Bernstein on Human Rights Watch
It’s certainly news that Human Rights Watch’s critics were able to get a former HRW chairman to slam the organization for having the temerity to hold Israel to the same standards of international humanitarian law to which it holds every other country. But Bernstein doesn’t appear to have any arguments to make that any of the instances of human rights violations HRW has documented didn’t take place. Instead his view is basically that Israel ought to be exempt from criticism because its enemies are mean:
Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. [...]
The organization is expressly concerned mainly with how wars are fought, not with motivations. To be sure, even victims of aggression are bound by the laws of war and must do their utmost to minimize civilian casualties. Nevertheless, there is a difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated intentionally.
For one thing, The New York Times really shouldn’t publish op-eds stating that “the government of Iran . . . has openly declared its intention . . . to murder Jews everywhere.” There are Jews in Iran, unmurdered, subject to the same repressive dictatorship as Iran’s Muslims, with its abuses duly cataloged and condemned by Human Rights Watch.
The argument in the second graf I quote is, huffing and puffing aside, all there is to Bernstein’s argument. He thinks that Hamas and Hezbollah “started it” and Israel is acting in self-defense, and that countries acting in self-defense should generally be exempted from international humanitarian law and human rights norms. This is a thesis a lot of people seem eager to embrace in the specific case of Israel, but few people seem prepared to defend as a general proposition or to apply as a general matter. People don’t defend it as a general proposition because it’s not defensible. For one thing, this just isn’t what international humanitarian law says. Just war theory has always recognized specific ethical obligations of combatants that are unrelated to the justice of their cause, and international humanitarian law does the same. After all, subjectivizing the obligations of combatants in the way Bernstein proposes would drain the standards of all force. All participants in all wars think that they’re the good guys and the enemy is the bad guys.
It’s the existence of independent standards that lets us say that it’s wrong and illegal of Hamas to lob rockets at Israeli towns, and to try to build a consensus around that point that’s independent of people’s views on all the different twists and turns of the Israeli-Arab conflict. But by the very same token Israel’s obligation to minimize civilians’ exposure to harm also exists independently of people’s views on all the different twists and turns of the Israeli-Arab conflict. To relativize combatants obligations to the merits of their underlying position would just reduce human rights and humanitarian law to politics, with everyone saying all their conduct was justified by the justice of their cause.
If people want to say that the whole quest to articulate objective human rights standards and international humanitarian law is inherently futile or misguided, then fine. But an awful lot of people who claim not to believe that seem to want to turn around and reject the underlying premises of the endeavor when it turns out that Israel—like its adversaries—sometimes violates those standards.
118 Responses to “Bernstein on Human Rights Watch”
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October 20th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Zionism is a disgrace.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Oh man, can’t wait until the usual characters come out of the woodwork on this one. Anyways, Matt has a point but as usual with this particular issue, he misses the main point. HRW spends a disproprotionate amount of time on Israel while effectively ignoring infinitely more alarming and widespread abuses by frighteningly sinister regimes. Then there was the whole raising money from Saudis by bragging about how much they get at Israel.
I’m not sure Bernstein has a problem with HRW’s criticism of Israel. Just the fact that they signal out a democracy when there is much more widespread abuse elsewhere. On some level this is understandable: With all that access a democracy like Israel provides, it’s easier to get some juicy details to criticize. Kartoum, Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang guard their shit better.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Also, abb1 is Teh Awesome and is always right by virtue of the fact that zionism is Teh Evil.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Well at least he is honest:
Why can’t Matt embrace the concept of ‘double standard’, like Bernstein proudly does?
October 20th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
HRW spends a disproprotionate amount of time on Israel while effectively ignoring infinitely more alarming and widespread abuses by frighteningly sinister regimes.
Yes, I remember back when the Iraqi government made the same argument about HRW. Just a little search and replace, and the hack’s work is done for the day!
October 20th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I might add that Bernstein’s claim that “in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region” does not appear to be true.
A review of published HRW reports includes approximately the same number for Egypt as for Israel + Occupied Territories, and many of the latter pertain to abuses by Hamas or the PA.
See http://www.hrw.org/en/publications/reports
October 20th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I’m not sure I understand–is he saying that HRW’s critcism of hamas is excessive?
October 20th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Why, thank you FreddyBak, my friend. However, Zionism is not “Teh Evil”, it’s just a little, disgraceful ethnocentric ideology. The problem is that it’s armed to the teeth and backed by a superpower.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
To FreddyBak and other callow Zionazi sophists, it doesn’t take a first-rate logician’s depth to realize this:
Israel stands out among other unpleasant nations in the depth of its commitment to gratuitous violence and nastiness: this you expect to find among skinheads rather than nations. But wait! there’s more! It is not just that times have changed. It also has to do with the position Israel occupies in these new times.
Though we might wish otherwise, the political or historical ‘location’ of a crime can be a big contributor to its moral status. It is terrible that there are vestiges of slavery in Abidjan and Mauritania. We often reproach ourselves for not getting more upset about such goings-on, as if the lives of these far-off non-white people were unimportant. And maybe we should indeed be ashamed of ourselves, but this is not the whole story. There is a difference between the survival of evil in the world’s backwaters and its emergence in the world’s spotlight. If some smug new corporation, armed with political influence and snazzy lawyers, set up a slave market in Times Square, that would represent an even greater evil than the slave market in Abidjan. This is not because humans in New York are more important than humans in Abidjan, but because what happens in New York is more influential and more representative of the way the world is heading. American actions do much to set standards worldwide; the actions of slave-traders in Abidjan do not. (The same sort of contrast applies to the Nazi extermination camps: part of their specialness lies, not in the numbers killed or the bureaucracy that managed the killing, but in the fact that nothing like such killing has ever occurred in a nation so on the ‘cutting edge’ of human development.) Cultural domination has its responsibilities.
What Israel does is at the very center of the world stage, not only as a focus of media attention, but also as representative of Western morality and culture. This could not be plainer from the constant patter about how Israel is a shining example of democracy, resourcefulness, discipline, courage, toughness, determination, and so on. And nothing could be more inappropriate than the complaints that Israel is being ‘held to a higher standard’. It is not being held to one; it aggressively and insolently appropriates it. It plants its flag on some cultural and moral summit. Israel is the ultimate victim-state of the ultimate people–the noblest, the most long-suffering, the most persecuted, the most intelligent, the Chosen Ones. The reason Israel is judged by a higher standard is its blithe certainty, accepted by generations of fawning Westerners, that it exists at a higher standard. (Michael Neumann, “What’s So Bad About Israel?”)
October 20th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
What is interesting is that in his op-ed, Bernstein never mentions what Israel actually did in Gaza: kill 1600 palestinians, including hundreds of children. Here is the only reference to the Gaza massacre (calling it ‘war’ is laughable given the forces on each side):
I guess that could be true, if you call of all Gaza including schools, hospitals… a “combat zone”.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Bernstein makes me nostalgic for the old days.
Back in the nineties I thought of HRW as more a less a publicity organ of the US establishment used to highlight human rights issues in countries that were not US allies (open societies, if you will) and a counterweight to organizations like Amnesty International, which was a hotbed of lefties, by US standards. HRW was a sort of fifth columnist for the state department among Human Rights groups.
Imagine my surprise (and I have to admit, chagrin)) when going into the noughties HRW appeared to have grown a pair and were starting (just starting) to be taken seriously in the world outside of America.
I guess that the whole universal application of human rights standards direction HRW foolishly started to follow really was not really the original philosophy.
I can hate again!
October 20th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Other countries, of course, have put on similar airs, but at least their crimes could be represented as a surprising deviation from noble principles. When people try to understand how Germans could become Nazis, or the French, torturers in Algeria, or the Americans, murderers at My Lai, it is always possible to ask–what went wrong? How could these societies so betray their civilized roots and high ideals? And sometimes plausible attempts were made to associate this betrayal with some fringe elements of the society–disgruntled veterans, dispossessed younger sons, provincial reactionaries, trailer trash. If these societies had gone wrong, it was a matter of perverted values, suppressed forces, aberrant tendencies, deformed dreams. With Israel, there is no question of such explanations. Its atrocities belong to its mainstream, its traditions, its founding ideology. They are performed by its heroes, not its kooks and losers. Israel has not betrayed anything. On the contrary, its actions express a widely espoused, perhaps dominant version of its ideals. Israel is honored, often as not, for the very same tribal pride and nation-building ambitions that fire up its armies and its settlers. Its crimes are front and center, not only on the world stage, but also on its own stage.
What matters here is not Israel’s arrogance, but its stature. Israel stands right in the spotlight and crushes an entire people. It defies international protests and resolutions as no one else can. Only Israel, not, say, Indonesia or even the US, dares proclaim: “Who are you to preach morality to us? We are morality incarnate!” Indonesia, or Mauritania, or Iraq or North Korea do not welcome delegations of happy North American schoolchildren, host prestigious academic conferences, go down in textbooks as a textbook miracle. Characters on TV sitcoms do not go off to find themselves in the Abidjan slave markets as they do on Israel’s kibbutzim. (M. Neumann, “What’s So Bad About Israel?”)
