Mea Culpa
In a previous post to this blog I cited Alan Dershowitz's attack on Human Rights Watch, and used that as one example of anti-Semtism and exaggerated anti-Israel reaction in light of this summer's Lebanon war. I should have known better than to rely on Dershowitz as a reliable source. (There are enough other example of this phenomenon without using tainted ones.)
It now turns out that Human Rights Watch did not in fact say many of the things ascribed to it, and did say things that Desrhowitz accused it of not saying (e.g. criticizing both Hezbollah and Israel of war crimes and human right violations.)
It seems in retrospect that Human Rights Watch was the victim of a smear campaign, the kind that is often direct at anyone or any organization that criticizes Israel's policies too blatantly.
See this article in the NY Review of Books for more details.
It now turns out that Human Rights Watch did not in fact say many of the things ascribed to it, and did say things that Desrhowitz accused it of not saying (e.g. criticizing both Hezbollah and Israel of war crimes and human right violations.)
It seems in retrospect that Human Rights Watch was the victim of a smear campaign, the kind that is often direct at anyone or any organization that criticizes Israel's policies too blatantly.
See this article in the NY Review of Books for more details.
posted by Sydney Nestel at 4:34 pm
2 Comments:
Human Rights Watch was also the first to put out a balanced report on events at Jenin during Mivtza Homat Magen (Operation Defensive Shield).
two things:
1) After seeing dersh. at york, where he gave a speech with more bluster and bs then with facts on the ground (he made a moral equvilence between the palestinians and nazis -- and between the israelis and the americans), i'd be disinclined to trust him as a source.
2) Although, HRW can give balanced reports, i also tend to mistrust them based on their reporting of venezeulan issues, where no balance is achieved rather they only give blatant anti-chavez statements as facts. So no balance is achieved. But on colombia they are mostly good...
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