Human Rights Watch Should Not Be Criticized for Doing Its Job

It was particularly sad for me to read Robert L. Bernstein's op-ed article last month in The New York Times criticizing Human Rights Watch for its reporting on the Israeli-Arab conflict. Bernstein and I collaborated closely in establishing Human Rights Watch and in making it influential.

Robert Bernstein first approached me in 1978 to join him in founding the Helsinki Watch Committee. Its main purpose would be to criticize the Soviet Union for violating the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords, an East-West agreement signed by 35 countries of Europe and North America. Eleven men and women in Moscow had formed the first Helsinki Committee in 1976. By the time Bernstein called me in 1978, most had been imprisoned. There was a need for a new organization to take up their cause and call attention to their plight.

The reason Bernstein asked me to join him was obvious. At the time, I was Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Bernstein was then a prominent book publisher. My public reputation was based on my role in dealing with violations of civil liberties in the United States. If I joined him in launching Helsinki Watch, it would make clear that we were not just engaged in a Cold War exercise of bashing the Soviet Union. I could help make the organization credible in defending rights everywhere.

Bernstein became Chairman of Helsinki Watch; I became Vice Chairman. A little later, after I left my post at the ACLU, I also became Executive Director of the new organization. Over the next dozen years, with Bernstein still Chairman, I took the lead in gradually extending our work to other parts of the world and in renaming it Human Rights Watch. By the time I left in 1993 for my present position, HRW reported on violations in every part of the world. We became particularly known for documenting violations of the laws of war by all parties to armed conflicts.

In criticizing HRW's reporting on the Israeli-Arab conflict, Robert Bernstein makes a number of points. He argues that HRW should focus on closed societies, whereas Israel is an open society. Also, he says that HRW has focused far more on Israel than on the "brutal, closed and autocratic" regimes of the region. Another point made by Bernstein is that HRW errs by not differentiating "wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated intentionally." Finally, Bernstein criticizes HRW's reporting on "Gaza and elsewhere where there is no access to the battlefield" and claims that, "Reporting often relies on witnesses whose stories cannot be verified...."

Though Bernstein is right to differentiate between closed and open societies, he is wrong to suggest that open societies should be spared criticism for human rights abuses. The United States was an open society when it practiced slavery and racial segregation and when it interred the Japanese-Americans during World War II. It was an open society when it tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A human rights organization that keeps silent on such matters would be worthless. The only way to protect human rights is to hold all to the same standards. Robert Bernstein knew that when he asked me to join him in founding Helsinki Watch. He seems to have forgotten.

The claim that HRW focuses disproportionately on Israel is simply mistaken. When I was Executive Director, we began our work on the Middle East by publishing a book length report on abuses in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. We also reported on Iran, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. Currently, reporting on abuses by others constitutes about 85 percent of Human Rights Watch's publishing on the region. That reporting on Israel accounts for as much as 15 percent of the organization's work in the Middle East reflects Israel's involvement in armed conflicts, a specialty of Human Rights Watch.

The distinction Bernstein makes between "wrongs committed in self-defense and those committed intentionally" is not made by the laws of war. It is also a dangerous distinction. On such grounds, groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq that murdered tens of thousands of civilians after the American invasion of 2003 could claim excuses for their crimes. In Gaza, both sides might claim self-defense and, thereby, justify abuses.

It is true, of course, that there was no access to Gaza while the conflict was underway. Denial of access was the policy of the Israeli government. As should be obvious, such a policy should not be rewarded by silence. If a government could eliminate human rights reporting in this manner, HRW would never have published accounts of abuses in Saddam's Iraq. Moreover, in the Gaza case, HRW had a consultant there throughout the conflict and sent in a research team three days after hostilities ended. Though witness testimony is often self-serving, it plays a crucial role in judicial determinations of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Cross-checking the details of testimony and consistency with other evidence are essential. HRW has an immense amount of experience in all parts of the world in fact-gathering and getting the story right. That is why its reporting matters.

Robert Bernstein deserves great credit for his pioneer role in establishing Human Rights Watch. I regret that he does not share my pride in its present-day performance.

 

Comments

[sanych]

The answer to this debate is somewhere in the middle. Yes, Israel - as any society - is not above criticism, but it is getting substantially more that its fair share.

[max08]

Thank you, Aryeh Neier! Bernstein's op-ed was a travesty, as was the congressional bill to silence Goldstone.

[StCuthbert]

Human Rights Watch should not be criticized for doing its job the same way a cop should not be criticized for arresting a jaywalker (his job) while a murder is occurring down the street that he does nothing to stop.

