It appears as if Human Rights Watch, in the pursuit of dollars, has compromised its integrity.”
July 15th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Woops didnt see that the link had already been posted.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Goldberg is full of shit. He’s taking the statement that HRW raises money by telling people what they do (which includes reporting on Israel and getting bashed by the more hard core of its supporters) to mean that they went in to Saudi Arabia and said “Give us money and we’ll make Israel look bad.”
By his thinking (for a given value of thinking), North Korea could claim that HRW has no credibility because they raised money in South Korea, and they mentioned how much reporting they do on North Korea when they did it.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Sounds familiar, like the organized neo-conservative denigration of Hans Blix in 2002 in order to set the stage for invading Iraq — i.e., in order to suppress the truth that the WMD justification was a massive lie. When the attack becomes ad hominem, it is a blatant admission of being wrong on the merits.
Baloney, this is exactly the same M.O. of “anti-war” people during the 90s who would criticize human rights organizations as handmaidens of war and empire.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Surely “compromising its integrity” would only consist of (a) turning a blind eye to abuses they know about, or (b) making up abuses that don’t actually exist? Marketing, even selective marketing, doesn’t come near that bar.
Fundraising is not generally considered corrupt unless there is quid pro quo, and as Matt pointed out in the original post, HRW does not cover up human rights abuses by Islamic governments in general or Saudi Arabia in particular.
Some, but not all, supporters of Israel really are liars and deceivers, a concept that Goldberg ought to be familiar with, since he has done more than his share of lying and deceiving in his time. Clearly HRW is going to be opposed to people who lie and deceive to cover up human rights abuses, whether they are Israel supporters or not.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Goldberg is flat out wrong about the significance of the Shura council person being at the HRW event.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Is the argument that HRW can never be criticized? Are they always right? Can Israel not defend itself it it thinks allegations are false? It’s not as if Israel hasn’t been falsely accused before i.e. the fake Jenin massacre.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
After a couple of posts attacking Alan Dershowitz for being insufficiantly supportive of Israel, Melanie Phillips launched into an attack on various human-rights organizations:
It is time now for all decent people of goodwill everywhere to boycott NGOs like Amnesty, War on Want and all the others who are pushing these obscene lies and libels about Israel. No decent person should have anything to do with these organisations. No-one should give money to these inciters of hatred and purveyors of lies. They have sided with the forces of genocide and Islamic fascism against the Jewish people, truth and conscience. They have become a force for evil in the world.
I don’t know why ultra-hawkish “supporters” of Israel think this type of moral depravity helps the cause.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
raising funds from private Saudi individuals
I just wanted to point out that “private individuals” and “the government” are not such discrete and separate entities in a monarchy like Saudi Arabia…
July 15th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Give us money because we attack the “liars and deceivers” who support Israel. If that isn’t quid pro quo nothing is.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I think the anti-HRW argument is basically that HRW is using Israel-bashing as a form of fund-raising, because bashing Israel allows it to collect bigger donations from rich folk (Saudi princes, etc.) who don’t like Israel.
Now, I’m not sure if that allegation is true or not, but it doesn’t sound wildly unreasonable on its face; lots of NGOs have to scramble for cash any way they can, and just because HRW is a human rights organization doesn’t mean they are automatically immune to all pressure to engage in dodgy fundraising.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
No.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Unless you have a passing familiarity with anything HRW has ever written about Saudi Arabia.
I’m not even going to make an argument. I’m just going to invite people to read the link – the results of a search on “Saudi Arabia” on the HRW web site – so people can make up their own minds.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Y’all have to understand, HRW is full of anti-semites. Just like Amnesty, Oxfam, Docs Without Borders, the State Department, the CIA, the EU, the World Bank, B’Tselem, the IDF, Israeli center-right political parties, the Israeli Supreme Court, and anyone else who has even the slightest criticism of Israeli hard-line government policies and behavior. It’s pretty amazing how many anti-semites are out there, when you really think about it.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
I agree Joe from Lowell, the Saudi royals wouldn’t pay an organization to criticize their police state on a regular basis.