October 20th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I agree that Bernstein got off the track with the discussion of Iran and whether or not it has threatened genocide against Jews or Israelis.
However right off the bat Yglesias starts in with the notion that HRW’s critics were able to “get” a former chairman to criticize the organization’s stance towards Israel. What evidence is there that anyone “got” Bernstein to do this? I mean, criticize the guy if you disagree, you can even put in the tendetious question-begging bit about holding Israel to the same standards of international humanitarian law as it holds every other country — this being exactly the issue in question, Mr. Harvard-educated philosopher — but what is with the immediate implication, with no discernible evidentiary basis whatsoever, that the guy isn’t sincere in his comments?
Jeesh.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
One can disagree with many of Israel’s actions without saying something as loony as:
“Israel stands out among other unpleasant nations in the depth of its commitment to gratuitous violence and nastiness: this you expect to find among skinheads rather than nations.”
Really? Israel’s actions are more unpleasant than the Sudanese regime? They remind you more of skinheads than do the North Koreans?
October 20th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Back in the nineties I thought of HRW as more a less a publicity organ of the US establishment used to highlight human rights issues in countries that were not US allies (open societies, if you will) and a counterweight to organizations like Amnesty International, which was a hotbed of lefties, by US standards. HRW was a sort of fifth columnist for the state department among Human Rights groups.
Imagine my surprise (and I have to admit, chagrin)) when going into the noughties HRW appeared to have grown a pair and were starting (just starting) to be taken seriously in the world outside of America.
This is how I remember it and this editorial helps to explain it. However I would qualify it by saying the countries HRW criticized in the nineties were pretty bad, while Amnesty International just had single standards. In the Nineties, many lefties felt that if you were an enemy of the US, you were given a pass on human rights. As they feel today.
In fact many lefties feel human rights organizations like HWR or AI or Doctors without Borders are handmaidens of empire. Most peaceniks are full of shit on this issue. They feel if you are criticzing anyone but the US you are a bloodthirsty warmonger who enjoys killing and torturing civilians. They are demented scum.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
What’s sinister regime’s abuses does HRW effectively ignore?
Tell you what, name me one – name me a regime whose abuses HRW effectively ignores – and I’ll go to their site, search under that country’s name, and see what links I can provide.
C’mon, name one. It shouldn’t be too hard…unless you’re making this argument in bad faith, and you know this accusation not to be true.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
@15 your assclownery knows no bounds
Sorry that some dirty hippy chick dissed you at Woodstock ‘94 but it was 15 years ago and you need to move on.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Poptarts will go to his grave cursing the stoned hippies who were right about Iraq.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Peaceniks cilled mah puppeh!
Leftist peaceniks! They cilled hem!
October 20th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
“Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.”
This, to me, is the substance of his argument. If it’s true, it stands as a powerful indictment of HRW. If it’s not true, then the entire op-ed is discredited. Matt, you’re a paid journalist. Do some research and report back to us.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Paranoid delusion as entitlement. With hawks, it was ever thus.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Sorry that some dirty hippy chick dissed you at Woodstock ‘94 but it was 15 years ago and you need to move on.
Sorry that I pissed you off, but what I say is true. So-called antiwar lefties don’t have single standards any more than HRW did in the Nineties. HRW has gotten better. Will peaceniks? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
It takes a lot of chutzpah to call your situation “self-defense” when there are still refugees alive who remember when you dispossessed them of their land. “Why do they hate us when we’re just trying to live peacefully on the land we took from them 60 years ago?” isn’t a very sympathetic complaint. (Although, of course, many people now fighting on both sides are younger than that. Since I don’t want to hand over my own residence to the descendants of whatever tribe used to live in this area, I think there should be *some* form of burying the past, but when some of the victims are still alive it seems a lot more dubious. I don’t have an easy answer to this, but if the US is already bankrolling the war, there’s no reason we couldn’t bankroll reparations instead, especially since it would probably be cheaper.)
Also, IIRC the first boldfaced sentence quoted in the OP is false. Presumably that’s why Matt thinks the NYT shouldn’t publish it, but it wouldn’t hurt to just say that the sentence is false.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Only Israel, not, say, Indonesia or even the US, dares proclaim: “Who are you to preach morality to us? We are morality incarnate!”
Are you for real? 2003 was just six years ago, so unless you’re ten years old or younger you have no excuse for saying something this ignorant.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
So-called antiwar lefties don’t have single standards
Of course this is true, when you define “don’t have single standards” as “didn’t desperately want to invade Iraq.”
Poptarts will never, ever get over the catastrophe of his Favorite War.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
In the Nineties, many lefties felt that if you were an enemy of the US, you were given a pass on human rights. As they feel today.
Cite or shite, pastryboy. Stop licking Christopher Hitchens’ taint and source up.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Apart from Israel’s role as a wealthy representative democracy there is another reason that the Gaza punishment bombings arouse more disgust and attention than the situation in Darfur.
Over the period of the war in Darfur (let’s say 5 years allowing for ceasefires) perhaps 300K have died from starvation, disease and violence and the Gaza attack killed only 1.5K.
It would seem, in strictly utilitarian terms, that since the attack on Gaza killed half a percent of the number dead due to the Darfur conflict it should receive almost no attention by comparison.
However by other metrics the attack on Gaza was a more savage event then the war in Darfur.
If we take the percent of the population killed per day in the Gaza conflict versus the same formula for Sudan the intensity of the killing is about twice as much (correct me if I am wrong).
This is what makes the attacks on Gaza so noteworthy – not the absolute numbers dead but the savagery – and the hypocrisy.
These are rough figures but the percentage of the population killed per day in Gaza was about four thousandths of a percent.
In terms of the modern US population it would be as if twelve thousand people were killed a day for almost four weeks leaving a quarter of a million people dead.
No big deal so.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
My offer still stands.
You name the non-Israel “sinister regimes” that have been ignored by HRW, and I’ll go to their web site, and pull up the links to their reports on those countries.
This shouldn’t be too hard. What’s the matter?
October 20th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Sure, Israel is mean to Palestinians, denies them sovereignty, takes their land, etc. They abuse human rights.
But HRW criticizes Israel disproportionately because that’s what its donors want. It delivers token criticism of Arab states because to do more would result in HRW being deprived of money and publicity. So the NYT article has a point.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
The obvious distinction between Israel and just about any other country is that Israel benefits from massive amounts of US aid.
As such, Israel is a client state subject to whatever standards we want. This is not true for other, independent countries.
France and other allies are often robustly criticized. And Israel has demonstrated itself to be a pain on more than one occasion.
The only question is what value is Israel to us. We owe it nothing.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Significantly, Col. Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and an expert on warfare, has said that the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”
The context to this now much-quoted Richard Kemp claim is that he has no first hand knowledge of the conflict. I don’t have a link (because the TV interview is not available outside the UK) but he apparently told a BBC HardTalk interviewer last month that he was not in Gaza during the conflict.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.
People, including Bernstein, conflate two very different things. It is most certainly true that “far more” has been written *about* HRW reports on Israel – but that isn’t because HRW has been writing a disproportionate number of criticisms of Israel.
Rather, much more press goes to HRW reports on Israel simply because there is an entire industry devoted to defending Israel against any and all criticism.
When, for instance, HRW issues a report documenting the repression of the Bahai in Egypt, CNN doesn’t do a segment on it, and aside from perhaps a letter of protest to the editor from the Egyptian ambassador (which is filed in the circular bin), there is no outcry. People therefore equate noise with events. If they don’t hear an outcry over an HRW report, then there must not have been one. So because so much fuss is made over the HRW reports on Israel – fostered, ironically enough, largely by those seeking to silence HRW with bluster – these same people argue that HRW is spending too much time and effort on Israel.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
People, including Bernstein, conflate two very different things … much more press goes to HRW reports on Israel simply because there is an entire industry devoted to defending Israel against any and all criticism.
Well, some “people” may be misunderstanding the situation. Bernstein himself understands it very well, and is just a standard-issue lying hack.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
re Shay Begorrah
Ah gee, Hafaz Asaad killed more people in the first hour of the attack on the City of Hama then Israel did in three weeks in Gaza. What did HRW have to say about that? I say that the Government of Israel has been far too lenient with the Fakestinians over the years. Since it is going to be bad mouthed by fucktards like fuckface Trevor and goat fucker Abb1 no matter what it does, it might as well be shorn for a sheep as for a lamb and take a page from the Hafaz Assad playbook the next time the Fakestinians need a lesson.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
PunningPundit @20: See this link (via comment 6), and use the country menu to choose different countries. There are 5 pages of reports on Israel and the Occupied Territories (and, as SteveL observed, many of them condemn Palestinian groups rather than Israel). There are 5 pages of reports on Egypt. There are seven pages of reports on Iraq. There are three pages of reports on Iran (which is probably pretty close to the number of reports on Israel alone). There are two pages apiece of reports on Saudi Arabia and Syria.