[S1m0n]

All of the usual 'disproportion' arguments favored by Israel's apologists contain a frank, if implicit, concession that Israel is guilty as charged. Bernstein's is no exception.

[TheLonelyGod]

And the usual response, as you display so admirably here, is an attempt to not only indict Israel without sufficient evidence but to defend HRW by silencing its critics.

[Wisdo]

Thank you.

It seems Israel considers all NGO's worldwide to be conspiring against them. Not only that - they feel (along with the US) that he entire UN is conspiring against them. The reason they give for this vast conspiracry is ...anti-semitism. The whole world is wrong and Israel is right. The whole world is anti-semitic and Israel is blemishless.

Well it wont wash. Israel would not be criticised half so much if it didnt fit the classic mould of abusive colonial power .

This has nothing to do with anti-semitism and everything to do with human nature and the corrupting influence of power. Every colonial power of the 19th century was abusive to its occupied peoples. Some more than others (belgian atrocities in the congo spring to mind). Britain, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, France all sought to claim territory for themselves at the expense of human misery.
Israel's occupation is no different no less immoral and no less brutal than any of the aforementioned.

It is for this reason, we criticise Israel, not these pitiful allegations of racism.

[soral]

"The distinction Bernstein makes between "wrongs committed in self-defense and those committed intentionally" is not made by the laws of war.

Not as such. But intentionality is a crucial factor in the court of international law. In the face of intentional attacks on civilians, governments (such as Israel in this case) are permitted to respond militarily, and even to knowingly harm the unarmed, so long as the military advantage gained by the action is proportional to the armed response. The moral calculus becomes very difficult when the battle is fought in a city choked with innocent people. Ordinarily this sort of hypothetical argument is academic.

If the government of Israel can demonstrate, as it claims, that it took precautions commensurate with the force it deployed, and the force it responded to, to preserve civilians lives, it will have been rightly exonerated. If not, it will be condemned.

Robert Bernstein may have been attempting to highlight the consequences of intentionality to the final judgment of international law, and he would be entirely justified in doing so. If not, he's just wrong.

[GZLives]

When you have an officer of your organization traveling to Saudi Arabia looking for money and promising to be hard Israel in return, your credibility is compromised and Bernstein was right to step up and express what many now feel about HRW. Like so many other NGO's HRW is obsessed with Israel and everything she does over all others.

Instead of the endless Israel bash, why not elevate a real on going catastrophe which HRW is already engaged in, but you have only one person working on it and unless you elevate it quickly, hundreds if not thousands will be murdered.

Homosexuals trapped in Iraq while Iraqi Islamists hunt them down, torture them in the most brutal way by gluing their rectums closed and feeding them substances that induce diarrhea which kills them in the most horrific slow way ...

Perhaps if as many people knew this was going on instead of the endless Israel bashing you do, maybe you could save more then a handful of this endangered population.

[lbsaltzman]

So far all criticism of Human Rights Watch and the alleged connection to Saudi Arabia has come almost exclusively from Zionist sources. Just visiting Saudi Arabia is not a problem. The officials of Human Rights Watch visits many countries that are guilty of violating international law including The United States. Human Rights Watch has certainly issued reports critical of Arab countries including Saudi Arabia as well as criticizing Israel. The attack on Human Rights Watch by Bernstein and other pro-Israeli sources smells of a classic Ad Hominem attack, and appears to be part of an attempt to discredit any human rights organizations that dares to criticize Israel. The emphasis of every such article I read is to smear the human rights group, not offer fact based rebuttals of the reports the various human rights groups have prepared.

There is enough evidence from multiple sources, including Israeli sources to make it obvious, that Israel has repeated violated human rights in the long occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the military incursions into both areas of occupied Palestine. It is time for those violations to end and for the Israeli perpetrators to be brought to justice.

[GZLives]

Israel Israel Israel Israel ...

Its tiresome and obvious and most are now onto it

[soral]

"So far all criticism of Human Rights Watch and the alleged connection to Saudi Arabia has come almost exclusively from Zionist sources."

'Zionist sources' are just as capable of reporting the truth as other sources.

"The attack on Human Rights Watch by Bernstein and other pro-Israeli sources smells of a classic Ad Hominem attack..."

Jeffrey Goldberg (an ardent Zionist) describes the details of the situation, and the ethical problem as he sees it, quite well here:

http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/07/fundraising_corruption_at_huma.php

"...and appears to be part of an attempt to discredit any human rights organizations that dares to criticize Israel."

Lots of human rights organizations dare to criticize Israel. Off of the top of my head, I feel hard pressed to think of a human rights organization that does not dare.