- Earlier this week the New York Times published an op-ed
article, "Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20bernstein.html?_r=2
- written by Robert L. Bernstein, the founding chairman
emeritus of Human Rights Watch.
-
- The editorial amounts to one regurgitation of Israeli
propaganda after another in an effort to de-legitimize mainstream criticism
of Israeli policies in the international human rights community.
-
- The timing of Bernstein's article is instructive; its
publication in the New York Times comes on the heels of the release of
the Goldstone Report as the intellectual apologists for Israeli crimes
in the U.S. go into ultra-hysteria mode to save the already eroding image
of their favorite client state. Bernstein decries HRW for its supposed
anti-Israel bias and unleashes a tirade of familiar accusations routinely
invoked by "supporters of Israel" to deflect criticism of the
Jewish state. To make the case that HRW-and presumably the international
human rights community in general-has "lost critical perspective"
on Israel-Palestine, Bernstein cites six major points:
-
- 1) There is no "moral equivalency" between
the "democratic and nondemocratic worlds"
-
- 2) HRW spends more time criticizing Israel than it spends
criticizing individual neighboring states
-
- 3) Hamas and Hezbollah use civilians as human shields
and do not fight fairly
-
- 4) The government of Iran supports Hamas and Hezbollah
and seeks to destroy the state of Israel and exterminate all Jews
-
- 5) Weapons are making their way into Gaza and Lebanon
and might be used to strike Israel
-
- 6) Israel only commits wrongs in self-defense while Hamas
and Hezbollah do so intentionally
-
- These claims are all demonstrably false.
-
- What is interesting is that someone in Bernstein's position
surely must be aware of this. In his analysis Bernstein wisely chooses
not to inform his readers of the general political context surrounding
Israel-Palestine-a point to which I will return. For the moment, let's
have a look at Bernstein's primary talking points.
-
- *Moral Equivalency and the Democratic and Nondemocratic
Worlds*
-
- Bernstein begins by explaining that HRW in its birth
originally "sought to draw a line between the democratic and nondemocratic
worlds in an effort to create clarity in human rights" in order "to
pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters."
More to the point, "we wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its
followers," Bernstein declared, "from playing a moral equivalence
game with the West."
-
- Bernstein's suggestion that there is no comparison between
alleged human rights violations inside democratic states as opposed to
abuses in authoritarian and undemocratic states seems to be, at face value,
reasonable. However, the HRW reports of Israeli human rights violations
are almost always (the exceptions being the wars in southern Lebanon) documentations
of Israeli practices and policies in the occupied Palestinian territories
where Palestinians most certainly do not live under the rule of a democratic
state, but rather under the rule of a ruthless, foreign military occupation.
Palestinians in the occupied territories (henceforth OPT) are systematically
denied freedom of movement, assembly, and speech; they are routinely subjected
to violence-often times lethal-at the hands of the IDF and paramilitary
Jewish settlers, both of which act with virtual impunity and are totally
unaccountable to the Palestinians. Jewish settlers living illegally in
the OPT
-
- http://www.icrc.org/IHL.nsf/WebART/380-600056?OpenDocument
-
- enjoy all the rights and privileges that one would attribute
to "the democratic world" while Palestinians in the same territorial
entity essentially live under martial law, in what amounts plainly to an
extremely violent military/police state. Palestinians have absolutely no
rights and no say in the (Israeli) government and military that effectively
rules over them. Bernstein's inference that documented Israeli human rights
abuses take place in "the democratic world" is perhaps his most
absurd and irresponsible assertion. By any standard of law and government
the OPT is a part of-to use Bernstein's terminology-"the undemocratic
world." Of course, the existence of systematic violations of human
rights (like those attributed to Israel) proves that those being subjected
to the abuses are not part of anything that could be even remotely called
a "democracy."
-
- Furthermore, it should be understood that empty and elite
rhetorical concoctions like "moral equivalency" are simply terms
of propaganda used to justify applying to official enemies standards one
refuses to apply to favored states. Suggesting that favored states (Israel
or the West in general) have an inherent moral superiority compared to
disfavored states/parties is totally meaningless. It has been illustrated
time and time again that the internal democratic character of a state does
not necessarily inhibit it from committing gruesome atrocities outside
of its official national boundaries. What difference does it make to the
victims <http://www.uruknet.info/?p=50118> of state violence if the
perpetrator has democratic institutions and provisions in its own national
territory? The real issue at hand is Israel's human rights record, which
leads us to the next point.