At a first pass, Bernstein’s charges appear to be false, and he has provided no evidence for them.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Just an FYI, not everyone knows everyone’s first name.
Robert Bernstein is who is being talked about.
Shoddy writing not to include the person’s first name.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Why can’t we just agree the the Israelis are the only humans in the world and the rest of us are just dogs? They alone deserve human rights and the rest of us deserve to be slaves of theirs. They are the Chosen People, they deserve any land they want to take, and we need to give them our land. The Bible makes it clear in Joshua that they have a right to commit genocide and the rest of us deserve to be exterminated. So let’s just lie down and die before these superior beings we call Israelis.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Ah gee, Hafaz Asaad killed more people in the first hour of the attack on the City of Hama then Israel did in three weeks in Gaza. What did HRW have to say about that?
Oh, that is beautifully, beautifully stupid. Really, just an exquisite level of hateful idiocy.
SLC: more like this, please.
October 20th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
[...] to follow up on the post a couple of days back. Matt Yglesias on the standards of international humanitarian law, the much maligned Richard Goldstone speaks up about his report, and Andrew Sullivan chimes in here [...]
October 20th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Noah writes: But HRW criticizes Israel disproportionately
Do you have any evidence of that? Can you point me to anything quantitative, anything that purports to be more than an expression of the how the author feels?
Once again, I’ll reiterate my offer: you name me the human-rights-abusing country that HRW ignores or downplays, and I’ll link to their reports on that state, and everyone can decide for themselves.
Anyone?
October 20th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Or, more realistically, we can decide that Israelis are just human beings like the rest of us and that they have to start acting that way. If you think God made you the Chosen People, then God will surely protect you from the evils that we all face. If God has chosen you, then you surely don’t need our help. That the Israelis act the way they do makes it quite clear that they don’t expect God to help them, they expect everyone else to help them. They know they are merely human, it’s high time we hold them to that standard. And given that they routinely spy on us, we should use the recent spy scandal as a hammer against them. Cut their military funding in half, and tell them that the other half will be forever gone the next time we catch one your spies.
October 20th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Many of the comments posted here reflect a lot of bias and very little knowledge, either about Israel, about the sufferings of its people or about the history of the region.
For example, was there really any necessity for the war against the Jews in the Middle East?
Somehow lost in the claims that “Israel stole the Palestinians’ land” is the fact that that Israel was attacked by several Arab states the minute it became a state. The rhetoric was bloodcurdling and threats against all the people of Israel echo to this day.
There have been several wars and countless acts of terrorism since 1948 and before that, the bloodshed predates the First World War.
In fact I don’t think there’s been a time since the before the Roman Empire that Jews have been secure even in their own homeland. In fact, even before Rome there were many catastrophes, attacks and near total destruction by more powerful neighbors.
Certainly Jews haven’t been equals in any sense of the word under either Christianity or Islam.
Most recently of course the Nazis attempted to wipe out European Jewry and Middle Eastern Jews have been fighting for their lives ever since.
On occasion Jews elsewhere have been attacked, even in this hemisphere. There are plenty of blood libels and genocidal threats from state leaders, slanders from theoretically respectable sources, some not only antiIsrael but directly specifically at Jews in general. Many in the Middle East don’t even believe the Shoah took place; neonazis and others lament that Hitler didn’t finish the job.
Most of you probably don’t realize there were direct links too between the Nazis and the war against Israel and other Middle Eastern Jews. An alarming amount of misojudaic bigotry is reflected in the Middle Eastern press, in speeches by leaders and religious figures, in films and television programs. The element of religious incitement against Israel is greatly underestimated and so is the continuing presence of classical European antisemitism, that has seeped into Middle Eastern discourse. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion form the very platforms of Hezbollah and Hamas.
Jews per se, let alone the state of Israel, are represented as sheer evil. “Zionists” are accused of running the world, of being responsible for calamities even including earthquakes and disease.
There is very little in the way of encouragement for the Palestinians to work with Israel and create a nation of their own, very little if any respect let alone warmth directed toward Israel from any Middle Eastern entity. Even President Obama has been unsuccessful in garnering any outreach whatsoever from influential Arab leaders, even the Saudi King. The boycott initiated against the Yishuv in the 1930’s continues to this day.
Selling land to Jews is a capital crime in the PA and also in Jordan – which incidentally has begun dispossessing Palestinian Jordanians of their citizenship. In Lebanon Palestinians are kept in ghettos, unable to work at most jobs, acquire citizenship, buy businesses. Rather, Palestinian Arabs, even if settled in other nations often lack citizenship and full rights.
There is endless incitement and endless endorsement of “resistance”, which means continuing violence and terror.
Shortly after World War II and the Shoah, pogroms broke out, victimizing Middle Eastern Jews. Ultimately this resulted in war against the new state of Israel.
The West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem were siezed by Jordan and deliberately cleansed of all its Jewish citizens during Israel’s War of Independence.
Before 1967 Jews weren’t allowed to worship even at the Western Wall. Jewish holy sites became pissoirs. Jordan annexed these territories. There was no attempt to create a Palestinian Arab state.
Meanwhile, the threats and terrorist attacks and wars against Israel, which so many of you don’t seem to see as a nation of human beings, continued unabated until now.
And, for all the Arab refugees of the 1948 war there were at least as many Jews dispossessed and threatened and victimized by waves of pogroms, who ultimately fled the Arab world and finally even Iran where obviously they didn’t feel safe under Khomeini’s regime. Most went to Israel, some elsewhere – most lost everything – the few remaining Jews – for example those of Yemen – are often under threat – yet who remembers them?
I think the tone in many of the comments linked reflects a real animus toward a state and a people the posters know very little about.
You apparently only see what is going on when violence breaks out, nothing about the causes for it, and there’s very little evidence that the humanity of the people involved is perceived at all let alone their history, their stories, how they came to be citizens of Israel in the first place, or why the state came to life again in our time.
Look at all the examples where propaganda is thoughtlessly and even viciously repeated, with no critical thinking and no attempt to understand even the facts about the conflict in general or why there was conflict in Gaza or with Hezbollah or between Israel and the Arabs in the first place.
This includes the casualty figures from the Gaza war, which seem to be inflated in this thread, and consisting only of innocent children.
Do you honestly believe this? There were no fighters involved at all? That was the case during the war with Hezbollah also. The only victims of that contretemps, supposedly, were women and kids. Do you honestly believe this is the truth?
Similarly the body count in Jenin was supposedly in the thousands, this was repeated in the European press, and it turned out be something like 56. Likewise the Lebanese attack against Sabra and Shatilla continues to be blamed on the Israelis. So how about less noise, more thinking – or are you deliberately writing hateful propaganda?
Finally, there’s no attempt to accept the fact that guerrilla wars fought against conventional armies – or against other guerrilla groups for that matter – are often fought among civilian populations.
That is part of their value.
Anybody who can’t figure out that there is propaganda value in dead civilians needs to read about the Lebanese Civil War, and specifically about the tactics of Yasser Arafat. I’m sure there are many other examples.
In the case of Israel the media have been played like a violin.
This, and the criticisms of rights groups which often gloss over the inhumanity of the terrorists, have actually served to incite more violence and almost guarantee further acts of terror and further reprisals.
Thus, Bernstein’s argument. Framing Israel as something it is not, framing her people as pariahs, will do nothing to create a climate in which human rights are fostered. It only helps create more war. It only helps create a bogeyman that prevents the rest of the region from grappling with its own serious internal problems.
Thus, I’m asking this: instead of the ott nasty condemndations of Israel, why not do some serious reading of history?
But more than that, please come up with a solution to thousands of deliberate attacks on a civilian population.
Nothing has worked so far except force and that has bought some peace and quiet and some normalcy, for awhile.
NYT published a piece by Bronner today also, reflecting this fact.
Sadly, if people tried harder just to see each other as human beings the war against Israel would never have started in the first place. But anti-Israel propaganda doesn’t help anybody see the Israelis as human beings. It only creates more animus, more hatred and more war.
That being the case and given the clearly stated desire to “liberate” Israel “from the river to the sea” and various threats and countless acts of violence against the now 7 million people of Israel, what exactly do you guys think would work besides armed self defense?
Would you feel better if the Israeli body count were higher?
What do you think the US or France or heaven forbid Russia would do under similar situations? Would they wait for years before retaliating to attacks on their civilians?
What did Britain do when it was attacked by Nazi rockets? Did they drop leaflets, make phone calls to warn of impending attack, run food into the war zone to make sure their enemies didn’t go hungry? Or did they send 1000 bomber fleets into the night skies armed with incendiaries, and aim them at German cities?
