The path to prejudice: How once-respected human rights groups lost their way and found an enemy in Israel
In the world of human rights, certain names pack a weighty punch: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) first among them. The obvious hostility felt by such organisations to the State of Israel is now well known. But where precisely does all this hostility come from?
In an important contribution to the discussion in today’s Jerusalem Post, Gerald M. Steinberg, executive director of NGO Monitor, proffers an explanation. For Steinberg, much of this has to do with the shift in the terms of the debate at the end of the Cold War during which groups like Amnesty and HRW had largely, though not exclusively, made their reputations through documentation of human rights abuses in communist countries.
“When the Cold War ended,” he says, “HRW and its London-based twin - Amnesty International - adjusted their agendas to maintain influence and donations. They redefined themselves by claiming expertise they do not have on international law in armed conflicts, and their obsessive condemnations of Israel endeared them to the UN, while keeping HRW in the headlines. They were embraced by the anti-Zionist post-colonialists who maintain the flame and adrenalin in the Left-Right battles that raged during the Cold War.”
Steinberg’s article takes its cue from furious attacks on his organisation launched by Daniel Levy — director of the left-leaning New America Foundation’s Middle East Programme — and Larry Derfner — a far-Left columnist.
Both accuse NGO Monitor of effectively smearing the good name of organisations which, they argue, are doing a sterling job in difficult circumstances. Steinberg skillfully shows how their own attacks merely underline his case. Derfner, for example, is quoted as saying:
“The truth known to everyone outside the right-wing echo chamber is that HRW, like Amnesty International, like the International Committee for the Red Cross… are impartial, credible sources of information.”
But in saying this, Derfner condemns himself. For he is clearly acknowledging that this is a right-left standoff after all. As he places the critics of the above mentioned organisations on the right, he perforce places the organisations themselves on the left. One suspects that that was not quite the defence of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that he was hoping to make.
The entire article is well worth reading, as are the links within it. To read the article, click here:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249223904115&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull