(New Republic) Benjamin Birnbaum - Last year, Robert Bernstein, the founder and former chairman of Human Rights Watch (HRW), wrote in the New York Times that his organization was "helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state." Bernstein's op-ed was the culmination of a long struggle inside the organization. The debate revolved around a single question: Was the human rights group being fair to Israel? Bernstein wasn't the only person at HRW who thought the answer was no. According to HRW's own count, since 2000, its Middle East and North Africa division has devoted more reports to abuses by Israel than to abuses by all but two other countries, Iraq and Egypt. That's more reports than those on Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, Algeria, and other regional dictatorships. If you count only full reports, there are roughly as many reports on Israel as on Iran, Syria, and Libya combined.
2010-04-29 08:46:40Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive