Hey, someone with some sense finally pipes up. In a New York Times opinion piece, Robert L. Bernstein slams the organization. He writes that HRW with increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies. He states that the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and "most remain brutal, closed and autocratic" yet their abuses get largely ignored, as HRW prepares report after report on Israel.
This sharp criticism comes on the heels of the stunning revelation that a prominent member of HRW, Marc Garlasco, their senior military analyst, the guy who has written said reports on Israel, has an obsession with Nazi gear.
Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
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.
He makes the valid point that there is a difference between intentional wrongs and those committed in self defense.
He continues:
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."
http://www.nytimes.com/...
I wonder why Hamas was never vociferously condemned all those years leading up to the Gaza incursion for committing war crimes - launching thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. Perhaps if they had been criticised, perhaps if HRW and the UN had drafted reports, threatened prosecution and made loud public protestations about these war crimes, Hamas would have been forced to stop them, which in turn would have headed off Israel's need to act in self defense.
Yes. Why wasn't Hamas summarily condemned all those years by HRW and the UN?
moon