Incredible this didn't get diaried (sorry if I missed it), but in the New York Times yesterday, there was an opinion piece written by Robert Bernstein. He was the founder, the chairman for 20 years, and now the chairman emeritus of Human Rights Watch, a once proud organization. He writes:
I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.
Much like the United Nations Human Rights Council, which could have been a beacon for truth and advancement until it was overrun by antisemitism, Human Rights Watch has, according to its founder:
... 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.
Israel has done much wrong in it's conflict with its enemies, but, as Bernstein makes very clear, is still an open, free society. Its enemies, however, again, as Bernstein points out, put Israel in such a tough position by purposefully endangering civilians:
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.
I realize none of this fits the anti-Zionist, International Solidarity Movement, fringe-wacko narrative, but perhaps when the founder of Human Rights Watch comes out in force to say that the criticism of Israel and lack of condemnation of its enemies makes a rational person's head hurt, Israel's consistent detractors should take notice.