Put Gaza into the context of other wars, between other peoples, and you’ll see it more clearly.
Put Israeli history into context, see the Israeli civilians as human beings whose army is trying to defend them, and you’ll see this more clearly.
Try to see how Palestinian civilians are exploited, their lives deliberately put in danger by militants – and you’ll see this more clearly.
Try to see how people who refuse to accept the very idea of Israel continue to promote vicious propaganda that results in violence, and you’ll see this more clearly.
I hope.
October 20th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Did somebody mention Israel?
I’ve got a five-page pre-written guilt trip ready to go.
October 20th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Last time you defended HRW, I suggested you either make a point by point refutation of Bernstein, or stop defending HRW. This is hardly a point by point response. It’s more like setting up a straw man. Bernstein doesn’t say that Israel is without blame, just that HRW if very biased. Nothing in your post refutes that contention.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Israel is exempt from all international laws.
Bernstein is obviously a paid moron. Sub mental Folks like Jeffrey Goldberg are falling over themselves high fiving each other and suck each others’ dicks thanks to Bernstein idiotic claims.
Now people with conscience and an iota of humanity will of course support the growing campaign to boycott, divestment and sanctions against the apartheid state of Israel.
Global BDS movement
October 20th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Here’s a pretty good indication of exactly the mentality at HRW that Bernstein (no relation) is complaining about:
October 21st, 2009 at 12:13 am
I liked this better the first time I heard it, when it went: “Fuck them! The international community, and those who listen them!”
October 21st, 2009 at 12:23 am
Sophia, your comments have no value until you do this: give up your house to a Palestinian and move elsewhere. If you aren’t willing to do that, then you have no right to say that Palestinians must give up their homes so Jews can move in. If you want some credibility, show me the title to your house signed away to a Palestinian for a single dollar. Until then, you simply reinforce the idea the Jews are The Chosen people and the rest of us must give everything we own to them. You are simply saying that Jews can steal whatever they want, and those had everything stolen from them have no recourse. That’s the law in Israel, and it goes on every single day. And you support the concept that the original inhabitants of the region have no rights as human beings. If the Israelis came and took your house, would you praise them and be happy that they took everything you had? I’m guessing you’d be singing a different tune. But prove me wrong and give your house to a Palestinian.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:34 am
And say what you want about how the Jews have been oppressed. But remember that it was the Christians, not the Muslims, who oppressed them. Why should Muslims have to pay for the Christians’ acts? Yes, there needs to be a safe sanctuary for the Jews, but it should be taken from Christian land. Israel should exist, but the land should be in Oklahoma. Let’s drive a bunch of Christians off their land to pay for the atrocities Christians committed against the Jews. The Muslims do not deserve this. They protected the Jews against Christian persecution. And for that, they get screwed and the Christians get let off the hook.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:36 am
[...] answer is, apparently, “at least somewhat longer.” Consider how Yglesias starts his piece yesterday on R. Bernstein: “It’s certainly news that Human Rights Watch’s critics were able to get [...]
October 21st, 2009 at 1:10 am
And consider this thought experiment. Two cases, both nearly identical. A person stabs another person. How do you respond? In a normal country, you’d arrest the perpetrators in both cases and put them on trial. But in Israel, it’s quite different. See, in the first case, a Jew stabbed a Palestinian, and that not a crime, so they guy get’s let go and the victim faces possible arrest. In the second case a Palestinian stabbed a Jew, so he’s shot and killed without a trial, and Israel sends jets in to collectively punish the entire Palestinian population for allowing such a heinous crime to happen. As it is now, a dog has more rights than a Palestinian. At least the dog is protected by animal cruelty laws. If a Jew stabbed a dog, he’d face some minor jail time. If he stabs a Palestinian, then no crime happened.
October 21st, 2009 at 1:26 am
foster, trevor, yui,
Are you also demanding that the UK permanently withdraw, end their occupations of Gibraltar, Falkland Islands, Caribbean, that the anglos occupying “the land down under” and New Zeland end their occupation of Aborigine lands, repatriate looted property currently housed in the british museum.
It would do the world good for the UK to totally retreat to their little island nation.
The UK hit bottom and began digging with the “compassionate” release of the Pan Am 103 bomber. That was a clear example of Pan Am 103 blood for oil contracts.
You like boycotts? Try this one.
http://boycottscotland.com
October 21st, 2009 at 1:32 am
The whole quest to articulate objective human rights standards and international humanitarian law is inherently futile or misguided.
October 21st, 2009 at 2:15 am
@52 No one could face the dystopian, hellhole that is Gibraltar. It’s too much for the soul to bear.
October 21st, 2009 at 2:24 am
Look at the number of statements HRW has put out promoting the Goldstone Report (27)(a report supported by Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, China, Russia, and other paragons of human rights) vs. the number of reports HRW has put out defending the democracy movement in Iran (18). Case closed.
For more see NGO Monitor’s in-depth study on HRW reporting in the Middle East: http://tinyurl.com/m2aosh
Anne Herzberg, Legal Advisor, NGO Monitor
October 21st, 2009 at 2:58 am
Edward – the inhabitants of Gibraltar and the Falklands are largely Brits who want to keep their connection to the UK. In many case, it’s a headache for the UK to keep this…
October 21st, 2009 at 3:25 am
Anne Herzberg, Legal Advisor, NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor the well known Zionist propaganda outfit whose sole aim is to slander and smear anyone who dares criticize any Israeli action regardless of how heinous it might be. Anne Herzberg, your organization does not defend Jews, it does not support Jews – instead it supports a decades-long Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people that has brought death to thousands of Palestinians (along with a far lesser number of Israelis) and misery to millions. Your organization is a parasite on suffering.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:31 am
ndm
Yawn. Can’t you come up with anything better?
October 21st, 2009 at 6:39 am
Hi Anne.
Perhaps if we looked at the amount of suffering inflicted on the Iranian opposition (or pro-democracy movement if you like) versus the number killed in Israel’s murderous punishment attack on the concentration camp that is Gaza we might see why HRW is more concerned with the Goldstone report (which everyone outside Israel’s close allies accepts).
Specifically there were 1500 dead in Gaza and somewhere in the region of twenty to a hundred dead in Iran.
Iran is of course 43 times bigger than the Gaza strip making the disparity in death tolls even more marked, being generous the attack on Gaza was about 430 times more murderous then the repression of the opposition in Iran.
So the reason HRW has more reports on the Goldstone reports is:
(a) Many more more people died (lets say at least a factor a ten)
(b) The savagery of the attack on the more or less defenceless Palestinians is extremely intense (see my last posting on the comparisons to Darfur)
(c) The people of Iran are not trapped in a what is effectively a prison camp with markets, their children are not malnourished and they have freedom of movement.
(d) The Goldstone report is a legitimate analysis of the Gaza attack by a widely respected jurist of impeccable character and so demands attention.
Is that so hard to understand? Is it?
If there is anything else you or anyone other schill for Israel have difficulty understanding, please let me know.
By the way, how many children did the evil Iranian government kill with their precision truncheons – was it by any chance zero? One? The Israeli army and air force between them managed to kill around 400 children in the 23 day long attack on Gaza. I bet that makes you smile.
Dead Palestinians children can not be bad, can they?
October 21st, 2009 at 6:58 am
For those who want more insight on NGO Watch why not go to their list of staff at:
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/articles/staff
and see if you can reconcile their resumes with NGOW’s mission statement:
“Promoting Critical Debate and Accountability of Human Rights NGOs in the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
Anee Herzberg, how do you sleep at night?
October 21st, 2009 at 7:13 am
Where are you getting your Iran figures from, Shay? Iran’s Press TV? In any event, I sleep quite well at night, thank you.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:28 am
Amnesty International cautioned that it was “perilously hard” to verify the casualty tolls.
“The climate of fear has cast a shadow over the whole situation,” Amnesty’s chief Iran researcher, Drewery Dyke, told The Associated Press. “In the 10 years I’ve been following this country, I’ve never felt more at sea than I do now. It’s just cut off.”
Iran’s government Press TV said 13 dead. Some of the opposition said hundreds, my figure of 150 is probably too high but I am a generous soul. It certainly came nowhere near the 1500 dead in the Gaza attack and as I said, no children were intentionally killed in the suppression of these protests. The same can not be said in Gaza.
You know as well as I do that any comparison of death tolls and suffering between Iran’s post election crisis and attack on Gaza will demonstrate that bad as it was it in no way compares in scale or intensity to the attack on Gaza.