As the head of HRW said, there are Saudis interested in human rights. Not all Arabs and/or Muslims are automatically monsters as some apparently believe.
To me it’s actually good news some Saudis want to donate to the cause of human rights.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Sure HRW might be run by a Jew (Kenneth Roth) and might be quite critical of Israel’s opponents (including Hamas or the PA) and might come under regular criticism from pro-Palestinian organizations for not being harsh enough towards Israel, but none of that changes the fact that everyone there makes all decisions based on their irrational hatred of Jews.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Unless you have a passing familiarity with anything HRW has ever written about Saudi Arabia.
Well, I agree that criticizing Saudi Arabia’s rival is different than holding back on criticism of Saudi Arabia itself. The latter would be VERY dodgy (would, in fat, be extortion!). But amping up criticism of Israel in order to draw bigger donations is still dodgy in my book.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
The opening sentence of the HRW Annual Report chapter on Saudi Arabia:
Human rights conditions remain poor in Saudi Arabia.
The opening sentence of the HRW Annual Report chapter on Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories:
Israel’s blockade of Gaza and restrictions on movement to protect illegal West Bank settlements, along with indiscriminate Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli towns and serious abuses by Fatah and Hamas against each other’s supporters, were major components of the human rights crisis in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories in 2008.
The one is as sharp as the other is blunt in its desire to placate ultra-hawkish “supporters” of Israel.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
That’s not even close to what was said though. More like, “Give us money because we report on human rights, and look at all the crap we have to put up with from people who lie and deceive when we do so.”
This is like the old joke, “When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you don’t have the law or the facts, call the other guy an asshole.”
July 15th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Goldberg writes on July 13th:
An Israeli nuclear attack on Iran is actually not going to happen in the near future. Maybe. According to Michael Weiss in the suddenly-indispensable Tablet Magazine, Bibi, despite periodic speculation to the contrary, will wait to see what, if anything, Obama can accomplish in the coming months:
Depressing. They’re going to bomb Iran. It’s shocking he can even talk like that.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Helena Cobban:
http://justworldnews.org/archives/003678.html
Yes Poptart I agree, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago Jeffrey Goldberg was losing it — now it looks like he definitely has.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
The efforts to point out bias on the part of HRW are hampered by the fact that it is not bias, by even-handedness, that the Likudniks object to.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
It’s a regular occurrence. HRW or Amnesty do their annual country reports or their occasional region/issue reports, the US media goes batshit about the bits that judge the US by the same standard as other, shittier countries (on things like the death penalty or detention without charge), and AIPAC and fellow-travellers like Jeffrey “free ponies” Goldberg do their bit for the coverage of Israel.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Ira Glunts: [under developing news on Iran]
http://original.antiwar.com/glunts/2009/07/14/israels-dr-strangelove/
*Uzi Arad is the national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
———————
So, with our ’special relationship with Israel’ is Arad one of Hillary’s ’special’ friends?
Hillary Clinton today in her lovely Israel blue suite: “…We will not hesitate to defend our friends and ourselves vigorously when necessary with the world’s strongest military. This is not an option we seek. Nor is it a threat; it is a promise to the American people…”
July 15th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
This is the second go around of
“Israel lobby” vs HRW
The first was after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon where among other
things HRW pointed out that the indiscriminate use of cluster bombs
were a human rights violation. They were accused (of course) of
anti-semitism and indeed quite a number of donors were persuaded
to stop contributing. I think the equation “Criticising Israel = Antisemitism”
is increasingly commonly used, and very dangerous to Israel in the long run.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
[...] Matthew Yglesias: Anyone genuinely interested in a good-faith exploration of whether or not Human Rights Watch [...]
July 15th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Only antisemites say “Israel Lobby,” Nick Patterson.
Heh. Nice motto, AIPAC.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Israel used to run a refugee camp in the 1970’s somewhere in Asia and when you talked about the Palestinian refugee program they would point over to this camp where they were taking care of some Vietnamese refugees so of course they care about refugees!
