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Source: http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/human_rights_in_the_middle_east
Human Rights in the Middle East
(NGO Monitor) Robert L. Bernstein - Robert L. Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, spoke at the University of Nebraska at Omaha on Nov. 10: "Having devoted much of my life to trying to make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights come alive in many places in the world, I have become alarmed at how some human rights organizations, including the one I founded, are reporting on human rights in the Middle East. I have found myself in strong disagreement with the policies and actions in the Middle East of Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations that have similar policies - like Amnesty International and The Carter Center." "During my twenty years at Human Rights Watch, I had spent little time on Israel. It was an open society. It had 80 human rights organizations. It had more newspaper reporters in Jerusalem than any city in the world except New York and London. Hence, I tried to get the organization to work on getting some of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly free speech, into closed societies - among them, the 22 Arab states surrounding Israel."