Consider a career change Ms Herzberg. We all make errors in moral judgement but when we pretend we have not it destroys the soul. Perhaps your sleep will not always be so restful.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:36 am
Excuse me Mr. Yglesias. While I have no idea of the merits of their views on Israel, let the record show that both the Latin American divisions of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch is nothing more then a bunch of effete late-capitalist decadent bourgeois tools who are happily collaborating with the U.S. imperialism and the oligarchofascist Venezuelan opposition to discredit the Socialist government of Venezuela. They are the enemies of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and of all other people who oppose the hegemony of Brussels bureaucrats, Washington warmongers, and California cosmopolites. No person with a well formed conscience should listen to their pronouncements any more then they would listen to the pronouncements of the late and unlamented Senator Strom Thurmond when he denied f*cking his African American maid. One phrase is the proper response to Human Rights Watch pronouncements: “Lies.”
October 21st, 2009 at 8:37 am
There are mounting evidences of close criminal cooperation between HRW and global islamofascism with a clear objective to damage the State of Israel as much as possible and eventually to eliminate it from the map. At the recent fund-raising meeting with Saudis, including a member of the Shura Council, Ken Roth, HRW’s executive director, and Ms. Sarah Leah Whitson, director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa Division, asked Saudis for financial support in return for promise to continue their deceptive practice to develop and publish fake reports with false accusations of Israel.
HRW, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organization, is notorious for its decades-log attacks on Israel. Mr. Ken Roth and Ms. Sarah Leah Whitson deceptive practice, fabrication of fake and false reports on Israel allege crimes, providing political and moral support to terrorist organizations in Judea, Samaria and Gaza result in very serious and even fatal consequences for both parties of the conflict, Israelis and Palestinian Muslims: Mr. Ken Roth and Ms. Sarah Leah Whitson support for Palestinian terrorists agitates their activity and ignites attacks on Israel population and, respectively, Israeli retaliation in self-defense. As a result, thousands of innocent people, including children, have been killed and injured for last decade on both sides. Mr. Ken Roth and Ms. Sarah Leah Whitson are personally responsible for their death and must be prosecuted for crimes they have committed for too long. Considering the gravity of their crimes and a great number of dead and injured victims of their activity, children and civilians, they deserve a death penalty.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:40 am
Shay,
Your post says it all (are you on Ahmedinejad’s payroll?):
Is Amnesty ever “cautious” when it comes to the statistics it relies upon to condemn Israel incl. Gaza casualty tolls (invented by PCHR, Al Mezan, and others) that listed hundreds of Hamas combatants as civilians? Nope.
One word: Neda
I think your minimization of the “scale and intensity” of human rights abuses in Iran (need I list them all?) actually says more about your “errors in moral judgment” and “destroyed soul” than mine.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:10 am
I sleep quite well at night, thank you.
I’m sure Anne Herzberg sleeps well at night — just as John Yoo and Ahmedinejad’s lawyers sleep well at night too. People like this always do.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:12 am
Are you also demanding that the UK permanently withdraw, end their occupations of Gibraltar, Falkland Islands, Caribbean, that the anglos occupying “the land down under” and New Zeland end their occupation of Aborigine lands, repatriate looted property currently housed in the british museum.
Nice! Not quite as exquisitely stupid as SLC, above, but I have faith that with effort you can reach his heights.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:32 am
I hesitate to to say this because it complicates things: but I think it was in the Hezbollah war (2006) that Israel really committed war atrocities. Unlike in Gaza, Hezbollah was not sending rockets into Israel to begin with, yet Israel chose to invade. And at the end, the Israeli military deliberately left cluster bombs behind, to target civilians.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:02 am
I love it when you start foaming at the mouth. Have you even checked out their reports on Venezuela and Cuba? The latest report on Cuba is from 2005, and concerns the US and Cuba travel restrictions. Venezuela has nine reports in total, only six of them after 2000. Most of them concern judicial independence and political freedom.
Of course, your definition of ‘human rights’ is a bit more limited than most people’s.
In five pages of reports, there are 12 that are explicitly about Palestinian abuses. With a rough count, I’d say that’s about a third of the volume. Most of that is due to the fact that Israel does all sorts of interesting things, while the Palestinians pretty much just launch rockets. So you can have a report on Israel’s housing violations in the West Bank, demolitions in East Jerusalem, cluster muntions in Lebanon, and WP use in Gasa; and at the same time just manage to come up with a report saying rocket attacks on Israel suck.
Glad to see that a MiniTrue representitive has joined in the conversation.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:42 am
Re: Have you even checked out their reports on Venezuela and Cuba?
No, of course not. I don’t read the trash that that organisation spews out at the behest of its masters in Washington, Brussels, and Manhattan.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:03 am
Anne Herzberg — “One word: Neda”
So, in other words, Israel should be thanking its lucky stars that no one captured any good cell phone footage of a bleeding young woman bleeding to death in the ruins of a bombed-out house in Gaza and uploaded it to Twitter. Or possibly, they should be thanking their political leaders for making sure that the Palestinians have been kept poorer and less well connected to modern communications technology than the people of Tehran.
The sad part is that you don’t even realize how that example cuts against your entire argument.
Also, as a minor aside, Neda was hardly a “child”.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:14 am
@68 Bengt Larsson says: “Unlike in Gaza, Hezbollah was not sending rockets into Israel to begin with, yet Israel chose to invade.”
It amazes me that lies like this are so much like zombies – they can never be killed no matter how many times you shoot them with the truth.
“The conflict began when Hezbollah militants fired rockets at Israeli border towns as a diversion for an anti-tank missile attack on two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border fence.[22] Of the seven Israeli soldiers in the two jeeps, two were wounded, five were killed, and the bodies of two of the dead were taken to Lebanon.[22] Five more were killed in a failed Israeli rescue attempt.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Lebanon_War
I know this won’t help much but it’s necessary.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:15 am
Iranian Jew: Hey, Yglesias! Please quit pointing out that I’m unmurdered.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:17 am
[...] Also: Quote For The Day, Bernstein on Human Rights Watch, Investigating Bernstein’s Claims Against HRW, Bernstein: HRW Should Engage In Moral Relativism, [...]
October 21st, 2009 at 11:24 am
Bernstein’s arguing doesn’t really stand even the slightest scrutiny: There had been “revenge” attacks on both sides of the Gaza border going on for some time, with no deaths on the Israeli side and deaths on the Palestinian side, when Israel leadership started it’s bloody attack. The first deaths on the Israeli side also (3 civilians, 6 soldiers plus 4 soldiers killed by Israel’s own forces) came only after the start of this attack.
So how can Bernstein claim that it was Israel who was “defending itself”? Not based on facts. Based on the facts, both sides had been on the offense for some time.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:35 am
They’re biased because they’re biased, so you don’t have to read the reports to find out if they’re biased, because you know they’re biased.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:42 am
Thanks Sophia for your attempt to re-establish some objectivity and clarity in the fetid swamp of deep hatred of Jews and Israel represented by most of the comments here.
In the aftermath of WWII millions of refugees were relocated and settled in regions totally foreign to their ancestors. The world made do and helped them out and they started new lives. Only in Israel were UN attempts (the Partition Plan) to deal with such dislocations met with a new outbreak of declared genocidal war – which the UN promptly washed its hands of.
The irony is that elsewhere, such as Eastern Europe, millions were forcibly moved and property was confiscated to make way for refugees. In Israel, not one Arab was asked or required to leave his home or even to sell his home to the new Israel state. The Partition Plan only required a change in sovereignty so that Arab laws and administration would control one area and Israelis the other – each in areas where they had a numerical majority.
Yes. Many Arabs lost their homes in the war of independence. The Arabs started that unnecessary war and lost it. Those who do not wish to suffer the ravages of war should not start them. Even so, the Arab refugees from that war – displaced by military necessity or Arab orders in some cases – only had to move a few miles over the border into Jordan (now the West bank) or Egypt (now Gaza). This was hardly comparable to the hardships suffered by millions of Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, etc. in the aftermath of WWII.
Enough with the whining. It’s far past time for the Arabs to make the best of an unfortunate situation and start normalization and full acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. It’s long past time to end the demonization of Israel for treating those who wish to destroy Israel far better than any Arab leader has ever responded to internal threats by their own indigenous population.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:45 am
This is good, but I suspect Ray’s true calling is explaining how Iran started the Iran-Iraq war.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:24 pm
In April 1998, the number two (don) in the Sicilian mafia was arrested while visiting his girlfriend. His wife was not apologetic for the 70-odd killings he had participated in (including the drowning in a vat of acid of an 11 yer-old boy) but she was apoplectic about the media assertion that he had a girlfriend. The role played by Anne Herzberg and her colleagues at NGO Monitor is that of the mafioso’s wife in denying the brutal reality she supports.
The reason the entire World, other than Israel’s patsies in the United States, are so outraged by Israeli human rights violations is that they happen outside the borders of Israel. We are all outraged by the treatment of women in many Muslim countries but that happens within the borders of these countries and, for better or worse, the World has typically been more tolerant of how a country handles its affairs within its own border. The most significant human rights violations committed by Israel occur as a direct result of its civilian occupation and colonization of the Occupied Palestinian Trritories. This civilian occupation which now includes 400,000 Israelis – about 5% of the Israeli population – is a war crime under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Indeed, after four decades it is clear that committing these war crimes is THE national policy of the State of Israel.