I’ve always tried to figure out if the formulator of that bit of hasbara meant it as a sick joke or doesn’t understand how offensive that is.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Yea, that’s the argument they must have been using because the Saudis are so concerned with human rights.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I, too, find it useful, when discussing A-rabs, to refer to and think of them only as an undifferentiated mass.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Dave1234 says:
Give us money because we attack the “liars and deceivers” who support Israel. If that isn’t quid pro quo nothing is.
I don’t know how to break this to you, Dave, but that is not a quid pro quo. Quid pro quo would be if HRW said “If you give us the money then we will attack the “liars and deceivers” who support Israel.
In contrast, what you describe is (give or take the insults) what virtually every organization – or politician – that depends on donations does on a regular basis. If that were quid pro quo then virtually every politician in the US would be guilty of soliciting bribes.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
The Goldberg post is disgusting. He baits Roth into writing upwards of 1000 words in defense of a perfectly reasonable action (describing, to potential Saudi donors, work in the region including work in Israel and the hostile response to said work) and then once Roth slips and gives Goldberg a sentence that’s fit for being paraphrased far out of context, Goldberg whips up a paragraph that’s being quote everywhere, including in this comment thread.
Roth writes: “We report on Israel. Its supporters fight back with lies and deception.”
And Goldberg paraphrases that an HRW official is “highlighting her organization’s investigations of Israel, and its war with Israel’s “supporters,” who are liars and deceivers.”
The problem here is that Goldberg’s summary inaccurately portrays Roth’s comments as saying that HRW is fighting against everyone who’s pro-Israel. In fact, Roth says that HRW only has to have a “war” (actually, defend their own reports) with “reflexive defenders of Israel.” Goldberg’s intentionally omitting this context hoping that everyone will link to him saying he got HRW to fess up to impropriety (which is what’s happened) when in fact nothing of the sort happened, and there’s nothing objectionable in the entire conversation.
The only thing Goldberg’s hatchet job is good for is demonstrating that HRW does, in fact, have a problem that requires defending itself from dishonest, reflexive defenders of Israel.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Again, anyone surprised at the depths Zionist scum will sink to is being incredibly naive. These people support brutalizing and torturing children, indiscriminately blowing up civilian populations to a degree a PLO suicide bomber would find shameful, and are corrupt and venal to the core as the massive amount of Israeli organized crime throughout the world (second only to the Russian Mafia and the Italian Mafia) should demonstrate.
It is time to erase Israel from the pages of time by reversing the UN partitioning decision of 1947 and converting the country into a Palestinian state as it was originally intended to be.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
“converting the country into a Palestinian state as it was originally intended to be”
Not sure about that. Under the British Mandate, the British always intended Israel to be a Jewish state while paying lip service to the partition plans. They did everything they could to undermine the Palestinians. The Ottomans before them always intended it to be part of the Ottoman Empire. The Crusaders wanted it to be a Christian colony. The Romans wanted it to be the Roman Empire. Aside from the Palestinians, who ever wanted it to be a Palestinian state?
July 15th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
David Bernstein responds:
And here’s Matthew Yglesias completely missing the point. He describes my argument (without linking to the piece directly) as HRW being “somehow hypocritical for raising funds from private Saudi individuals.” No. It’s (a) HRW potentially compromising itself by becoming reliant on funds from a nation whose government will cut off the funds if HRW’s reporting becomes a nuisance; and (b) HRW portraying itself not simply as an advocate of universal human rights, but specifically as a counterweight to pro-Israel organizations, while engaging in fundraising from private Saudi citizens.
