Saturday, October 24, 2009
Here is a letter circulating from HRW founder Robert Bernstein rebutting HRW's response (linked here) to his New York Times op-ed criticizing the group he founded. This is devastating:
October 24 2009
In their October 21st letter to the editor, Jane Olson, current chair of Human Rights Watch and Jonathan Fanton, past chair wrote that they "were saddened to see Robert L. Bernstein argue that Israel should be judged by a different human rights standard than the rest of the world." This is not what I believe or what I wrote in my op-ed piece.
I believe that Israel should be judged by the highest possible standard and I have never argued anything else. What is more important than what I believe, or what Human Rights Watch believes, is that Israelis themselves believe they should be held to the highest standard.
That is why they have 80 Human Rights organizations challenging their government daily. Does any other country in the Middle East have anything remotely near that? That is why they have a vibrant free press. Does any other country in the Middle East have anything remotely near that? That is why they have a democratically elected government. That is why they have a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political societies, etc etc etc.
I have argued that open societies , while far from perfect, have ways to correct themselves and that is particularly true in the case of Israel. Millions of Arabs, on the other hand, live in societies where there is little respect for or protection of human rights.
The current argument is whether Human Rights Watch's facts and judgments about the Gaza conflict are correct.That is certainly a necessary and legitimate discussion.
I should add that over the years I have had the highest regard for Human Rights Watch's work around the world and from what I know, with the notable exception of the Middle East, that is still the case.
Robert L. Bernstein
No doubt people sympathetic to HRW will end up saying, "Hah, it's because he's Jewish. With a name like 'Bernstein," what do you expect."
It's sad to say, but his statements would have had greater impact if he had not been Jewish. Oh well, it's a good thing he did speak out, anyway.
RE Joanne's comment:
It's sort of strange that Goldstone's report draws much of its moral authority from the fact that the author is himself a Jew, that HRW's current ceo is a Jew is also a feather in the moral posturing of the organization, yet a critic with a Jewish name would be dismissed as "Hah, it's because he's Jewish."
Bernstein's Jewishness would be much celebrated as extra valid and "courageous" had he aligned himself with the HRW's positions or with Goldstone's conclusions.
Very true, Noga
Richard Bernstein and I have been on the same side of the need for a just society to support, much less allow, free thought and the exchange of ideas for over 30 years.
In 1977 I walked out of the first Soviet Moscow Book Fair as the head of the New York Times Book Company. In spite of Soviet promises, KGB agents were confiscating books by Jewish publishers like Schocken Books as well as confiscating THE RUSSIANS by Hedrick Smith... our bestselling book at the time.
I would not continue to display at a Book Fair which did not respect the First Amendment as it had promised to do, just because it might ruffle the feathers of a totalitarian state.
To its disgrace, the American Association of Publishers elected to disregard this.
Bob Bernstein didn't. Neither did I.
Perfect balance, perfect pitch... and a great sense of the general good for everyone's free speech.
You don't get better than Bob Bernstein. He is no one's lackey.
Thomas Lipscomb
The Annenberg Center for the Digital Future (USC)