The World has long recognized the evil of occupation and the allies fought for six years to end the German occupation of Europe and the horrors it brought in its wake. The allies took a mere five months to end the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Yet, the West in an act of wanton appeasement has allowed the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories to last more than forty years.
Europeans and Jews can both remember the horrors of occupation but it is clear that Israelis have forgotten. In defence of their own evil they abuse the memories of family members who died in the Holocaust. These Israelis, and organizations like NGO Monitor which support them, have long since abandoned the ethos of the Nuremberg war crimes trials – preferring instead the ethos of the Nuremberg rallies.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:29 pm
@77: Yes. Many Arabs lost their homes in the war of independence. The Arabs started that unnecessary war and lost it.
Hey Ray in Seattle, do you also talk about “the Jews” in the same manner? Do “the Jews” control Hollywood, did they spread communism and ruin Russia, do they live by usury and bankrupt innocent Christians? Did “they” kill Christ and thus now deserve whatever’s coming to “them”? Just curious.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Enough with the whining. It’s far past time for the Arabs to make the best of an unfortunate situation and start normalization and full acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
There is your problem right there. A “Jewish state” is not better than a “white state”.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:38 pm
[...] Daily life, Government, Mideast Conflict, Military at 9:38 am by LeisureGuy I don’t think so. Matthew Yglesias: It’s certainly news that Human Rights Watch’s critics were able to get a former HRW chairman [...]
October 21st, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Re: They’re biased because they’re biased, so you don’t have to read the reports to find out if they’re biased, because you know they’re biased.
The Socialist government of Venezuela hates Human Rights Watch. That’s good enough for me. I’m afraid I am more likely to trust what the Venezuelans say rather than some bunch of late-capitalist Georgetown hacks.
October 21st, 2009 at 1:18 pm
And say what you want about how the Jews have been oppressed. But remember that it was the Christians, not the Muslims, who oppressed them. Why should Muslims have to pay for the Christians’ acts? Yes, there needs to be a safe sanctuary for the Jews, but it should be taken from Christian land. Israel should exist, but the land should be in Oklahoma. Let’s drive a bunch of Christians off their land to pay for the atrocities Christians committed against the Jews. The Muslims do not deserve this. They protected the Jews against Christian persecution. And for that, they get screwed and the Christians get let off the hook.
There are three main issues that are ignored by HRW and in these comments.
Human Shielding, Arab Rejectionism and the very high degree of indipendance Gazans have already achieved and the responsibilities this entails.
What is happening is that groups like Hamas and Hezbollah fire at civilians from behind the cover of civilians. There is a double war crime here and it is the route cause of any civilian casualties on the Arab side. Israel targets the weapons aimed almost explicitly at it’s civilians, these weapons are placed among the civilian population and civilian casualties are very hard to avoid.
This is especially the case because Israel no longer occupies south Lebanon or the Gaza strip.
It is possible to arguer that the blockade of Gaza or Israeli recon flights into Lebanese airspace are a form of occupation, but for practical purposes, Israel has no control over these territories. Israel is incapable of performing police like action in these territories, and is pretty much limited to ranged weapons such as air and artillery. Heavy weapons that in many cases cause collateral damage.
Demanding that Israel use less firepower means demanding that it asserts a larger degree of control over these regions so it can use infantry or even police to arrest rather than kill the terrorists. In other words Israel will need to reoccupy these territories and seize most of the weapons from the locals. Imagine how many casualties there would have been in Gaza if Israel tried to truly reoccupy it and reach a degree of control that would allow police like rather than military action against the armed groups.
Note how when Israel had fool control of Gaza there were no airstrikes. How in the West Bank as Israel asserted a higher degree of control during operation defensive shield, the need for targeted killing declined and terrorists could now be arrested and brought before a court of law.
Now to Arab rejectionism. The only groups that Israel still fights are those that still reject it’s very right to exist. West Bank residence, Jordanians and Egyptians were perfectly safe during Cast Lead. Moreover Gaza’s population, now that Hamas limit’s it’s attacks on Israeli civilians as a result of Cast Lead, are also quite safe from Israeli air-strikes. Arab rejectionism is the demand that any Palestinian state will completely erase Israel and come in it’s place, rather than along side it. Arab rejectionism prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state in 1948 and is one of the main reasons it’s failed to materialize to this day.
It is hard to demand of the Palestinians to give up a large portion of Palestine west of the Jordan River. It was not their fault that the Jews were driven from their homeland by the Romans. It was not their fault that Jews were persecuted in the Diaspora, (Jews were better off in Muslim lands only when compared to their treatment by Christians, they were by no means equals to Muslims and as nationalism reached Muslim nations, as in Europe it soon turned on the Jews). However Jews like the Palestinians have the right to self determination, and the only place in the world that Jews can claim as their own is their ancestral homeland.
If I was expected to defend an Israel in Oklahoma or Germany or Uganda, 60+ years after the persecution that lead to it’s inception, what would I be able to say to the children of those displaced by it’s creation? There is no other place Jews have a right to.
Jews don’t claim any land, they claim one very small piece of land, and the right to self determination, to a land for the Jews and by the Jews. Just like France or Egypt or Thailand, a nation has a right to a land where it can uphold its laws, culture and traditions, and most of all it’s citizens rights. Jews are no different, their only crime is in coming late to the table. And that unlike 20 million other refugees in the world since WWII, the Palestinians are not being rehabilitated by the UN and Arab rejectionists.
Arab rejectionism if it succeeds will only land the world with a new refugee crisis or another holocaust. Ignoring the rejectionist and genocidal nature of the groups that Israel still fights as well as their total disregard for human rights is exactly what HRW is being criticized for. Ignoring the great violations of human rights that would ensue if there groups were ever to succeed, ignoring the kind of repressive state the Palestinian state would become if these groups were to succeed, Ignoring the degree to which Israel has already reduced it’s occupation and the military reality this creates, ignoring the tactics used by these groups that place civilians in danger while concentrating their fire on civilians… is the crime of omission that HRW is being criticized for.
October 21st, 2009 at 1:30 pm
The only groups that Israel still fights are those that still reject it’s very right to exist.
No one rejects the right to exist of a state called Israel. However, almost everyone rejects its right to exist as a militant racist settler-colonial state.
Do you see the subtle difference here? Israel is free to end occupation of the WB and blockade of Gaza, and to accept the right of return of the refugees from 1948 and 1967 and their descendants – and then no one will object to its existence. See how easy it is?
October 21st, 2009 at 2:05 pm
they “human right group” bunch of lier and support murder . they are thieves and crock .
the best i can say thatthey support murder ,
what a double standard by this communist red socialist .that killed million
the palstinian that attacking israel with they support of this dirty “human right group” Israel responding to” Palestinian freedom fighter murder” now human right group attracting Israel that stand up for murder. yes protecting you dirty socialist jew
change your name to” human right support murdering group ”
yes this what you dirty arab murder supporter .
some one have to stand against this sick minded mr berstein and i will
greenfeld meir
October 21st, 2009 at 2:19 pm
#85, abb1 says: “Israel is free to end occupation of the WB and blockade of Gaza, and to accept the right of return of the refugees from 1948 and 1967 and their descendants – and then no one will object to its existence. See how easy it is?”
What an amazing comment. Said with the innocent belief that the truth could not be otherwise. But I must ask, can you provide one statement from one Palestinain leader from among hundreds of opportunities stating anything like that? Can you show one instance in the history of the region where the Israel’s Arab enemies have responded with any peaceful overtures when Israel has tried to pursue land for peace? How about when Israel left S. Lebenon or how about the unilateral withdrawal of all Jews from Gaza? The reality is that in no case have Israel’s Arab enemies ever responded with peace or even a promise of peace if Israel did what you suggest. In every single case the response has been rejection, war, suicide attacks and a promise to never stop until there are no more Jews (except as Dhimmi) in Palestine. And the Palestine they refer to has nothing to do with any green line.
Any Arab leader who demands less or who suggests a possibility for peace, other than as a stage for re-armament, risks his neck. Claims such as yours are just salve for the Arab cause of destroying Israel. They are easy enough to make on a BB such as this. Show me any actual evidence to the contrary.
October 21st, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Ray in Seattle: the Arab Peace Initiative adopted by Arab League in Beirut in 2002 stipulates exactly that. It was later adopted by the Organization of Islamic States, including Iran.
This initiative is not, of course, anything new, it was offered again and again in various (but similar) forms after the six-day war.
You need to read something on this subject, my friend; start with Chomsky, he is usually the most factual and logical.
October 21st, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Way to keep on with that ‘thinking for yourself’ thing. Or is that something that only late-capitalist 21st century urban hipsters do? You’re worse than the sheep who are condemning HRW because they are ragging on Israel. At least they’re dealing with the contents of the reports. You just hate them because a government you like hates them.