And to make matters worse, director Roth has now revealed to Goldberg that he thinks that (apparently all) criticism of HRW’s “reporting” on Israel amounts to “lies and deception”–although anyone who has studied the issue can present numerous examples in which HRW was wrong, and Israel’s supporters correct, including my first link above. The logical conclusion is that HRW is institutionally hostile to Israel, whether for reasons of ideology, money, or because it enhances its “street cred” in other parts of the Middle East. That this hostility may ultimately undermine the credibility of HRW’s in other countries, which indeed often seems valuable, is unfortunate, but it’s a logical consequence of people’s realization that HRW has utterly failed to be objective regarding Israel. Supporters like Yglesias do HRW no favors by letting it off the hook; without reform, HRW’s reputation will sink under the weight of this scandal.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Lots of people go back and forth above about Jeffrey Goldberg’s post in the Atlantic.
What’s particularly interesting about Yglesias’s post above is that he doesn’t even mention it. One would be hard-pressed to understand what this is about from what he writes. Whatever turns out to be truth, or even what it means, the issue isn’t whether, as he asserts, individual Saudis have been solicited for funds — an assertion so incomplete as to be completely misleading. The question is whether they were solicited with the pitch that HRW has been fighting the good fight against pro-Israeli partisans.
A huge distinction that Yglesias somehow manages to fail to note. Not to his credit.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Well, I don’t have hard data, so this is just my impression…but it seems a lot of these human-rights groups (Amnesty, HRW) are kind of “majoritarian”…if a country is unpopular or the focus of lots of negative international attention (e.g. Israel, which is unpopular because there are many Arabs in the world and most of them dislike Israel), they’ll generally issue a ton of redundant reports and press releases about it. But if a country is popular and/or powerful (e.g. China), they’ll criticize it a lot less loudly.
It could be that they do this because of their fundraising needs; loudly criticizing an unpopular target gets the donations flowing. It could be because they fear reprisal from countries like China. Or it could just be because they want to make the news more often.
Or it could be that my impression is mistaken.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
AIPAC is not alone in attacking Human Rights Watch. The pro-Palestinian community does a pretty good job as well.
Case in point: Helena Cobban sits on the Middle East advisory committee of Human Rights Watch. Not so long ago, she was defending her colleagues against the smear attacks of “Israel’ s blindly ardent defenders.”
But, when Human Rights Watch published a press release criticizing Hamas for using civilians as human shields, Cobban suddenly changed her tune and denounced “Sarah Leah and the rest of HRW’s very comfortably paid apparatchiks”
Likewise, Israel-critic Norman Finkelstein wrote an article demanding that Human Rights Watch retract its “shameful press release.”
So, to paraphrase Yglesias:” If this makes the pro-Palestinian community uncomfortable, then maybe instead of lashing out with unsupported accusations of bias they ought to reconsider their own actions.”
July 15th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
“Or it could be that my impression is mistaken.”
Well, they’ve had 10 articles since June 19 criticizing China, and 10 criticizing Sudan. It seems they are most likely to complain when they have something specific to complain about. They hardly seem afraid to criticize China, averaging a report every three days. Of course there’s an easy way to get an accurate impression of their work: go to their website.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
And in fairness to AIPAC, every government in the world criticizes HRW. It probably has something to do with the fact that HRW criticizes every government in the world. The conservative complaint about HRW is that it doesn’t give a free pass to the US and its allies.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Israel has a propaganda outfit, NGO Monitor, whose goal is to smear human-rights NGOs.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Here’s the Arab newspaper article that started this whole debate.
An excerpt:
I agree that HRW is unfairly accused of bias. But going on a fundraising junket to Saudi Arabia and making Israel the centerpiece of your presentation doesn’t help HRW’s reputation as an politically unbiased watchdog of human rights.
Imagine instead if HRW had gone on a fundraising trip to Israel, and gave a presentation and documentary focusing on Iran’s human rights violations. No doubt, bloggers would be howling that HRW had sold out its principles and was pandering to Israelis by demonizing Iran.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Imagine instead if HRW had gone on a fundraising trip to Israel, and gave a presentation and documentary focusing on Iran’s human rights violations.
That is precisely the pitch human-rights NGOs make to me several times a week when they say “look how bad X is for doing some bad deed – send some money to help us stop X.”
