When You Come Right Down To It -- There Is No Place For J Street

If J Street is too naive to understand it is providing cover for those who wish to destroy or permanently hobble Israel, then it is too naive to be taken seriously on the fate of Israel. Alternatively, if it is delighted to link hands with those who waive the “Zionism is Nazism” and “9-11 Was an Inside Job” banners either because it finds merit in those views or utility in strengthening the position of those who propound them (what other reason is there to provide a platform for such figures?), then J Street is something else entirely. And in either case it’s not “pro-Israel” by any definition ordinary people would understand that phrase to mean.

Jennifer Rubin

Technorati Tag: Israel and J Street.

Robert Bernstein Defends His Criticism Of Human Rights Watch (Updated)

Last week, Robert Bernstein, former chairman of Human Rights Watch, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, criticizing that group.Human Rights Watch, in turn, responded.

Here is Robert Bernstein's answer to them:

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

UPDATE: Noah Pollak writes about this defense by Bernstein of his original op-ed:

Bernstein’s [original] op-ed was perfectly clear, and the misrepresentation of it perfectly intentional. HRW’s most serious problem is not with Israel — it is with honesty.

Technorati Tag: Human Rights Watch and HRW and Robert Bernstein.

What Is The Most Heavily Bombed Place In The World?

In his report on his visit to Israel, Philip Jacobson notes that:

On a parched strip of the Israeli/Palestinian border, a dustbowl frontier town has a unique boast: per head of population, it is the most heavily bombed in the world. [emphasis added]

The city, of course, is Sderot.

Jacobson reviews the rules for staying alive in that city:

1. I am not to fasten my seat belt. This is the only place in Israel where seat belts are forbidden. Buckling up prevents drivers and their passengers getting out of a vehicle quickly.
2. I am not to play my car radio. It may drown out the warnings.
3. I am not to have a shower if there is nobody else in the house to hear the alarms. Last month, a woman who ignored this rule was washing her hair when she was blown off her feet.
4. Be extra vigilant when it's misty. It can confuse the laser-activated warning systems.

Because of its proximity to the border and the concentration of Hamas-led amateur bomb-makers on the other side, Sderot has a unique civic claim: on a rocket-per-head-of-population basis, it is the most targeted town in Israel, indeed the world.

Of course, Jacobson wrote his article back in February 2008. Since that time, Israel finally hit back after years of seeing thousands of rockets fired from Gaza at civilian targets in Israel.

So what is the situation now in Sderot since Operation Cast Lead?

Not good.

Israel's military says more than 260 rockets or mortar rounds have hit Israeli territory since then, the vast majority landing in open ground. Its air force has retaliated with dozens of air strikes, mostly aimed at Gaza's smuggling tunnels into Egypt.

"This is not resolved," says Noam Bedein who runs a media centre in Sderot, a provincial town close to the Gaza Strip border and often in the firing line for rockets for a decade and particularly since Israel withdrew from the enclave in 2005.

And again the media is silent.

Technorati Tag: Sderot.

J Street's Defenders (Updated)

Lenny Ben-David has been critiquing J Street for its donors, among whom are "Arab-American, Palestinian, Islamic, and pro-Iranian activists."

Ben Smith writes at Politico that a battle has ensued that does not even touch on the issue of Israel itself, with Media Matters defending J Street and attacking Ben-David in return.

Smith notes:

The most interesting thing about this is Media Matters place as a fairly central group in the new, White-House aligned progressive infrastructure; if they're defending J Street, that's because J Street is seen as part of a team that is basically aligned with the White House. (The White House and some prominent Democrats on the Hill are also standing by the group this week.) [emphasis added]

If no one decries this influence of a pro-Israel lobby on the Obama administration--maybe its because everyone recognizes that it isn't.

UPDATE: Jennifer Rubin has a post about J Street and compare it with AIPAC:

Is it really pro-Israel? Well, it doesn’t act like it. Its mission was to provide an alternative to and oppose AIPAC at every turn. The latter’s goal is to promote a robust relationship between the U.S. and Israel and to foster American support for the defense of Israel. To declare yourself against that mission pretty much gives up the game.

Moreover, by declaring that it knows better than Israel, J Street seeks to infantilize the state, to assert that Israel is unable to discern its own interests. Unlike any other state, Israel is declared incompetent to control its own destiny. That’s an odd definition of “pro-Israel.”

But it would explain why the Obama administration would be interested in supporting it.

Technorati Tag: J Street.

Gerald Steinberg Of NGO-Monitor Responds To Andrew Sullivan

In Andrew Sullivan: Assault On The Written Word, I responded to Andrew Sullivan's response to Robert Bernstein's critique of Human Rights Watch.

