An important piece. A paradigm shift on Israel/Palestine is taking place, spurred by Gaza/Goldstone/Netanyahu, and common sense, too; and where is the New York Times? It is fighting the shift. It published a disastrously influential piece by former Human Rights Watch boss Robert Bernstein, trashing Goldstone. Here is Aryeh Neier in Huffpo taking on his former boss on the crucial questions:
Though Bernstein is right to differentiate between closed and open societies, he is wrong to suggest that open societies should be spared criticism for human rights abuses. The United States was an open society when it practiced slavery and racial segregation and when it interred the Japanese-Americans during World War II. It was an open society when it tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A human rights organization that keeps silent on such matters would be worthless. The only way to protect human rights is to hold all to the same standards. Robert Bernstein knew that when he asked me to join him in founding Helsinki Watch. He seems to have forgotten.
The claim that HRW focuses disproportionately on Israel is simply mistaken. When I was Executive Director, we began our work on the Middle East by publishing a book length report on abuses in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. We also reported on Iran, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. Currently, reporting on abuses by others constitutes about 85 percent of Human Rights Watch’s publishing on the region. That reporting on Israel accounts for as much as 15 percent of the organization’s work in the Middle East reflects Israel’s involvement in armed conflicts, a specialty of Human Rights Watch.
The distinction Bernstein makes between "wrongs committed in self-defense and those committed intentionally" is not made by the laws of war. It is also a dangerous distinction. On such grounds, groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq that murdered tens of thousands of civilians after the American invasion of 2003 could claim excuses for their crimes. In Gaza, both sides might claim self-defense and, thereby, justify abuses.
