C
POINT/COUNTERPOINT
Israel's Accusers?
Playing No Favorites
Jerusalem/JTA
to illegally destroy Palestinian homes:'
New York/JTA
She claimed that "continued sales will
ne of Human Rights Watch's
make the company complicit in human
aving worked in war zones for
common refrains is the demand
rights abuses." There was no mention of
more than 10 years, I've done
for "independent investiga-
Palestinian terrorism or the dilemmas fac-
a variety of investigations of
tions" based on the allegation that Israel is ing Israel in defending its citizens.
violations of laws of war for Human Rights
unable to conduct its own inquiries.
In the Human Rights Watch research
Watch. I've inspected the killing fields of
Officials at the organiza-
recent report co-authored
Kosovo and the displaced persons camps
tion have repeated the claim
by Stork alleging that Israeli
of Sri Lanka, examined Saddam
more than 50 times since the
soldiers shot Palestinians in
Hussein's mass graves and
launch in 2000 of what came to
Gaza waving white flags, the
researched the effects in Gaza of
be called the second intifada,
first of seven alleged incidents
Operation Cast Lead.
through the Lebanon War in
includes extensive quotes from
Human Rights Watch never
2006 and the fighting in Gaza
the Abd Rabbo family, whose
takes sides in a conflict or ques-
last January.
stories changed numerous
tions a government's decision
By contrast, they insist that
times from the initial versions
to use force. Our concern is
Human Rights Watch "research-
told to journalists in January.
not whether states and armed
ers" are capable of professional
At the same time, evidence
groups wage war, but how they
and, above all, moral analysis.
that does not support the war
wage war. We hold them to their
They portray themselves as
crimes charge is absent, such as obligations under the laws of
the objective examiners of
the YouTube clips showing clear war designed to spare non-
the responses of the Israeli
use by Palestinians of human
combatants, including the rule
military to attacks from Hamas,
shields, and of white flags used that abuses by one side do not
Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.
to protect terrorists and lure
justify abuses by
So who are these Human Rights Watch
Israeli troops into ambushes.
the other.
researchers who seek to serve as prosecu-
Instead, Human Rights
In the wake of our reports
tor, judge and jury in leveling allegations
Watch includes pages of
criticizing Israeli conduct
against Israel? What professional qualifica- irrelevant detail that create a
Human
in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli
tions as human rights researchers do they
facade of expertise, includ-
government
and some of its
actually possess?
Rights Watch uncritical supporters
ing satellite images, medical
are pur-
The organization's Middle East and
reports and quotes from
posefully
spreading
misinfor-
investigations
North Africa division is led by Sarah Leah
Geneva conventions.
mation about Human Rights
Whitson and Joe Stork, each of whom
The same pattern was fol-
of
Israeli
Watch. They have falsely
has a long record of anti-Israel activ-
lowed in HRW publications
claimed that we raise money
ism. Stork was a founder and spent 20
actions
on the 2006 Lebanon War
from the Saudi government,
years as writer and editor for the radical
and in the reports condemn-
and they have launched per-
Middle East Report, or MERIP. Whitson
ing Israel for the use of white
sonal attacks on current and
organized anti-Israel events at the New
phosphorous and drone attacks in Gaza.
former staff , including an administrative
York branch of the Arab-American Anti-
Whitson hyped these activities at a May assistant.
Discrimination Committee. Among those
dinner in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, along
To be clear: We do not raise money from
working with them at Human Rights
with the need to counter "pro-Israel pres-
Saudi Arabia or from any government, and
Watch are Lucy Mair (from Electronic
sure groups" that seek to impugn the
we have always reported on abuses by both
Intifada), Darryl Li (also a MERIP activ-
reliability of the allegations. (Infrequent
sides with neutrality. Anyone who thinks
ist) and Nadia Barhoum, a Palestinian
Human Rights Watch reports condemning otherwise should scrutinize our work,
campus organizer at the University of
Palestinian and Hezbollah attacks are fig
which is available on our Web site.
California, Berkeley.
leaves to claim balance and, in contrast to
Israel is one of 80 countries in which we
To be fair, Stork has claimed that his
the publications on Israel, carry no opera- work. In August alone, we issued substan-
ideological beliefs of the 1970s are "con-
tive agenda such as international inqui-
tial reports on India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and
trary to the views I have expounded for
ries, war crimes trials, sanctions or arms
the United States.
decades now" But his 1992 article on
embargoes.)
Absent in these Israeli attacks is a cred-
"U.S. policy and the Palestine Question"
Instead of giving credence to the bogus
ible rebuttal to our detailed documentation
used the same radical vocabulary, attack-
research and allegations by Human Rights of Israel's violations in Gaza, including the
ing "Zionist hegemony:' new colonialists,
Watch, what is needed is an independent
indiscriminate use of white phosphorus
American-Israeli conspiracies, "the elabo-
investigation of the organization's leader-
munitions, unlawful attacks from aerial
rate ritual labeled the peace process" and
ship and a cleaning out of its Middle East
drones and the shooting deaths of civilians
Israel's democratic values.
and North Africa division. II
in groups waving white flags.
Whitson's activities at Human Rights
To reach our conclusions, we conducted
Watch reflect the same hostility to Israel.
Gerald Steinberg is executive director of NGO
extensive research in Gaza — despite
She wrote a letter in 2004 to Caterpillar
Monitor and a professor of political science at
Israel's continued refusal to grant us
Inc. urging the heavy-equipment corn-
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan.
access. We visited attack sites, analyzed
pany to stop selling bulldozers to the
ballistics evidence, photographed wounds,
Israeli army, saying they were "being used
and examined autopsy and other medical
0
H
AT ISSUE
74
September 17 2009
reports. We conducted extensive private
interviews with victims and witnesses
of suspected unlawful attacks as well as
experts on the ground, asking detailed
questions to cross-check facts.
Back in New York, all reports go through
a rigorous vetting process to double-check
facts and conclusions.
The Israeli government and
some critics claim our witness
interviews are "unreliable:'
Under a repressive Hamas gov-
ernment, they say, Gazans are
not free to speak.
But we found many
Palestinians who in private
interviews were willing to
criticize Hamas. Palestinians
were the primary sources for a
report on Palestinian abuses in
Gaza and the West Bank that I
personally wrote in 2008, and
for a second report on Hamas'
crackdown against political
opponents in April. Palestinians spoke
forcefully about knee-cappings, enforced
disappearances and executions by the Gaza
police and Kassam Brigades.
Palestinian reliability is not the real issue
for the Israeli government and its parti-
sans. Even when the witnesses are Israeli
soldiers, the government also strikes back
-- as shown by its attempts to cut fund-
ing for the Israel Defense Forces' veterans
group Breaking the Silence. The sources in
that group's compelling Gaza report are not
Palestinians, but Israeli soldiers who fought
in the operation.
In all our Gaza work, we provided our
findings to the IDF well in advance of each
report, asking it to comment. But for the
past eight months, the military has refused
to answer our questions and has rejected
requests to meet. Now the IDF accuses us
of taking sides. In one case, the IDF posted
a video after the release of our report; and
critics then accused us of ignoring evi-
dence.
Human Rights Watch investigates alle-
gations of abuse around the world and
verifies or dismisses them based on the
evidence. The Israeli government may not
like our reporting on the IDF's conduct, but
the problem isn't the messenger; it's the IDF
conduct that we report.
That reporting won't stop until the
government fixes the real problem and
addresses why so many Palestinians need-
lessly died. TI
Fred Abrahams is a senior emergencies
researcher at Human Rights Watch.