Here is a copy of a letter sent by Gerald Steinberg of NGO-Monitor to Andrew Sullivan

Mr. Sullivan,

In his oped, Robert Bernstein criticized HRW on many aspects, but the responses defending HRW focus on "open vs, closed societies". Before answering your critique on this point, here are two of Bernstein's dimensions that have been largely ignored:

1) "Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."

2) "Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. ...."

On the question of whether HRW focuses grossly disproportionate resources to target Israel, "helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state", simply counting publications from the Middle East division is very misleading. Some HRW statements are "fire and forget", while others (mainly when Israel is the target) are accompanied by major marketing campaigns. HRW issued four lengthy and largely fictitious "research reports" condemning Israel in six months -- each with a press conference at the American Colony Hotel (the hub of the Palestinian media campaign) in Jerusalem, numerous one-on-one press interviews, and meetings with diplomats. In contrast, most of the statements on the Saudi, Egypt, etc. are quickly buried, with no UN investigations , sanctions or ICC action. The token report on Hamas rocket attacks (HRW's artificial "balance" and involving no research) appeared six months after the war ended, with no mention of Iranian support and weapons. A week later, HRW held another press conference which generated far more attention via the sensational (and fabricated) charge that the IDF killed Palestinian civilians waving white flags. The Hamas rocket report, like HRW's criticism of Hezbollah in 2006, was immediately forgotten.

None of this means that violations by Israel and other democratic societies involved in dirty asymmetric warfare should be ignored. But this is far from the grossly disproportionate targeting of Israel by HRW's biased Middle East division, which, among other damage, is responsible for the total devaluation of universal human rights norms.

Technorati Tag: Human Rights Watch and HRW and Andrew Sullivan.

Andrew Sullivan: Assault On The Written Word

Well, at least Mr. Sullivan and I can agree on his very first sentence in his post The Assault On Human Rights Watch:

That was quite an op-ed by its former head yesterday in the NYT. Robert Bernstein argued that violations of human rights were worse in closed than in open societies and that it was therefore important to focus on abuses in the former rather than the latter. That takes us back to the old moral equivalence debate. And Bernstein is obviously right that repression in countries surrounding Israel is exponentially worse than anything in the Jewish democracy. The question is whether that should lead us to ignore abuses by Israel or the US, for example, because overall, their records are far better. I don't see why we should.

It's after that point that Andrew Sullivan get's into trouble. He claims Bernstein implies we should "ignore abuses by Israel or the US, for example, because overall, their records are far better."

Far from it.

Here is what Robert Bernstein actually wrote:

Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.

Bernstein is merely pointing out that considering the large number of human rights groups in Israel itself, Human Rights Watch should not be focusing on Israel at the expense of totalitarian countries in the Middle East.

As a matter of fact, Bernstein does not even argue that Human Rights Watch should ignore Israel totally and only investigate the other countries in the region.

Sullivan's other argument centers on Bernstein's statment that:

...in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.

Andrew Sullivan responds:

I guess "written" and "condemnations" is a vague formulation, so Bernstein may be referring to something beyond these reports. And violations of "international law" may be affected by Israel's many wars beyond its borders, compared say, with Egypt's or Jordan's. But in the Israel and Occupied Territories section, I counted several reports on both Israeli and Palestinian abuses. Here are a few Bernstein may have missed in the last two years alone:

Hezbollah’s Rocket Attacks on Israel in the 2006 War

Palestinian Rocket Attacks on Israel and Israeli Artillery Shelling in the Gaza Strip

Violence against Palestinian Women and Girls

The Perilous Situation of Palestinians in Iraq

Palestinian Abuses in Gaza and the West Bank

Hamas Political Violence in Gaza

Harm to Civilians from Palestinian Armed Groups’ Rocket Attacks

The Egypt section is as long as that devoted to Israel and Palestine; the Iran section seems to me in need of urgent updating.

Those reports were published in August 2007, June 2007, November 2006, September 2006, July 2008, April 2009, and August 2009 respectively. If you're wondering why he stopped at 2006, it's because no report came out about Palestinian abuses in 2005 and the one that came out in January 2004 covered 2003.

There are a number of reports on Egypt--6 in 2007 alone. However, there is also one in 2008 and none for this 2009. Have things gotten better in Egypt? Not for young Egyptian blogger Mohamed Refaat, who has been imprisoned since July 2008. HRW did come out with a report specifically about Gilad Shalit not being granted his rights under International Law--but made sure to mention accusations of Israel being guilty of the same thing.

On Lebanon, no reports came out from 2000-2005. Of the existing reports, there is one on Iraqi refugees and one on Sri Lankan workers--but other than one report critical of Hezbollah rocket attacks against Israel, no criticism of the Lebanese government.

Sullivan admits Human Rights Watch's shortcomings regarding Iran. Did he notice that from 2000-2003, there were no reports on Syria during those 4 years? Or in 2006 or 2008 either.