July 15th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
The sad thing is that genuine anti-Semites like abb1 give cover to apologists of Israeli human rights abuses, by giving credibility to claims of anti-Semitism on the part of critics of Israeli policies (which are only true, of course, for a tiny minority of Israel’s critics). I can’t help but wonder if they regard peaceful resolution of the conflict that includes an Israeli state as a worse outcome than a bloody armageddon (leaving aside whether or not Tel Megiddo is a major site of action) which leaves everyone Arab and Jewish alike dead or broken, and whether they regard (very minorly) enabling Israeli’s worst and making such a bloody outcome more likely as a benefit.
July 15th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Genuine anti-Semites do exist, but no, they do not give credibility to apologists of Israeli human right abuses. As it is, they have a slim case on the merit, and it can be summurized as follows: Sudan’s record is worse. Ah, well, throw in Congo as well.
Honestly, it is a hard work to be an apologist of Israel, because the standards for this job are very high: Israel does no wrong, IDF does no wrong etc. Which leads to such lines: “IDF took UNPRECEDENTED measures to avoid unnecessary loss of civilian life”, which is true, after a fashion. History of wars gives a variety of examples for the possible uses of white phosphorus, but as a “measure to avoid unnecessary loss of life”, well, this was the first.
Ah, so many sharks to jump, so little time.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:35 am
Piotr, are you a comedian? NATO killed many more civilians in Bosnia than Israel killed in Gaza, and NATO wasn’t getting rockets flung at its civilian towns from Serbia, indeed Serbia wasn’t hostile militarily to NATO at all. Nor were the Serbians using human shields and using hospitals as base camps. Russia has killed thousands in Chechnya, as has Turkey in its war against Armenians. NATO in Afghanistan has struck far more civilians than Israel has. Iran sent 12-14 year olds to the front to be cannon fodder in its war against Iraq.
One could go on and on, with both Western and non-Western examples.
July 16th, 2009 at 2:01 am
Sounds like Julian Elson is scum paid by Zionist murderers to defend them and to smear decent people on the internet.
Well, that’s unless it’s worse than that and he is actually a Zionist, which is lower than scum. At least the paid scum do these things for money, not for the pleasure of pure racist hatred.
No, I am sure he couldn’t be that bad; I believe in you, Julian Elson! I believe that you’re a merely greedy mercenary in Zionist “syber-war”, or – the best case scenario – a drooling idiot.
July 16th, 2009 at 2:56 am
I should probably add a little caveat: accusing abb1 of enabling the Israel’s worst elements was an exaggeration, so long as we are speaking of MY comment threads: what abb1, I, or others here write just isn’t that important. (I have no idea what abb1 does when he or she isn’t commenting here — if (s)he has a more influential platform and does the same thing as here, then my point still stands, but I have no reason to believe (or disbelieve) that that is the case.)
This is why, of course, it would be really silly to think that I am a paid shill for AIPAC or the like.
Also, if I were a paid shill, I’d guess that I would comment on Israel threads in a greater proportion than other threads. My tendency (regrettably breached for this thread) is to avoid Israel threads, far more than other threads (check the “Israel” tag and search my name if you please); they seem to cultivate a uniquely unpleasant and vicious form of discussion.
I think I was mistaken to abandon my usual reticence to enter this thread. I’m not an activist for Israel, either paid or voluntary. I guess I just found the whole “calling Jews savages” thing surprising, although perhaps I shouldn’t have.
July 16th, 2009 at 9:54 am
The fact that a group is attacked by both sides for their reporting is a pretty good indicator that they’re not shilling for any side.
And HRW denounced them all, God bless them.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Yglesias:
Your post makes three unfounded assumptions:
1) criticism of HRW is not based on “the merits” of its work
2) the issue is with HRW taking Saudi money generally
3) HRW does not focus disproportionately on Israel
In response:
1) NGO Monitor research has exposed numerous flaws in HRW methodology, use of unverifiable claims and factual errors
2) the issue is with HRW taking Saudi money based on hatred of Israel
3) according to HRW, in 2008 Israel was the second worst human rights abuser in the Middle East only after Saudi Arabia, followed by Iran, with Libya, Syria and Egypt trailing behind (we’ve got the numbers to prove it).
