Posted by David Bernstein:
More on Human Rights Watch's Sarah Leah Whitson:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_02-2009_08_08.shtml#1249369808
The raging controversy over Human Rights Watch's anti-Israel bias,
which was sparked with a blog post here at the VC that was republished
by the Wall Street Journal's [1]OpinionJournal.com, just won't die.
Readers will recall that the piece focused on a talk Sarah Leah
Whitson gave in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in which she tried to win
friends (and their money) by emphasizing HRW's work criticizing
Israel, and HRW's battles against "pro-Israel pressure groups."
Since then, HRW and Israel has been the subject of countless blog
posts criticizing (mostly) and defending (occasionally) HRW, and, as
best as I can tell given my language skills, been the subject of
newspaper articles or editorials in Israel, the U.S., Canada, the
U.K., several Arab countries, Australia, Spain and Italy. HRW has
[2]issued a release defending itself (explaining how important it is
for HRW to counteract the impression in the Arab world that it is
pro-Israel!), and has even taken to proactively responding to
criticism in Jewish media outlets. Meanwhile, various Israeli
government officials [3]criticized Human Rights Watch. According to
reports in the Israeli media, the controversy has led the Israeli
government to reconsider how it interacts with NGOs, and whether it
should be permitting foreign governments to fund local NGOs.
So let me add some additional fuel to the fire.
Sarah Leah Whitson has been HRW's Middle East Director for five years.
Ms. Whitson was a classmate of Barack Obama at Harvard Law School, and
[4]served on the board of the Armenian Bar Association. According to
[5]her bio on HRW's website, "before joining Human Rights Watch,
Whitson worked as an attorney in New York for Goldman, Sachs & Co. and
Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton."
What the official bio doesn't tell you is that Whitson was an active
member of the New York chapter of the American-Arab Antidiscrimination
Committee. She had served on the Steering Committee (source: ADC
Times, Apr 30, 2002). When HRW hired her, she was serving a two-year
term on the new Board of Directors, which replaced the Steering
Committee (Source: ADC Times, Jan. 31, 2004).
The ADC styles itself as a civil rights organization, but like the
Jewish organizations on which it is modeled, it also involves itself
in Middle East issues, specifically by supporting the Arab and
Palestinian cause against Israel. Local chapters are often more active
on foreign policy issues than is the national organization.
And indeed, the New York chapter generally, and Whitson personally,
were active in pro-Palestinian politics. The April 30, 2002, ADC
Times. published at the height of the Second Intifada, with buses and
restaurants being blown up regularly in Israel, reports:
The crisis in Palestine was the main focus of the New York
Chapter's work over the past two months. This work culminated on
April 29 with a meeting for representatives of the ADC with the
United Nations Secretary General [Kofi Annan] set up by members of
the NY Chapter [[6]and see this press release, noting Whitson's
attendance]. ADC Chapter President Nick Khoury and Steering
Committee member Sarah Leah Whitson helped organize this
meeting.... ADC NY members' activism to raise awareness of the
situation of Palestinians has taken many forms. On March 30, we
chartered a bus to DC so that members could participate in the Land
Day Rally at Freedom Plaza. [The New York chapter also held a local
rally].... On April 14, ADC NY organized a silent vigil outside St.
Patrick's Cathedral to draw attention to the fact that Palestinian
Christians are also suffering under Israeli occupation....
The Jan. 31, 2004 ADC Times , which noted Whitson's election to the
Board of Trustees, reported that the New York chapter "continued our
Palestine activism over the summer."
So when HRW hired Ms. Whitson to be its Middle East director, it was
hiring someone that was in the middle of serving what amounted to a
second term on the Board of Directors of an organization that was
firmly and openly on the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli conflict. And
she had personally engaged in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activism
while serving in that position. I don't know whether she resigned her
position when she started working for Human Rights Watch; if she
didn't, it was a clear conflict of interest. Regardless, it should
hardly come as a surprise that one of her first acts at Human Rights
Watch was to involve the organization in political action,
[7]supporting the campaign to get Caterpillar to stop selling tractors
to the Israeli Army.