Does the HRW coverage of those countries compare to the multiple reports Human Rights Watch has put out year after year about Israel?

Andrew Sullivan claims that "I don't see an Israel obsession or an obvious anti-Israel bias on the website"--we can only assume that he looked through the website more closely than he read Robert Bernstein's op-ed.

Read also Gerald Steinberg's response to Sullivan.

Technorati Tag: Human Rights Watch and HRW and Andrew Sullivan.

Do You Obamu? Obama Inspires A New Japanese Word

What is it about US leaders and foreign languages?

First there was Condoleeza Rice::

The long buildup to Annapolis, together with Ms. Rice’s many trips to the region, have given birth to a new verb in Israeli government circles: “lecondel,” meaning, to come and go for meetings that produce few results. The word is based on Ms. Rice’s first name.

Now comes Obama's turn:

A contributor to a mailing list for Japanese-English translation that I read reports that the verb obamu is gaining currency on the Kyoto University campus. He writes, “It means something along the lines of, ‘to ignore anything which appears to make you likely to fail or (be) wrong, and blindly surge ahead (preferably chanting, “yes we can, yes we can”)’.” He adds that he heard a friend jokingly try to cheer someone up by saying, “obandoke, omae.”

If I had to translate that on the fly, it would come out something like, “Lighten up and think positive, guy!”

A quick look at the Japanese-language turf on the Internet turns up few examples, but one in particular is meaningful. I found it as an entry dated 22 September in a collection of slang and modern usage put together by the Japanese Teachers’ Network in Kitakyushu. Here’s what they write:

obamu: (v.) To ignore inexpedient and inconvenient facts or realities, think “Yes we can, Yes we can,” and proceed with optimism using those facts as an inspiration (literally, as fuel). It is used to elicit success in a personal endeavor. One explanation holds that it is the opposite of kobamu. (which means to refuse, reject, or oppose).

They give the following example...Or, “Hey, why are you so down in the dumps? Cheer up, cheer up!”

That people cite its use in cities as far apart as Kyoto and Kitakyushu suggests some fire might be under those wisps of smoke.

One more Japanese-language citation is from a Twitter tweet, which defines it simply as believing you can accomplish something.

Writing about this phenomenon, James Fallows concludes:

It will be a good sign for Obama if his name continues to be used in this mainly-positive context.

Really? Hakuna Matata it ain't. Fallows' comment in itself may be an example of obamu.

Technorati Tag: Obama and Japanese.

Former Chairman Of Human Rights Watch: HRW Has Lost Focus (Updated)

In an op-ed in today's New York Times, Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast, former Human Rights Watch chairman Robert L. Bernstein (1978-1998) writes that the focus of HRW has centered on Israel--unnecessarily:

Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.

Note that Bernstein does not claim that oversight by human rights groups is unnecessary. He instead points out that there are a multitude of groups doing what Human Rights Watch should be doing in those countries that lack the open criticism that Israel allows.

Bernstein makes another significant point, in direct contradiction to Judge Goldstone and the Goldstone Report. According to the Goldstone Report:

The [UN] Mission is unable to form an opinion on the exact nature or the intensity of their [Hamas's] combat activities in urban residential areas that would have placed the civilian population and civilian objects at risk of attack. While reports reviewed by the Mission credibly indicate that members of Palestinian armed groups were not always dressed in a way that distinguished them from civilians, the Mission found no evidence that Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population with the intention of shielding themselves from attack.

Recall that Richard Goldstone used to be a member of the board of Human Rights Watch--until he was pushed to resign because of the evident conflict of interest.

In contrast to the Goldstone Report's claim that there was "no evidence that Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population with the intention of shielding themselves from attack,"--Bernstein points out that exactly the opposite is the case:

Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.

Bernstein concludes:

Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world. If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished.

This is no mean feat. Another Bernstein, David Bernstein of Volokh Conspiracy has written:

From now on, every HRW report on Israel is going to be greeted with "you mean the Saudi-funded HRW," or "you mean the report written by the woman [HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson] who is a great admirer of Norman Finkelstein and lobbied Kofi Annan against Israel in the middle of the Second Intifada" or "you mean the report written by the guy [Stork] who supports the anti-Israel boycott movement and has been venting his hostility to Israel for almost forty years" or "you mean HRW, the organization that fails to take down from its website anti-Israel reports even when it has admitted they are inaccurate," and so on.

Human Rights Watch has a lot of work to do before it can regain its credibility.