-
- *Why does HRW write more about Israel than other states
in the region?*
-
- To illustrate HRW's failures, Bernstein points to the
fact that although "the region is populated by authoritarian regimes
with appalling human rights records," (which it surely is) it is Israel
who receives the most condemnations from HRW. The basis for Bernstein's
objection to this fact (assuming that Israel does receive the most condemnations)
is that Israel is a democracy-rationale that falls flat on its head when
juxtaposed with the reality in the OPT, as illustrated above.
-
- That being said, perhaps Israel receives more attention
from HRW than its neighbors because it does indeed have the worst human
rights record in the region. For over forty years it has been a belligerent
occupier, constantly threatening its neighbors and attacking them at will.
Israel's savage repression of the primarily nonviolent first intifada in
the OPT almost makes the recent crushing of the Iranian popular uprising
look like a tea party. When one thinks of the thousands of home demolitions,
the draconian siege, the multiple invasions of Lebanon, the constant atrocities
and arbitrary killings, the "separation" wall, and the 300 children
murdered in cold blood last winter, it is not difficult to conclude that
Israel likely holds the regional title for "worst human rights record."
-
- Moreover, why should Western human rights activists not
focus on exposing Israeli practices in the OPT? I imagine that supporters
of white supremacy in Apartheid South Africa decried what they saw as the
overemphasis on South African human rights abuses as well. Like South Africa
was, Israel is largely dependent on Western military, economic and diplomatic
support which therefore warrants a corresponding degree of critical attention
in light of the massive abuses. It is also widely recognized <http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Media_Release-378.phtml>
that Israel is imposing an apartheid regime on the Palestinians in the
OPT, as alluded to above. Both Israel's leading human rights group
- http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/200205_Land_Grab.asp
(B'Tselem) and its leading newspaper
- http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/977947.html (Ha'aretz)
have acknowledged this much, as have Former President Jimmy Carter and
countless South African anti-apartheid activists http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1000976.html
including John Dugard http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/d/ContentDetails/i/5240/pid/223
and Desmond Tutu http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1957644.stm.
-
- Apartheid is considered to be a "crime against humanity"
and warrants an international solidarity effort to overthrow it. Instead
of complaining about the fact that rights groups are exposing Israeli crimes,
Bernstein and his ideological cohorts should use their influence to help
put an end to the abuses.
-
- *Human Shielding*
-
- In the most familiar accusation leveled against anyone
Israel attacks, Bernstein desperately parrots the claims of Israel's state
department, noting that Hamas and Hezbollah "use their own people
as human shields." Unfortunately for Bernstein, the documentary record
reveals that by in large, the accusations of the use of human shields on
the part of Hamas and Hezbollah are false, or at best, unsubstantiated.
-
- Taking the most recent conflict with Hezbollah in 2006,
the US Army War College carried out a study <http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=882>
on counterterrorism and guerilla warfare. Despite their heavy reliance
on Israeli military contacts and interviews, the study discovered that
there was no "systematic reporting of Hezbollah using civilians in
the combat zone as shields" and "little or no meaningful intermingling
of Hezbollah fighters and noncombatants."
-
- An Amnesty International report on the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel
war also concluded that no evidence existed that would suggest the use
of civilian shielding on the part of Hezbollah.
-
- http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE02/033/2006/en/195f7
- ad7-d3d7-11dd-8743-d305bea2b2c7/mde020332006en.pdf
-
- However, the study did find that Hezbollah officials
"encouraged or assisted people who had been unable to leave their
villages in south Lebanon to do so." As for Israel, Amnesty noted
that convoys of fleeing civilians were deliberately attacked by Israeli
forces as they attempted to evacuate the area.
-
- Human Rights Watch also reached similar conclusions http://www.hrw.org/en/node/10734/section/10
in its own analysis and report on the 2006 war noting that "available
evidence indicates that in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters
left populated civilian areas as soon as the fighting started and fired
the majority of their rockets from pre-prepared positions in largely unpopulated
valleys and fields outside villages." They went on to report that
"Hezbollah fighters had not mixed with the civilian population"
and that "Hezbollah stored most of its rockets in bunkers and weapon
storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys."
-
- During "Operation Cast Lead" Israel constantly
accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields in an attempt to explain
the massive civilian causalities it was inflicting on the people of Gaza.
