October 26, 2009
Human Rights Watch's Bias
Campaign & Advocacy
What qualifies as bias when it comes to human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch, which pledges to defend the defenseless, ideology aside? According to HRW’s founder Robert Bernstein, who was the nongovernmental organization’s active chairman for 20 years and is now founding chairman emeritus, HRW has lost its way when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He says in a New York Times op-ed on Monday, “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.”
HRW issued the following statement: “We fundamentally disagree with Mr Bernstein’s views …Human Rights Watch does not devote more time and energy to Israel than to other countries in the region, or in the world.”
A quick Google search by Mark Gardner of the Community Security Trust is revealing: “As of October 21st, accessing the HRW website and ‘Google’ searching within it for the word Israel gives a return of about 10,700. Sudan gives a return of about 11,500. Sudan, however, is not really in the Middle East, nor North Africa. Iraq is, and it gives a return of about 6,960. So is Iran, which gives about 6,020. Egypt is about 5,360, Saudi Arabia is about 5,290, Libya is about 5,070, and Syria is about 3,220. So, Israeli human rights are basically in the same bracket as Sudan’s and up to twice as bad as the regional average.”
Additionally, there are the 87 criticisms that HRW has published since 2006 on Israeli conduct against the Palestinians and Hezbollah, versus eight criticisms of Palestinian groups and four of Hezbollah for attacks on Israel.
Does HRW have a certain preoccupation with Israel over other countries in the region? Fundamentally disagreeing sounds a bit overstated.
David Peyton is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute and program manager of Global Governance Watch, a joint project of AEI and Federalist Society.
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