WSJ In The Smear Business

Human Rights Watch is getting grief because of The Wall Street Journal's distorted reporting and actual untruths about an organization has bent over backwards to be both fair and accurate. It is a very sad thing when a professional journalism venture is unable to measure up to the standards of the group it criticises.

The issue is whether a delicate mission, aimed at achieving human rights advances in Saudi Arabia, was also a fund-raising effort to get money for Human Rights Watch to use in attacking pro-Israel groups.

Had this utterly outlandish charge been printed in a lowly blog somewhere, it would have died a deserved death. But WSJ has cache and so falsity gets a nice boost.

Here is the seminal critical piece that the Journal published on its web site on July 15:

Human Rights Watch Goes to Saudi Arabia: Seeking Money to Counterbalance "Pro-Israel Pressure Groups"

The author is David Bernstein and his piece is a reprint from The Volkosh Conspiracy.

Not content with one false report, the Journal repeated the charge five days later, this time in its paper edition in its editorial section.

Double Standards and Human Rights Watch The organization displays a strong bias against Israel.

Published on July 20, the author is Noah Pollack who is identified as a graduate student in international relations at Yale.

The heading of the stories bites off quite a chunk for persons who might wish to be seen as fair critics and for a publication which, at least in its news section, is generally beyond reproach.

It does not take much reading of either piece to see that the false charge is simply an I-told-you-so to which is attached a skewering of Human Rights Watch for its objective effort to deal with an intractible conflict.

The conflict between Israel and her neighbors has led to profound irrationality on both sides. Once things go as far as they have gone, we are in which-side-are-you-on? territory. And you are damned if you say I am for both sides and for a fair solution.

Well damn me. And damn Human Rights Watch. But be aware that words matter. And false words on both sides are in some respects as culpable as the actual abuses they help foment.

Comments

[misaacm]

I read both WSJ articles and didn't find any smears, only some disturbing questions. Obviously the author of this article didn't find any smears since he didn't cite any.

HRW has squandered its good name by going hat in hand to Saudi dictators whose human rights record is frightening, and by its obvious anti-Israel bias. Too bad, they do good work elsewhere in the world.

[MemoryAlpha]

Observation:
The pro-Israeli lobby has become quite vicious at attacking human rights organizations, the progressive left in America and even Jewish activists who stand up and denounce Israel's crimes.

It is unsurprising you did not find them to be smears. You use this tactic routinely yourself, as your post demonstrates.

[Stephen C. Rose - Huffpost Blogger]

I was just about to reply when I read your reply which is apposite.

I would only add that HRW has had similar meetings in Israel. Such meetings have nothing whatsoever to do with trying to gin up conflict or raise funds to take sides.

[Stephen C. Rose - Huffpost Blogger]

When a charge is made it is up to the one who makes the charge to substantiate it. I think HRW is looking for a solution to the conflict and the first step is to say what you think a solution is. To me it lies with the Abrahamic faiths stepping forward and saying that their common deity takes no sides. When that happens I will have some hope.

[MemoryAlpha]

Observation:
The pro-Israeli bias in the US mainstream media is extremely blatant now. The rest of the world saw it in action rather painfully during the IDF's massacre in Gaza -- while they were getting the full report from international sources that were actually reporting from within the Gaza Strip, not even half of what happened there has been touched by the American MSM.

[misaacm]

You shouldn't start all of your posts with "Observation" since you aren't very observant. It's like Pres. Bush starting a sentence with "I was thinking".

[MemoryAlpha]

Query:
You had nothing better as a response than a personal attack?

[BobLablah]

It's very weird that you provided no info at all to refute the charges.

[MemoryAlpha]

Observation:
People who will attack a human rights organization in order to defend Israel's war crimes have not shown themselves to be receptive to actual evidence in the past.

Case in point:
You don't require actual evidence to slander Human Rights Watch in the first place.

[BobLablah]

The linked article didn't defend Israel, it pointed out that HRW was collecting donations in one of the most repressive nations on earth and didn't say a word about their Human Rights violations. Would the NAACP collect donations from the KKK?