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Human Rights Are Too Important to Be Left to Human-Rights Groups

(Sapir) Danielle Haas - For 13 years (2010 to 2023), I was the editor of Human Rights Watch's flagship annual review of global human-rights abuses - World Report. And every few years I would raise the same question: "Why is the Israel-Palestine chapter so long?" - longer than more than 90% of the other chapters, including those highlighting corrupt dictatorships sans free speech, repressive regimes in which women are second-class citizens. There never was a clear explanation, and after so many years, I did not need one. The political and ideological creep in many NGOs has become so pervasive and deep-rooted that Israel has become their watchword of outrage, the focus of disproportionate attention, and the note to sound for signaling fealty to a human-rights movement that is increasingly hijacked by politics and dominated by groupthink. This must change. For too long, human-rights groups have been granted a free pass to serve as society's watchdogs without first proving they are fit to bark. Opaque, unelected, and largely unaccountable, they must finally be required to demonstrate in their own conduct the accountability and transparency they demand of others. As Oct. 7 and its aftermath made clear, the outrage of many rights monitors depends not on human-rights principles, but on who is being abused and who is being accused. Within many NGOs, Israel has become so demonized that there is no space to see Israelis as victims. Israel is, a priori, the aggressor, regardless of the brutal human-rights abuses it suffers. Rights groups had little to say about reporting that Gazan teachers and other staff of UNRWA moonlighted on Oct. 7 as kidnappers, killers, and RPG suppliers. These are enormous organizations. In 2022, Human Rights Watch's annual budget was around $100 million, Amnesty's nearly $400 million, and Doctors Without Borders' more than $2 billion. They answer to virtually no one.
2024-03-25 00:00:00
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