Bashing Human Rights Watch

As a founder of Human Rights Watch, Robert L. Bernstein is a distinguished moral voice. So he stunned the human rights community last week when he leveled a devastating attack on the work of the organization he also chaired for two decades. He accused Human Rights Watch's Middle East division of giving Israel the "brunt" of its criticism while it "ignored" other countries in the region. The powerful denunciation in a New York Times Op-Ed article was swiftly endorsed by other eminent figures, including Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel.

Bernstein is mistaken. His attack displayed a disregard for the facts as well as a flawed perspective. He undermines Human Rights Watch's honorable and courageous work. He also undermines something even more vital at this moment: a healthy discussion in the United States about the Middle East.

Bernstein's wrath seems to have been stirred by Human Rights Watch's critical reports on Israel's military incursion against Hamas in Gaza last December and January, which left more than 1,000 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead. He is understandably apprehensive that such condemnations help "those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state."

At the outset of his Op-Ed article, Bernstein floated the notion that Israel should not be subject to scrutiny because it is a self-monitoring, open, democratic society. Would Bernstein reasonably argue that Human Rights Watch had no business reporting on human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib prison committed by the U.S.? Bernstein says that when Human Rights Watch was founded, the group saw its mission as prying open closed societies. But the organization has long acknowledged that human rights are universal and all societies are capable of violating them.