Posted by David Bernstein:
Human Rights Watch Goes to Saudi Arabia, UPDATE:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_07_12-2009_07_18.shtml#1247622550
[1]I blogged in June about a trip a delegation from Human Rights Watch
took to Saudi Arabia, where Sarah Leah Whitson, director of HRW's
Middle East and North Africa division,highlighted HRW's battles with
"pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the
United Nations."
The piece, based [2]on a story in Arab News, was reprinted [3]today in
the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com. This, in turn, was
spotted by the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, as detailed by [4]the
Jerusalem Post:
In the opening shot of a battle Jerusalem has decided to wage with
NGOs it deems biased against Israel, the Prime Minister's Office on
Tuesday slammed a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) fundraising
delegation to Saudi Arabia as evidence the organization has lost
its "moral compass."
"A human rights organization raising money in Saudi Arabia is like
a women's rights group asking the Taliban for a donation," Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev said Monday.
"If you can fundraise in Saudi Arabia, why not move on to Somalia,
Libya and North Korea?" he said. "For an organization that claims
to offer moral direction, it appears that Human Rights Watch has
seriously lost its moral compass."
Ms. Whitson has responded, both in the Post and on OpinionJournal,
asserting that contrary to the impression left by the Arab News
(which, she notes without irony, is subject to government censorship),
she did discuss Saudi Arabia's abysmal human rights record while on
her trip. Perhaps Ms. Whitson will share a transcript of her remarks
with us.
Meanwhile, Ms. Whitson acknowledges that the trip involved
fundraising,and she says that HRW obtaining funding from Saudi Arabia
is something to be "applauded." She also does not deny that her pitch
involved trumpeting HRW's battles with what Arab News quotes her as
calling "pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and
the United Nations."
For my part, if Ms. Whitson did indeed criticize Saudi human rights
abuses during her trip, I apologize for suggesting otherwise. But I
still think (a) it's extremely unwise for a human rights group to
raise money in a totalitarian country, even from human rights
advocates in that country; the organization may become dependent on
that funding, which in turn could be cut off by the government at any
time, creating pressure on the organization to downplay its criticisms
of that country; (b) it's more than unwise for HRW to specifically
raise money in Saudi Arabia by portraying itself as an organization
doing battle with "pro-Israel forces," which implies that HRW is
serving as an "anti-Israel force." This suggests either that HRW isn't
concerned about its reputation for evenhandedness, or that it's so
maniacally anti-Israel that its leaders just assume that being
anti-Israel is somehow the obvious even-handed position that it
embraces. This obviously plays into the hands of critics like myself
who have previously accused HRW of a lack of objectivity with regard
to Israel. I certainly can't imagine HRW going to Israel and raising
money with the pitch that it is trying to counter-balance "pro-Arab"
or "pro-Saudi" sources.
I'll close with a quote from commenter "Patrick" at the [5]Opinion
Juris blog (scroll down), with whom I rarely agree:
HRW pride themselves on being independent, but this raises two
quasi-existential threats to them. First, the poisonous allure of
Israel-bashing does sometime threaten to contaminate and devalue
not only their other work, but the numerous legitimate criticisms
that might be made of Israel. Secondly, I know that it is almost
sweetest if rich Saudis can be convinced to fund HRW, but there is
a real risk of giving very wrong impressions by soliciting same.
HRW appear not to have so much managed that risk as blatantly
embraced it.
References
1. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_14-2009_06_20.shtml#1245159018
2. http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=122880&d=26&m=5&y=2009
3. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124528343805525561.html
4.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443811032&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
5.
http://opiniojuris.org/2009/06/16/david-bernsteins-caricature-of-human-rights-watch/
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