Then again, I suspect that ‘thinking’ is something that might throw a wrench in your 10th century subsistance farming paradise that you want to inflict on the world, so I can see how you might not want people to do too much of it.
October 21st, 2009 at 2:57 pm
abb1, are you suggesting that Hamas and Hisb’allah and Islamic Jihad and Iran would simply end their attacks if Israel agreed to those demands? If that is the case then why has no Palestinain leader or the leaders of any of those groups (Israel’s enemies) made such a statement? They are the ones launching rockets at the civilians of Israel.
Obviously the Arab League has decided that it would be wiser for them to run political cover for now for the actual fighters by way of taquiya. This way they can claim to be for peace and not risk losing their wonderful weapons systems and armies to the IDF – while still supporting the resistance which they know will not end no matter what Israel does.
If that’s not the case, then where are the Palestinain statements supporting the Arab League’s efforts? I doubt you can show me any credible instance where any of Israel’s actual militant enemies have agree to stop attacking Israel until it is part of Palestine and under their control. That is actually what the guys with the rockets say in their statements and that’s what they put in writing in their Charters.
October 21st, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Ray in Seattle, Palestinian statement of the same is called “the Oslo Accord”.
October 21st, 2009 at 3:10 pm
And now, perhaps you could name a Zionist statement that offers the end of the occupation and just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees in exchange for peace? Go ahead, don’t be shy.
October 21st, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Here’s one statement Chomsky likes to quote:
October 21st, 2009 at 4:24 pm
The Oslo Accord? That’s pretty funny. Zionist statement? I don’t know what that means. Are there some “Zionists” out according to your definition who run Israel and speak for Israelis? Most Israelis do believe they are entitled to live in their own state free from attack from outside groups and states. If that makes them Zionists then count me in.
But, how about statements of Israel’s elected leaders? That’s who speaks for the people in democratic societies. Every Israeli government since 1948 has stated their desire to leave the Palestinians (and other Arabs) alone – as long as incitements and attacks against Israel were stopped and were effectively eliminated as an existential threat.
Several Israeli governments have tried to reach such an agreement but have been thwarted by their militant Islamist enemies who have repeatedly stated their clear intentions to never reach any accommodation with Israel – other than a resting stage for re-armament – or even recognize Israel’s right to exist. Maybe you just didn’t notice while all this was happening over the last 40 years.
If yours was even a reasonable position we could get into the details but I doubt you are interested in that. Your position is so far from reality there is no point to it. It comes down to a simple realization available to anyone who cares to look:
Israel has never questioned any Arab state’s right to exist. Israel has never attacked any Arab state other than in self defense. Israel has repeatedly expressed their desire to live in peace and prosperity with its Arab neighbors.
Israel’s Arab enemies (listed above) have never acknowledged (except in politically ambiguous terms when forced to by reality) Israel’s right to exist. Israel’s Arab enemies have continuously attacked Israel whenever they felt they had a remote chance to prevail and to this day fire the occasional rocket aimed at Israeli civilians. Israel’s Arab enemies continue to call for Israel’s destruction and speak constantly of their “right of resistance” in every conceivable venue. They teach their children in school that Jews are the offspring of pigs and apes and that the highest honor is to die trying to kill Jews.
Wars and the deaths of civilians are caused by aggression – whether the proximate cause is the aggressive act or the defense against it. There is one side that is responsible for the aggression and deaths in this conflict. It is the side that you defend.
Aggression is attacking the civilians of another political entity to get your way – and should be condemned by any peace-loving person. Otherwise no group could ever by condemned for attacking another as long as they “felt” that their cause was just – which seems to be your standard. There is no way to get around that. Nor is it possible to avoid applying it to the Arab / Israeli conflict in a away that does not condemn Israel’s Arab enemies as the cause of the conflict ant the resultant civilian deaths by any objective standard – except by completely ignoring the overwhelming reality of seventy years of consistent history – or by willful obfuscation.
I have had many discussions along these lines. I know that you excuse Arab aggression against Israel (the cause of civilian deaths) because at the core you believe that the creation of Israel should not have been enabled by the UN and therefore whatever the Palestinians do is just and moral. I will not speculate as to whether you are ignoring reality or engaged in willful obfuscation.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:46 pm
So, you don’t have any Zionist statement to show of their willingness to end the occupation and resolve the refugee problem. Not a single one. Check.
Israel has never questioned any Arab state’s right to exist. Israel has never attacked any Arab state other than in self defense.
You really have no idea what you’re talking about, do you? Israel has been occupying the territory of a Palestinian state for 40+ years, and building racist Jews-only settlements and roads on that territory – is that anything like “questioning”? Israel invaded and occupied Egypt in 1956 and then invaded Egypt again in 1967. Israel invaded Lebanon twice and occupied a Southern part of it for 20 years. Israel is still occupying a part of Syria and a part of Lebanon. Would you like to read a couple of hundred of UN resolutions against Israel?
Are you a completely sick demented idiot, Ray in Seattle? Sure you are. Why am I wasting my time on you? Good bye, Ray.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:46 pm
The Palestinians were offered Gaza and Close to 100% of the West Bank with land swap for the few percent that would remain in Israeli hands to avoid wide spread deportation and more refugees. Plus the right of return to the Palestinian state e.g. the West Bank and Gaza.
This was offered to them by Ehud Olmert.
It’s pretty much what was offered to them by Ehud Barak back in 2000 in the Clinton proposal that attempted to stop the looming second intifada.
But when Arabs speak of the right of return they mean return to all of Palestine, not just the Palestinian state. Considering the numbers involved and the fact that Israel is a democracy, this means that there would soon be two Palestinian states.
So calls for the right of return, otherwise phrased as “a just solution to the refugee problem” are actually calls for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. This is kinda like if Al Qaeda announce that they have nothing against the United States, if the United States would only agree to adopted Sharia law Al Qaeda would be willing to make peace with it.
Yet again rejectionism, not accepting that Jews too, like Palestinians, like Romanians, Like Greeks, Like any other nation on this earth also deserve to have a nation state. This means borders in which they are free to rule themselves and not be subjugated to the rule of others.
I guess abb1 subscribes to the Arab initiative interpretation of the right of return and thus is a hypocrite because he will deny to Jews what he demands for Palestinians and accepts for any other Nation.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Aggression is attacking the civilians of another political entity to get your way – and should be condemned by any peace-loving person.
Funny!
October 21st, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Rambler, “Jews” is not a nation, it’s an ethnic group. Palestinians are people who live in Palestine, people of many different ethnic groups. That’s a nation. Same is the case with Romania and Greece.
People expelled from their homes in an ethnic cleansing have the right to return to their homes; even if a bunch of racists with guns think it’s a bad idea.
Also this: “The Palestinians were offered Gaza and Close to 100% of the West Bank with land swap” is not true. They were offered some disconnected pieces in the West Bank and no real sovereignty.
It’s bad enough that you’re a racist, my friend, but also you are not being honest.
October 21st, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Thank you for agreeing that the Jews expelled from their homes have the right to return to their homeland even if a group of racists with guns (who pretend to be descendant of the Cypriote colonisers known as Philistines or Palestinians) have been trying to kill them all since the end of World War I. Now if only the rest of the world would be as honest.
October 21st, 2009 at 5:28 pm
even if a group of racists with guns (who pretend to be descendant of the Cypriote colonisers known as Philistines or Palestinians)
Man, that’s great! When I saw the “Cypriote colonisers” I thought, well, here we have a standard claim that this group of people are colonialists themselves so other colonizers can kick them out. But then it turns out they’re only pretending to be Cypriote colonisers.
Who are they really, Sabba? Mexicans? Japanese? Kenyans? Or has the background check not been completed yet?
October 21st, 2009 at 6:06 pm
abb1, as I said your a hypocrite.
You’re as bad as those trying to claim that there’s no such thing as a Palestinian Nation.
You are not helping resolve the conflict, like Hamas, Hesbollah and their sponsor Iran you are part of the rejectionist camp that is responsible for perpetuating the conflict by denying Israel’s right to exist.
I support a Palestinian state, I’m even willing to ignore the Palestinian demand that this state be “Juden Frei”, But in return Arabs will have to learn to live with Jews as neighbors even if they can’t abide them within their borders.
October 21st, 2009 at 6:56 pm
abb1 says: “Are you a completely sick demented idiot, Ray in Seattle? Sure you are. Why am I wasting my time on you? Good bye, Ray.”
You can always tell when they run out straw men and diversions.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:06 pm
SLC: “Ah gee, Hafaz Asaad killed more people in the first hour of the attack on the City of Hama then Israel did in three weeks in Gaza.”
Wow, good point. You should tell this to the face of the many Americans who defend, donate to, and urge the US to finance military aid for the Assad regime.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Ah, Ms. Herzberg. So kind of you to join us.