July 16th, 2009 at 10:13 am
There is an interesting blindspot on display by Goldberg and those supporting him. They have encountered the argument from HRW that they criticize Saudi Arabia, and othe Arab states, and seem to accept it as true and reasonable. They counter that what they are merely citing improper fundraising which looks like a quid pro quo. They seem blind to the possibility that an HRW fundraiser would encounter the same genre of accusations from Saudis that they are getting from Jews, and that they might respond with a similar argument – that they are not anti-Arab and pro Israeli, but that they also criticize Israel.
Goldberg seems to think HRW called up some rich Saudis and asked for money to fund Israel bashing. That’s ridiculous. In the midst of a discussions primarily about Saudi human rights problems, a fundraiser put to rest any notions that they were pro-Israel and anti Saudi. Is that improper?
July 16th, 2009 at 10:27 am
OK Julian Elson, you sound convincing enough and I will grant you the least offensive “drooling idiot” title.
As far as the “the whole “calling Jews savages” thing” – yes, I do and will call tribalistic savages “tribalistic savages”, whether they introduce themselves as a “Jewish progressive” or “Celtic progressive” or a “half-Anglo-Saxon-half-Mongoloid progressive”. I just don’t see too many of the latter; it’s mostly those “Jewish-something” who proudly display their savagery nowadays. If they don’t like to be called on it, why don’t they just stop and, as I said, keep their imaginary tribal identities to themselves.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Do you read HRW’s reports, or do you only read news about them. When HRW criticizes China, Saudi Arabia or other repressive countries, that is dog-bites-man news. When they criticize Israel, it’s man-bites-dog news. HRW is not anti Israel. News organizations are anti boring.
July 16th, 2009 at 11:17 am
That is false. HRW may have made more reports about what Israel is doing, but they do not make any rankings or overall judgements.
There are many reasons for the large number of reports:
1. Israel is far more open than the other countries in the region. It is easier to find abuses there. Should they ignore abuses they find just because they would not be allowed to find similar abuses in Saudi Arabia?
2. Israel has a much more well-armed and radical opposition than any of its neighbors. They are placed in the position of using their military rather than police much more frequently than their neighbors. Saudi Arabia almost never has a dilemma about collateral damage to civilians. To look for human rights abuses in Israel, you just go where the fighting is. To find them in Saudi Arabia, you have to look everywhere.
3. Israel’s neighbors are much better at keeping their dissidents cowed. You’re just not going to see mass demonstrations by Sunnis in Syria demanding a bigger share of government.
4. Israeli human rights abuses are generally traceable to a government actor. The abuses of their neighbors often are not. Hamas may recruit and supply a suicide bomber, but if the evidence isn’t there, HRW doesn’t blame Hamas. When an Israeli 155 mm artillery shell lands somewhere it shouldn’t, they can’t very well say it might be someone else’s shell.
Just because Israel gets cited more doesn’t mean HRW labels them as worse than Syria. They don’t make those judgement calls.
July 16th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Abb1,
Here’s a great opportunity for you: Please denounce Sonia Sotomayor as a “tribalistic savage” for identifying herself as a “Latina.” And denounce Barack Obama as a “tribalistic savage” for calling himself an “African American.”
Oh, wait, that only applies to Jews, right?
July 16th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Human Rights Watch and the Presumption of Good Faith: Human Rights Watch’s fundraising in Saudi Arabia has cast a welcome light on the organization’s anti-Israel agenda. Much of the response among HRW’s defenders has been along the lines of, “how dare you attack a human rights organization? Typical right-wing Zionist crap, attacking the messenger.”
This criticism, of course, presumes that HRW is acting in good faith as a neutral human rights arbiter. The other possibility is that HRW’s Israel policy is driven by a leftist “anti-colonialist” agenda masquerading as a human rights agenda, and using the halo effect of HRW’s human rights work in other regions to provide it with credibility.
