On the Op-Ed page, more slop from Robert Bernstein, former chairman of Human Rights Watch, attacking HRW and other international orgs over Gaza.
there is a difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated intentionally.
But how does Human Rights Watch know that these laws have been violated? In Gaza and elsewhere where there is no access to the battlefield or to the military and political leaders who make strategic decisions, it is extremely difficult to make definitive judgments about war crimes. Reporting often relies on witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers. Significantly, Col. Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and an expert on warfare, has said that the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”
Yes and how did we know about the killing fields in Cambodia or in Rwanda or in Poland? Other people told us about them; and for some damned reason we chose to believe them.
I got the Kemp propaganda in an email from a family member yesterday. It’s certainly making the rounds. Kemp works for the American Jewish Committee, by proxy, as Blankfort pointed out earlier, something the Times fails to inform its readers; and Eva Smagacz points out that in his piece, Kemp starts using the word "we" halfway thru to identify with the IDF, as against Hamas and Hezbollah.
