HRW’s Misguided Attacks and Defenses
October 21, 2009
Jillian Bandes at Townhall.com today addresses a recent New York Times op-ed by the founder of Human Rights Watch, Robert Bernstein, who could no longer remain silent about the group’s support for a U.N. resolution that accused Israel of war crimes. He wrote for yesterday’s paper:
As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.
Bandes reports:
Anne Bayefsky, a senior fellow with Hudson Institute, said that Bernstein’s move push HRW to reconsider its decisions with many other international affairs.
“HRW has decided for many years to refuse to do the hard work of confronting human rights abusers who have powerful friends, particularly within the United Nations,” said Bayefsky. “With an annual budget of $40 million a year, the only way to change what has become of this human rights fraud is to withdraw financial support. Let’s hope Bernstein’s call wakes up HRW’s funders first and foremost.”
Even human rights defenders are not immune from politicization.