None of the independent reports to emerge since the assault on Gaza have
found any evidence to substantiate Israel's claims. The Goldstone Report
did however discover multiple cases http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf
of Israeli military forces and units using Palestinian civilians as human
shields during "Operation Cast Lead" and dedicated twenty full
pages to the chronicling of these abuses (pgs. 280-300). Israeli soldiers
have also since came out and testified as to the IDF's use of Palestinian
civilians as human shields in 'Breaking the Silence'. http://www.shovrimshtika.org/oferet/index_e.asp
-
- *The Devil in Tehran*
-
- Bernstein cites Hamas and Hezbollah's relationship with
the Iranian regime as yet another reason why HRW should sympathize with
Israel. The Iranian regime seeks to destroy Israel and all of the world's
Jews, Bernstein says.
-
- Bernstein should know that Iran does not seek to destroy
Israel <http://www.juancole.com/2009/10/top-things-you-think-you-know-about.html>
anymore than it seeks to destroy itself. If Iran were to even contemplate
an attack on Israel, the entire country would be flattened within moments
by the United States, as everybody knows. I'm afraid that such statements
on the part of Bernstein simply play into the hysteria conjured up by the
US and Israel in service of American state power.
-
- In fact, Iran has accepted the international consensus
on resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. Like every other Muslim state,
it has endorsed the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative <http://www.nad-plo.org/nego/peace/arabpeace.pdf>
which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the OPT alongside
Israel in its pre June 1967 borders-precisely the international consensus
on the conflict's resolution. If Iran seeks to "destroy" Israel,
why would it endorse this mainstream peace plan which recognizes the right
of Israel to live in peace and security in its internationally recognized
borders? Let us not forget that it is Israel and the United States who
have continued to threaten Iran with annihilation and obliteration http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSN2224332720080422.
These threats are also violations of the UN Charter.
-
- *Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! *
-
- Bernstein also warns that HRW "know[s] that more
and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to
strike again."
-
- Israel has the fourth most powerful military in the world
and a stockpile of nuclear weapons big enough to wipe Lebanon, Gaza, and
Iran off of the face of the planet. Last winter Israel slaughtered 1,400
people while sustaining only 13 casualties of its own. The number of Palestinians
killed by Israel in the first three minutes of "Operation Cast Lead"
greatly exceeds the number of Israelis killed by Hamas in the previous
six years.
-
- Nevertheless it is Hamas and Hezbollah that we should
be worried about, Bernstein tell us. While Israel starves the Gaza Strip
into the Stone Age we are supposed to believe that Hamas fighters are developing
serious deterrence capabilities. Putting aside the complete lunacy of Bernstein's
false alarms, readers should keep in mind that the Hezbollah organization
was established to resist the brutal Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.
Likewise Hamas was created for the same reason-to resist Israeli military
occupation of their land.
-
- In any event, it truly surpasses belief that these absurdities
could be even be contemplated in a free society, let alone appear on the
pages of the country's most prominent newspaper.
-
- *Self-Defense and Occupation*
-
- Implying that Israel acts with proportion and in self-defense
and that the Palestinians are the aggressors, Bernstein declares that "there
is a difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated
intentionally." It takes true intellectual discipline to read these
words without breaking into laughter-or tears. Israel is the military occupier
and has been for over forty years. By definition, Israel is the aggressor.
How can Israel claim to be defending itself while it is militarily occupying
other people's lands? By any reasonable standard, one could not call what
Israel does "self-defense."
-
- And while Gaza is still considered "occupied territory"
by all relevant observers http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/14650, the
illegal economic blockade is considered to be "an act of war"
under international law. What are the Palestinians supposed to do? Does
Israel have a right to impose collective punishment on the Palestinians
in Gaza?
-
- While no party is entitled to attack and target civilian
populations, readers should not forget the root cause of Israel's conflict
with the Palestinians, which is unending military occupation and colonization.
Virtually the entire world-including both major Palestinian political groupings
and every Arab and Muslim state-has accepted the principle of resolving
the conflict peacefully via a full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied
territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank
and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. It is Israel-backed by the
United States-who refuses to accept these terms.
-
- Until Robert Bernstein can come to terms with these basic
facts, it is he-not /Human Rights Watch/-who is lost in the Mideast.
-
- * Max Kantar is a Michigan based human rights activist
and freelance writer. He can be reached at maxkantar@gmail.com
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