http://blogs.jta.org/ENTRY_PERMALINK_HERE/ngo-monitors-six-or-is-it-two-questions-for-hrw/ Human Rights Watch, as we’ve noted, has issued a report condemning Hamas-led rocket attacks on southern Israel during the Gaza war as war crimes. en-us rkampeas@jta.org Copyright 2009 2009-08-07T;01:10:01-05:00 gerald.steinberg@gmail.com NGO MONITOR ON THE ARTIFICIAL BALANCE ISSUE Ron, Some of your points in response to NGO Monitor’s questions resonate –others, such as the “balance” between terrorist groups and their targets, need a rethink. You wrote “I don’t see any attempt to ‘balance’ Hamas and Israel in this report.” But for HRW, this immoral “balance” is everywhere. Hit by criticism of the Saudi caper, Roth and Whitson claim to hold similar events in Tel Aviv – as if the human rights conditions in the two countries are the same. After the Lebanon war, they went through the motions of calling and cancelling a press conference to criticize Hezbollah in Beirut, to balance the one they actually held in Jerusalem to bash Israel. And Whitson’s Aug 5 letter in the WSJ, in response to Noah Pollak’s analysis of HRW’s double standards, is headlined “Our Coverage of Abuses in the Middle East Is Balanced”. This usually means a barrage of reports and condemnations of Israel, and a couple of emails and a late report or two on Hamas, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, Libya, etc. Indeed, their Hamas rocket report—inexcusably late – is a partial exception, and Iain Levine did some good press work and got broad media coverage. But the bottom line is that for HRW’s hard core ideologues like Whitson and Stork, reports on Hamas and Hezbollah are not about morality or justice, or even international law, but rather for artificial balance, so the prosecution of Israel in the UN (Goldstone was an HRW board member until we pointed out the conflict of interest), the ICC, etc. can continue. NGO MONITOR ON THE ARTIFICIAL BALANCE ISSUE
Ron,
Some of your points in response to NGO Monitor’s questions resonate –others, such as the “balance” between terrorist groups and their targets, need a rethink.
You wrote “I don’t see any attempt to ‘balance’ Hamas and Israel in this report.” But for HRW, this immoral “balance” is everywhere. Hit by criticism of the Saudi caper, Roth and Whitson claim to hold similar events in Tel Aviv – as if the human rights conditions in the two countries are the same. After the Lebanon war, they went through the motions of calling and cancelling a press conference to criticize Hezbollah in Beirut, to balance the one they actually held in Jerusalem to bash Israel. And Whitson’s Aug 5 letter in the WSJ, in response to Noah Pollak’s analysis of HRW’s double standards, is headlined “Our Coverage of Abuses in the Middle East Is Balanced”. This usually means a barrage of reports and condemnations of Israel, and a couple of emails and a late report or two on Hamas, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, Libya, etc. Indeed, their Hamas rocket report—inexcusably late – is a partial exception, and Iain Levine did some good press work and got broad media coverage.
But the bottom line is that for HRW’s hard core ideologues like Whitson and Stork, reports on Hamas and Hezbollah are not about morality or justice, or even international law, but rather for artificial balance, so the prosecution of Israel in the UN (Goldstone was an HRW board member until we pointed out the conflict of interest), the ICC, etc. can continue.

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