Could you please name a “sinister regime” whose “infinitely more alarming and widespread abuses” are ignored by HRW? My offer to go to their web site, find the links to their reports on that country, and post there here so everyone can make up their own mind still stands.
Why won’t any of the people who keep asserting that HRW is biased against Israel and favorable to other Middle Eastern countries through such roundabout, tangential arguments answer this question?
It couldn’t possibly be because you know you’re full of shit, and understand that there is nothing in the record to support your contention, could it?
Cowards. Liars and cowards.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Geez, Yglesias — you are a jackass.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 am
Rambler, I assume you’re an American: isn’t your nation the US of A, then? That’s what your nation is: the place where your parents lived, where you were born, where you grew up – do you understand what I’m saying?
The other thing – your imaginary nation of “Jews” – is your racist fantasy – and a silly fantasy it is – to live together with people that you think are just like you. No, my friend, that’s not a nation. It’s racist bullshit that certainly doesn’t have – not only the right – it doesn’t have a slightest reason to exist. It’s an abomination.
I’m even willing to ignore the Palestinian demand that this state be “Juden Frei”
You’re lying again: there is no such a demand. Vast, vast majority of the people on this planet are much, much smarter (not to mention much more decent people) than you, and they don’t care about you being “Juden”, they only care about what you do as an individual. Thus, there is, for example, an ethnic Jew elected to the PA. There is an ethnic Jew member of Hazbullah resistance in a Zionist jail. Adam Shapiro from Brooklyn (and many, many others) lived in Ramallah, until he was deported by Zionists.
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:02 am
I agree with Matt that Bernstein’s argument is faulty. In my own critique (http://jointstock.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/hrw-on-israel-palestine/), I focus on his bogus assertion that HRW should stick to criticizing closed societies and leave open societies alone about their own human rights violations. The question Bernstein raises towards the middle of his column is at least worth exploring (ie, the total volume of criticism of Israel versus the total volume of criticism of Palestinian groups). But it is certainly not the main point of the article, which focuses on the open/closed society distinction.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
JSC5, You make a good point. It would seem especially important for anyone truly concerned about human rights – to focus on where they are being denied and where there is no constitutional recourse – to focus on those areas where the only possible relief for those suffering their loss of rights is external pressure. But we hear precious little about that from the human rights orgs it seems – like HRW who are so busy trying to substantiate Arab hoaxes such as al Dura and the Gaza beach “massacre”.
I’d add though that for the most part the free world does follow that maxim. We seldom if ever criticize even the closed societies where the most outrageous abuse against minorities is the norm. Most Western nations are more than scrupulous about criticizing others while we work out the few vestiges of our own discrimination. Only when it comes to Jews or a Jewish state are those barriers taken down.
The sad fact is that Israel is engaged in a decades long war for its existence against racist enemies who teach their kids that the highest honor is to die a martyr killing Jews. But it is only about the Jews of Israel that far-fetched and wholly unsubstantiated accusations of “human rights violation” while engaged in defensive war are concocted and eagerly believed by millions worldwide. It makes one wonder what kind of world we are preparing for our children.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
JSC5, I misunderstood your comment. I disagree with you and don;t think you made such a good point after all.
JSC5, I think you should read NYT Bernstein again. You entirely missed his premise. For example, early on he says,
Bernstein logically shows why drawing attention to suspected cases of human rights abuses in Israel while it is engaged in mortal defensive combat, against a dictatorship that casually denies many of its citizens human rights as a matter of course, is not just demeaning the cause and effect of civil rights efforts worldwide – but is basically antisemitism.
You do understand about the moral equivalence game – so adeptly played by commenters like Bengt and abb1, don’t you?
Ray
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:47 pm
There is no moral equivalence, Ray. On one side there is the native population of a region fighting for its right to self-determination. On the other side there is a bunch of militant racist settler-colonizers who flooded the region only a few decades ago. Where is the equivalence, buddy?
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Israel is a tiny nation surrounded by many hostile nations united in their desire to kill Israelis. In its 70 years of existence, Israel has been forced to fight nine wars, perpetrated against it by nations committed to its destruction. Taking only one of these wars — Israel’s war of independence — one percent of Israel’s population was killed. On a proportionate basis, think of 3 million American deaths.
Every one of these wars that Israel fought was a war of self-defense. Israel did not start one of them. Its most recent war, against Hamas in Gaza, was no less a war of self defense than any other. No state would tolerate regular rocket attacks against it. Arabs of Gaza, the West Bank, and other surrounding nations persist in believing that if they kill enough Jews, Israel will lost the will to defend itself any longer. Israelis, on the other hand, persist in the strange belief, that appears to be questioned by many posters here, that they have a right not to be killed.
Hatred of Jews is one of the oldest, most intense, and most abiding hatreds in the world. It is not surprising that, one a nation of Jews was established, this hatred should be focused on the Jewish State. Many of the comments here are simply a reflection of that hatred. One comment compares the idea of a Jewish state to a “white” state, with no comment regarding the surrounding nations that have Islam as their official state religion. Anyone can convert to Judasim, or to Islam. The difference is that in Israel, a million Muslims live and can practice their religion freely; in contrast, Jews have been expelled from all of the surrounding Arab states, relieving them of any obligation to tolerate different faiths.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Oh yes, the vicious human rights-denying settlers. Are those the same settlers that Israel bodily removed from their homes in Gaza so as to give the Arabs there a Judenrein utopia from which they could shoot rockets at innocent Jews, unhindered by any military occupation? Or perhaps you mean the vicious settlers on the WB who today round up Arabs who displease them and either execute them, shoot them in the legs or throw from the roofs of their one-story trailers. Or maybe that is someone else you are thinking of.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Israelis, on the other hand, persist in the strange belief, that appears to be questioned by many posters here, that they have a right not to be killed.
Strange belief indeed. You come to a foreign land, ethnically cleanse a million people, start a bunch of wars, kill a lot of people, occupy a few neighboring countries, some for 20 years, some for 40 years – and you believe you have a right not to be killed?
You must be severely demented for sure.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Just a little reminder of what human rights abuses are really about:
You can read the full article at:
http://www.judithmiller.com/6468/palestinian-diaspora-tragedy
. . for those who are more concerned about actual human rights abuses than about the far-fetched claims of human rights abuses resulting from Israel’s defense of her citizens’ lives from rocket attack in a defensive military operation aimed at stopping those rockets – claims largely made by those shooting the rockets.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I have to say that one of the most Kafkaesque outcomes of this sordid episode of thousands of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Hamas against Israel’s civilians is the latest. It’s the pathetic calling by Goldstone for Hamas, who has fired some 8000 projectiles into S. Israel over the last few years in an attempt to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible, rockets that they brag about in Arab venues and describe in terms of their “right of resistance” – to do an investigation to see if their forces might be guilty of some human rights abuses.
Perhaps a sick and demented Seinfeld episode could be produced in commemoration.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:46 pm
[...] is really maddening. I wrote here that irrespective of how bad Hamas or Hezbollah may be Israel has an obligation to abide by [...]
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Abb1: Jews started immigrating to Palestine, legally, around 1900. Over the next few decades they were routinely massacred by “indigenous” Arabs. But Jews were also indigenous — just in fewer numbers, except in certain places such as Jerusalem. For example, Jews had lived contiuously in Hebron, up until the 1929 massacre, for 1,000 years. They tried to defend themselves then, but it was hard because the Brits had disarmed them.
When GB relinquished its mandate (after setting up Jordan as an independent state ruled by an Arab clan) the United Nations declared that the remaining territory would be divided into two nations, one Jewish and one Arab. Jews were immediately attacked, and that is when they started defending themselves. Apparently, Abb1, you think they all should have just submitted willingly to being killed.
Was the establishment of Israel unjust? Well, it was far from perfect. Of the other 200 independent countries on Earth, which one was established without SOME injustice? I assume you live peacefully in the United States, established on the massacre of the indigenous population and the enslavement and killing of millions of Africans. What do you propose to remedy that injustice?
Yes, Israel occupies some disputed territory (not a neighboring “country,” because the WB and Gaza have never been a country). What nation, once attacked, does not occupy at least some of the territory from which it was attacked? After losing the 1967 war, the Arab League, meeting in October 1967 in Khartoum, gave Israel its official position: No recognition, no peace, no negotiation. Arabs ruled the WB and Gaza for 20 years — during that time, not once did any Palestinian or any other Arab lift a finger to promote establishment of a Palestinian nation on that territory.
October 24th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I would add to Gogin’s excellent comment that Israel’s occupation of the WB is not voluntary. Only by remaining there can they prevent suicide bomb attacks across the border into Israel from that area. Only be remaining there as an effective military force can they prevent Hamas from taking control of the area and firing rockets into all of Israel’s major cities. It is a defensive occupation – which of course makes no difference to those who believe Israel has no right to defend itself.