On Tuesday, writing in the New York Times, Robert L. Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch (HRW), its active chairman for 20 years and currently founding chairman emeritus criticized the organization for its stance on Israel arguing that it is no longer distinqushing between open and closed societies and as a result is unduly focusing on the Middle-East’s only open country. In his editorial Bernstein noted that the HRW and its reports have credibity issues they do not acknowledge.
Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.
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.
But how does Human Rights Watch know that these laws have been violated? In Gaza and elsewhere where there is no access to the battlefield or to the military and political leaders who make strategic decisions, it is extremely difficult to make definitive judgments about war crimes. Reporting often relies on witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers. 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.”
This editorial immediately generated letters to the editor the next day. In their letter supporting Bernstein, Elie Wiesel and Alan Dershowitz note the HRW's financial ties to Arab states, a situation that could explain the HRW's new focus:
In a region dominated by regimes that violate human rights in horrendous ways, Human Rights Watch has instead chosen to single out Israel for condemnation, often using highly unreliable witnesses to do so.
Not only has it failed to allocate proper resources to monitoring the dictatorships that are rife throughout the region, but senior Human Rights Watch officials even recently went to Riyadh to raise funds from people associated with theSaudi regime, emphasizing the group’s work demonizing Israel while doing so.