The evidence strongly suggests the latter.
Take a look at NGO Monitor’s investigation of HRW’s Middle East staff. It includes researcher Nadia Barhoum. Barhoum is a Palestinian activist who publicly supported divestment from Israel because of its “apartheid” policies.
A blog she wrote while living in the Palestinian territories hardly shows an even-handed concern with human rights abuses emanating from the Palestinian side. Here’s what she wrote after Hamas won election in Gaza:
right now, the western powers are threatening to halt aid to the palestinians on account of hamas and its stance on the use of violence against the state of israel. ironic, because i never once heard a western power threatening to discontinue its billions of dollars in aid to israel on account of the violence used daily against palestinians.
And that’s just one example. Read the whole NGO Monitor report.
Of course Human Rights Watch could counter that it hires “activists” on all sides, because they have a particular incentive to ferret out abuses by their opponents. A dubious argument, but completely undermined by the fact that HRW doesn’t hire pro-Israel activists, and it’s laughable to think it ever would.
That doesn’t mean that HRW is never right when it points out perceived Israeli wrongdoing. It just means that HRW’s reports on Israel should be treated with the same skepticism one would treat them if they came from any other anti-Israel NGO. The “human rights” halo is a false one, and the presumption of good faith unwarranted.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Matt sez:
The Jerusalem Post, for example, has a report on how the Israeli government is planning to step up attacks on Human Rights Watch not by contesting HRW’s work on the merits but by assailing the organization as somehow hypocritical, for raising funds from private Saudi individuals.
Jpost article quotes:
“We will make a greater effort in the future to go through their reports with a fine-tooth comb, expose the inconsistencies and their problematic use of questionable data,” one senior official said.
The Israeli government IS calling HRW hypocritical, but nowhere does it say they are planning to step up those kinds of attacks. On the contrary, the article says they are planning on doing exactly what Yglesias says they are not – by contesting HRW’s work on the merits.
Yglesias just hoping everyone takes his word for it and doesn’t click through to the article?
July 16th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
That’s a damn creepy sentence. Are you now, or at any time have you been a member of the Communist party?
This whole thing is just a guilt by association stupidfest. Saudi Arabia hates Israel, HRW got money from Saudi Arabians, therefore HRW hates Israel. I know that Israelis have heard of the concept of not looking like assholes, so maybe it’d be a better idea for them to not use WP shells or human shields, and lay off on attacking a well respected human rights watchdog.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
That’s nonsense. Why would they hire activists who are “pro” any country? If they’re going to go the dubious route of hiring activists, it should be those who are critical, not those who are supportive of any government.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Jeffrey Goldberg now writes:
I would argue that Human Rights Watch shouldn’t raise funds in Israel, either.
In a different time and place he would probably have called out such a suggestion as anti-Semitic.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Maligning human rights organizations has been Israel’s special contribuition to social betterment. The Nazis for all their invidious zeal never deigned to shit on the Red Cross. Hitler, Mengele & Co. were models of integrity compared to “The Land Of Milk and Honey”s advocates.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Sonia Sotomayor as a “tribalistic savage” for identifying herself as a “Latina.” And denounce Barack Obama as a “tribalistic savage” for calling himself an “African American.”
Actually, Sotomayor has an excuse: in her case “Latina” is a shortcut for her life experience; growing up in a ghetto and all that. I’m pretty sure that is exactly what she means by “Latina”, and not a tribe of any kind.
Neither Yglesias nor Obama have this excuse, as both of them grew up in perfectly normal middle-class (upper middle-class in Yglesias’ case) families.
Anyway, if you disagree, please explain to me what exactly this “Jewish progressive” thing is, and how it is different from, say, a Celtic progressive or just a plain progressive. I would really like to know. Thanks in advance.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
[...] one can expect the attacks on the human rights community to be ratcheted up. As Matt Yglesias has pointed out, there is “an increasing tendency by the Israeli government and by hawkish Jewish [...]