Background on Bernstein/NGO Monitor attack on HRW
The last post about Robert Bernstein challenged the inadequacy of his philosophy of human rights, which leaves some countries unaccountable for human rights violations they commit according to the foreign policy of the United States. This post takes a different turn, paying more attention to the context of his article. Based on information pieced together from informed sources, we look at the organized campaign meant to discredit Human Rights Watch and to pressure it to stop its reporting on Israeli human rights violations. Bernstein’s op-ed was part of this campaign.
First, a brief point to illustrate that the op-ed was not about principle. My last post did not touch on the last paragraph of Bernstein’s piece, which challenged the credibility of information gathered by Human Rights Watch. Bernstein wrote:
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.”
On the KABOBFest mailing list, Fadi made the strong observation that, “in one paragraph, Bernstein managed to dismiss the findings of HRW because HRW was not present during the assault, he dismisses Palestinians as witnesses essentially because they are Palestinian, and yet he manages to submit as support for Israel’s behavior in Gaza an argument from some guy who also was never there.”
I would also add that Israel prevented human rights researchers on fact finding missions, including those from the UN working on the Goldstone report, from entering Gaza in the first place. So this is not the result of poor research but rather blockades put together by Israel itself.
That said, Fadi’s latter point–that by quoting a random military commander Bernstein uses as supporting evidence the very kind of evidence that he criticizes HRW for–shows Bernstein’s inconsistency and the propaganda goals of the article.
But why Human Rights Watch? An informed person offers the following three explanations: (1) HRW has a small donor base that comprises people who are not progressive on Palestine; (2) appeasing these donors has always been a source of pressure for the organization; (3) HRW is thus seen as a low hanging fruit compared to other human rights organizations that release similarly critical reports on Israel (like Amnesty International or the National Lawyer’s Guild) but have much more reliable funding sources.
The crusade has been led by the Israel foreign ministry-linked “NGO Monitor,” which we have parodied in the past. NGO Monitor has stepped up its attacks since the release of the Goldstone report, which poses a serious threat to Israel’s legitimacy, not institutionally but on a mass scale. Other propaganda firms that advocate on Israel’s behalf have connected the dots. One day after Bernstein’s op-ed Peter Altman of BlueStarPR made an announcement that Goldstone was “a lie, a sham, and dangerous.” The three prongs of his argument were: (a) the same quotation by Richard Kemp in Bernstein’s article claiming that Israel took great care not to kill 1400 Palestinians (despite killing them); (b) the same op-ed by Bernstein; (c) material attacking the credibility of Richard Goldstone. Predictably, none of it challenged the truth of Goldstone and HRW’s findings, including things like:
- “Attacks in the Samouni neighbourhood in Zeitoun, south of Gaza City, including the shelling of a house where soldiers had forced Palestinian civilians to assemble;”
- “Seven incidents concerning ‘the shooting of civilians while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags, and, in some of the cases, following an injunction from the Israeli forces to do so;”
- “The targeting of a mosque at prayer time, resulting in the death of 15 people.”
Interesting to note is the conflation of Human Rights Watch with the UN Fact Finding Mission on Gaza and the ensuing Goldstone report. Those taking on HRW are taking on Goldstone in the same breath. The mission is clear: to deflect the most powerful international scrutiny Israel has ever faced for human rights violations. The tactics are shameful ad hominem and innuendo. Among its tactics are misrepresenting HRW employees who have collected WWII paraphernalia, attacking HRW for having Palestinian employees (see NGO Monitor on Staff/Board Members), and now, organizing with old HRW personalities to further coerce the organization into abandoning its important line of inquiry into Israeli human rights violations. As possible as it is to attack Bernstein’s claims as well as Goldstone’s detractors on the merits, we must, at the same time, be mindful that powerful interests are at stake. This discussion is taking place against the backdrop of shady back room power plays and the most dubious kinds of pressure and intimidation.
Correction/Clarification: An earlier version referred to “old HRW employees” but Bernstein was not an employee. Rather he was chair of the board. Additionally the claim that NGO Monitor et al are organizing with him should be clarified. It is not evident that a direct collaborative relationship exists, however they are all part of a campaign with similar talking points and aims, which is to protect Israel from scrutiny. The reference to the Palestinian employees at HRW is supplemented by NGO Monitor’s infamous one-line criticism that an advisory board member is “a Palestinian-American.”
