Investigating Bernstein’s Claims Against HRW
Investigating Bernstein’s Claims Against HRW
Human Rights Watch founder Robert Bernstein takes to the New York Times’ op-ed page to accuse his former organization of “issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”
At Human Rights Watch, we always recognized that open, democratic societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the ability to correct them — through vigorous public debate, an adversarial press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform.
That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights. We wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its followers from playing a moral equivalence game with the West.
I agree that it’s sometimes, though not always, useful when criticizing human rights violations to make a distinction between democratic and nondemocratic societies. At best, however, this only provides some benefit of the doubt to democratic societies — it doesn’t provide a “Get Out Of Geneva Conventions Free” card. And I’m not sure how or whether this distinction should apply to the territories that Israel has held under military occupation since 1967.
For Palestinians living in the West Bank, almost every movement — to school, to work, to visit friends or family — is circumscribed by the arbitrary decisions of Israeli military rule. Attempts by Palestinians to challenge and correct Israeli abuses through the legal system, in the rare cases that they actually see the inside of a courtroom, and the even rarer cases that they are actually successful, are often then simply ignored by Israeli occupation authorities. Non-violent protests are violently suppressed. (And, of course, life in the West Bank is a vacation compared to life in Gaza, which is maintained by Israel as the world’s largest prison.)
If we’re to draw a hard line between free and authoritarian societies, then, Israeli-occupied Palestine clearly belongs on the authoritarian side of that line. Israel could begin to solve this problem by ending its occupation, withdrawing from the settlements, and cooperating with U.S. efforts to achieve a two-state solution, but Netanyahu has apparently decided that a better strategy is to continue the occupation, increase the settlements, and attack Israel’s critics as anti-Semites and self-hating Jews.
Bernstein continues that, compared to Israel, “Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent.”
The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.
This is a powerful claim, and it would good if Bernstein offered some data to support it. But he didn’t, because it’s not true. A 2005 report in The Forward determined that “Human Rights Watch has in fact devoted more attention to each of five other nations in the region — Iraq, Sudan, Egypt, Turkey and Iran — than to Israel.” A look at HRW’s website reveals that the organization has in fact prepared “report after report” on countries throughout the Middle East, everything from freedom of association in Morocco to Kurdish rights in Iran. Of the five reports this year that dealt with the Israel-Palestine conflict, all five focused on the Gaza war — understandable, given the serious regional implications of the event — and two of those specifically focused on and criticized Palestinian actions.
Obviously, criticism coming from Robert Bernstein carries a lot more weight than smears from the likes of Gerald Steinberg or David Bernstein. Unfortunately, his criticism traffics in the same unsubstantiated — and unfalsifiable — assertions of bias, and the actual claims he does, like theirs, make don’t really withstand scrutiny.
It is true, as Bernstein notes, that Israel has numerous domestic human rights organizations. But what he doesn’t mention is that many, if not most of them have come to the exact same conclusion as their international counterparts: The Israeli assault on Gaza was rife with abuses and attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. Noting these allegations does nothing to excuse or diminish Hamas’ behavior, nor the behavior of authoritarian regimes throughout the region. But rather than investigate these allegations, as the United States has repeatedly encouraged it to do, the Netanyahu government has instead chosen to declare war on human rights NGOs. It’s unfortunate that Bernstein should now make himself part of that effort.
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I have been trying to determine who is the real owner of the Holy Land and I have decided that it is God and not man, “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.” Leviticus 25:23. Having said that, I turned to who has the right to occupy the Holy Land. God gave the land to Abraham and his descendents forever, “Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates” Genesis 15:18. Abraham had two sons: Ishmael, by Hagar, and Isaac, by Sarah. When Sarah died, Abraham wished to bury her in the cave of Machpelah which was in a field owned by Ephron the son of Zohar who was a Hittite. When Abraham offered to pay for the land and asked the price of it, Ephron replied that it was worth 400 shekels of silver, but offered to give the land to Abraham because of who he was, Genesis 23:13. Abraham insisted that the silver be weighted out in front of witnesses, that landmarks be erected and that a written deed be made. Even though the land had been given to him by God, Abraham still wished the current occupier to willingly sell him the land and that the transaction be public, be fair and be done in a just and righteous manner. In this way, Abraham showed the local people respect and honor and the land is still acknowledged to be his unto this day. When Abraham died, he was buried in the same cave as Sarah by both Ishmael and Isaac together. That means that Ishmael was not far away, was invited and was welcome at the funeral, Genesis 25:9. Back when people lived in tents and moved around the land looking for grass for their animals, ownership of the land and borders were not of great importance. Now, because we live in cities that are stationary, ownership is critical. When a father dies, his sons divide their inheritance between them; both inherit, not just one.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:52 pmIn the Middle East today, both the children of Ishmael (the Arabs) and the children of Isaac (the Jews) should share the land promised by God to the seed of Abraham. Since this was not possible, the land needed to be divided. The United Nations partitioned the land and gave 55% to the Jews to form the new state of Israel and 45% to the Arabs to form the state of Palestine. After the war of 1948-9, the Jews took 78% of the land leaving 22% to the Arabs. Jordan kept the West Bank and Egypt kept the Gaza strip leaving the Palestinian people with nothing. After the 1967 war, Israel occupied both the West Bank and Gaza and still does to this day. The Palestinians are now willing to accept the West Bank and Gaza as their country, but not less. Israel wants the land, but not the people living on the land; hence the problem. Israel has spent the last 41 years building settlements in the West Bank trying to make it impossible to form a viable Palestinian state out of the area. They have succeeded to the extent that it has driven the Palestinians to start talking about a one state solution, one where two peoples will share one big country, but soon with an Arab majority. If Israel wishes to keep the Jewish minority in control of the country, they would have to move to an apartheid state. We have just witnessed what happened to South Africa’s apartheid experiment with a 10% white population controlling a 90% black population. So, it is in Israel’s best interest to grant the Palestinians their own state if for no other reason then to create a place for the Arabs to live that is not in Israel.
The recent Israeli incursion into Gaza only proved that overwhelming force will not stop a native people’s natural resistance to occupation by what they see as a foreign power. It is the very expensive lesson that has been taught to every colonial power in Europe and even to the United States. The lesson is simple: You cannot defeat an indigenous people fighting on their own land by use of military force. You may win the opening conquest, but the following insurgency will sap your strength, your men, your gold and your resolve. There are only two ways to win a colonial war, One: exterminate or deport the local population or Two: make a deal with the local population. Method One was used against the Native Americans by the United States Government. This was possible because the U.S. Army had such overwhelming numbers, used germ warfare, habitat destruction and there was no international objection to genocide. Israel would not be able to do the same; another holocaust would not play well on the world stage. So, Method Two, make a deal, is the only way out. This was the method used by Great Britain in Northern Ireland to install local power-sharing in the government. The problem then becomes; what about the Settlers? They are welcome to remain in Palestine and live with an Arab majority or move back to Israel. Either way, it should be voluntary, not like the Gaza withdrawal. Two states, one with a Jewish majority and an Arab minority and one with an Arab majority and a Jewish minority. They could vie with one another as to who could be the nicest to their minority citizens. Peace is not what you have after a war; peace is what you want to have to prevent the next war. There is no peace without justice. Just as with Abraham, the land must be paid for and in an open, fair and just way. Now, where is the deed for the West Bank and Gaza?