UPDATE: Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute, is not satisfied with the extent of Bernstein's critique:

But in his Times article, Bernstein does not go far enough. HRW’s critical reporting on Israel and its concomitant failure to detail fully the abuses of Muslim and Arab governments are only part of the problem. More broadly, HRW has long advanced an international criminal process that is blind to the stark moral and ethical differences between open and closed societies. HRW helped spearhead U.S. support for the U.N. Human Rights Council, despite prescient warnings that the Council would be no different from the politicized and discredited Human Rights Commission that it replaced. HRW continues lobbying for a permanent worldwide criminal system. Indeed, HRW wants the U.S. to join the International Criminal Court, a move that could lead to American leaders’ being charged as war criminals. It is this politically charged international human-rights process that has given the Goldstone Report traction, and that now poses an existential threat to Israel’s economy.

Once considered the world’s preeminent human-rights group, Human Rights Watch has been thoroughly discredited in both its substantive reporting and its strategy to advance a flawed international criminal process.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Human Rights Watch and HRW and Goldstone Commission Report.

Goldstone Report: Desperation

Judge Goldstone has felt the need to write another op-ed for The Jerusalem Post. He opens his remarks with:

Five weeks after the release of the Report of the Fact Finding Mission on Gaza, there has been no attempt by any of its critics to come to grips with its substance.

Wow! This is simply a gross error of humongous proportions.

Let's see.
The report comes out on September 15.
On September 24, Israel came out with:

Initial Response to Report of the Fact Finding Mission on Gaza Established Pursuant to Resolution S-9/1 of the Human Rights Council

...The initial comments set out in this paper are not a comprehensive account of the errors and distortions in the Report. Rather these comments identify some of the most troubling tendencies and implications of the Report and the process that produced it, both for Israel and for any nation involved in armed conflict with terrorist organizations, under the following headings:.

• The Mandate of the Mission
• The Composition and Conduct of the Mission
• Selection of Incidents
• Evidentiary double standards
• Misrepresentations of law and fact
• Simplistic approaches to complex military challenges
• Minimizing terrorist threats – and vindicating terrorist tactics
• Legal and Pseudo-legal findings
• Dismissal of national investigations and legal systems
• One-Sided Recommendations
• The Mandate

Read the whole thing--we already know that Judge Goldstone hasn't

On October 2, CAMERA came out with an analysis as well: The Goldstone Report: A Study in Duplicity. CAMERA breaks down its critique of the report this way:

1. Gaza Falsehood List
2. Double Standards List
3. Gaza Falsehoods Details
4. Gaza Double Standards Details
5. Other Errors and Issues
6. Links

Check it out.

Goldstone has not checked out NGO Monitor either, which started addressing the Report when it first came out, and has continued to come out with analysis ever since.

Of course bloggers have been on the case as well. Elder of Ziyon started enumerating the inaccuracies of the Report on the day it came out--September 15--and as of today is up to inaccuracy #21.

Goldstone did not merely overlook a single blogger, apparently he has not checked out an entire website dedicated solely to Understanding The Goldstone Report.

The site came live on October 12, and divides its articles into the following categories:

• Facts
• Pro and Con
• Procedural Flaws
• Mediators
• Case Study
• Controversies
• Big Picture

Take a look.

Perhaps what Judge Goldstone meant to say was:

Five weeks after the release of responses to the Report of the Fact Finding Mission on Gaza, there has been no attempt by any of its critics to come to grips with its substance.

Yeah, that must be what he meant.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Goldstone Commission Report.

Goldstone Condemns UN Human Rights Council For Endorsing His Report

That is what this charade has come to.

No one should be surprised that the UN Human Rights Council approved Goldstone's Report:

The Human Rights Council voted 25 to 6 Thursday to endorse the report and recommend that other U.N. bodies heed its recommendations.

The report recommends that Israel and authorities in the Gaza Strip prosecute fighters for alleged war crimes committed during last winter's Gaza war and, should that not happen within six months, for the U.N. Security Council pursue such prosecutions. The Human Rights Council resolution cites only Israel.

Sure, the report mentions Hamas, but the UNHRC resolution mentioned only Israel--surprising Judge Goldstone himself. He did not realize that while he was originally assured that his mandate had been magically changed to investigate both Israel and Hamas:

all violations of International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza from 27 December 2008 - 18 January 2009, whether before during or after

nevertheless, in the minds of the members of the UNHRC, the orginal written text--condemning only Israel--was all that mattered:

to dispatch an urgent independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and International Humanitarian Law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission;

In hindsight it is clear that in the new language of Goldstone's mandate, which does not specify Israel by name--Hamas is not mentioned either. Goldstone's mandate was never reworded to be evenhanded, it was merely reworded to be more vague.

Goldstone knew what his report was all about.
But the members of the UNHRC knew better.

Having failed to learn his lesson, Goldstone now wants the text of this resolution changed too: [hat tip: Soccer Dad]

This draft resolution saddens me as it includes only allegations against Isreal. There is not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the report. I hope that the council can modify the text.

Not this time.
Judge Goldstone has been played, and the ultimate loser is Israel--and any other Democracy that is faced with defending itself against terrorists.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Goldstone Commission Report.