I've also learned that Ms. Whitson is a self-described big fan and
admirer of Norman Finkelstein. (Source: Anonymous, but the source
provided me with what appears to be airtight documentation). For those
not familiar with Finkelstein, imagine a leftist, male version of Ann
Coulter who instead of attacking liberals and the liberal
establishment, has devoted his career to attacking Israel and the
American Jewish establishment. Imagine, though, that this male version
of Coulter was a less talented writer, and even more offensive in his
description of his adversaries.
Finkelstein's view of the Arab-Israel conflict manifests itself is
such antics as meeting with Hezbollah officials in southern Lebanon
and proclaiming [8]"I think that the Hezbollah represents the hope".
His criticism of pro-Israel American Jews tends to be unusually nasty.
Thus, he comments that [9]photos of Jewish writers Cynthia Ozick and
Ruth Wisse "might induce nightmares.". He also recklessly or
intentionally indulges in rhetoric of the sort that one normally finds
on anti-Semitic hate sites like Stormfront. For example, he writes
that American Jewish leaders [10]"resemble stereotypes straight out of
[Nazi newspaper] Der Sturmer," and that American "Jewish elites" have
"a mindset of Jewish superiority."
Whitson's admiration of Finkelstein has survived the fact that [11]he
has [12]harshly [13]attacked [14]Human Rights Watch and Whitson when
he has deemed them too hard on Israel's adversaries, or too soft on
Israel. By contrast, Whitson has more than once expressed her disdain
for HRW's pro-Israel critics, as when she recently and baselessly
[15]accused some of us of racism). The logical conclusion is that
Whitson is in broad agreement with Finkelstein's extremist anti-Israel
views, and therefore forgives his occasional hostile outbursts.
In short, Human Rights Watch, while purporting to be a neutral arbiter
of human rights issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict, hired as its
Middle East director a person who at the time was intimately involved
in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel political action, and who, not
surprisingly, appears to have rather strongly held, far left-wing
views on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Some self-styled Jewish (and non-Jewish) Progressives like [16]Matthew
Yglesias, dismiss criticism of HRW as "unsupported accusations of
bias" and argue, as far as I can tell on pure faith, that because HRW
is a "human rights organization," it can be trusted on all issues,
including Israel. In fact, by hiring someone like Whitson to be Middle
East Director (and her deputy director Joe Stork, [17]a supporter of
the international boycott campaign against Israel, with an exception
for academics) HRW hasn't even tried to to maintain the appearance of
neutrality or objectivity. And, as I've discussed in previous posts,
HRW's bias manifests itself quite clearly in its "reporting."
References
Visible links
1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124528343805525561.html
2. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_07_12-2009_07_18.shtml#1247835447
3.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443811032&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
4. http://fora.tv/speaker/3285/Sarah_Leah_Whitson
5. http://www.hrw.org/en/bios/sarah-leah-whitson
6. http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=266
7.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2004/11/21/israel-caterpillar-should-suspend-bulldozer-sales
8. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_01_06-2008_01_12.shtml#1199742796
9.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/rated-r-top-photograph-might-induce-nightmares/
10. http://www.volokh.com/posts/1191298186.shtml
11.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/the-shameful-hypocrisy-of-hrw-an-open-letter-from-palestinian-human-rights-organizations/
12.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/human-rights-watch-must-retract-its-shameful-press-release/
13.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/kenneth-roth-and-sarah-leah-whitson-of-human-rights-watch-say-israels-slaughter-is-sad/
14.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/a-shocking-statement-hrw-condemns-palestinians-use-of-nonviolence-to-protect-homes-from-destruction/
15. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_07_19-2009_07_25.shtml#1248314552
16.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/israeli-government-aipac-stepping-up-attacks-on-human-rights-watch.php
17. http://www.spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=1988
Hidden links:
18. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/volokh/posts/1249369808.html
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