[WCUSP] Shame on Human Rights Watch!

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

November  29, 2006 
Rush to Judgment
 
Human Rights Watch Must  Retract Its Shameful Press Release
 

By NORMAN G. FINKELSTEIN 
Even by the grim standards of Gaza, the past five months have been cruel  
ones. 
Some four hundred Palestinians, mostly unarmed  civilians, have been killed 
during Israeli attacks. (Four Israeli soldiers and  two civilians have been 
killed.) Israel has sealed off Gaza from the outside  world while the 
international community has imposed brutal sanctions, ravaging  Gaza's already 
impoverished economy. 
"Gaza is dying," Patrick Cockburn reported in CounterPunch, "its people are 
on the edge of starvation.A whole society is  being destroyed.The sound that 
Palestinians most dread is an unknown voice on  their cell phone saying they 
have half an hour to leave their home before it is  hit by bombs or missiles. 
There is no appeal. " 
"Gaza is in its worst condition ever," Gideon Levy  wrote in Haaretz, "The 
Israeli army has been rampaging through  Gaza--there's no other word to describe 
it--killing and demolishing, bombing and  shelling indiscriminately....This 
is disgraceful and shocking collective  punishment." 
Predictably Gaza teetered on the precipice of  fratricidal civil war. "The 
experiment was a success: The Palestinians are  killing each other," Amira Hass 
wryly observed in Ha'aretz, "They are  behaving as expected at the end of the 
extended experiment called 'what happens  when you imprison 1.3 million human 
beings in an enclosed space like battery  hens.'" 
It is at times like this that we expect human  rights organizations to speak 
out. 
How has Human Rights Watch responded to the  challenge? It criticized Israel 
for destroying Gaza's only electrical plant, and  also called on Israel to 
"investigate" why its forces were targeting Palestinian  medical personnel in 
Gaza and to "investigate" the Beit Hanoun  massacre. 
On the other hand, it accused Palestinians of  committing a "war crime" after 
they captured an Israeli soldier and offered to  exchange him for Palestinian 
women and children held in Israeli jails. (Israel  was holding 10,000 
Palestinians prisoner.) It demanded that Palestinians "bring  an immediate end to the 
lawlessness and vigilante violence" in Gaza. (Compare  Amira Hass's words.) 
It issued a 101-page report chastising the Palestinian  Authority for failing 
to protect women and girls. It called on the Palestinian  Authority to take 
"immediate steps to halt" Palestinian rocket attacks on  Israel. 
Were this record not shameful enough, HRW crossed  a new threshold at the end 
of November. 
After Palestinians spontaneously responded to that  "unknown voice on a cell 
phone" by putting their own bare bodies in harm's way,  HRW rushed to issue a 
press release warning that Palestinians might be  committing a "war crime" and 
might be guilty of "human shielding." ("Civilians  Must Not Be Used to Shield 
Homes Against Military Attacks") 
In what must surely be the most shocking statement  ever issued by a human 
rights organization, HRW indicted Palestinian leaders for  supporting this 
nonviolent civil disobedience: 

Prime Minister Haniyeh and other Palestinian  leaders should be renouncing, 
not embracing, the tactic of encouraging  civilians to place themselves at 
risk. 

The international community has for decades  implored Palestinian leaders to 
forsake armed struggle in favor of nonviolent  civil disobedience. Why is a 
human rights organization now attacking them for  adopting this tactic? 
Is it a war crime to protect one's home from  collective punishment? 
Is it human shielding if a desperate and forsaken  populace chooses to put 
itself at deadly risk in order to preserve the last  shred of its existence? 
Indeed, although Israeli soldiers have frequently  used Palestinians as human 
shields in life-threatening situations, and although  HRW has itself 
documented this egregious Israeli practice, HRW has never once  called it a war crime. 
It took weeks before HRW finally issued a report  condemning Israeli war 
crimes in Lebanon. Although many reliable journalists  were daily documenting 
these crimes, HRW said it first had to conduct an  independent investigation of 
its own. 
But HRW hastened to deplore the nonviolent  protests in Gaza based on 
anonymous press reports which apparently got crucial  facts wrong. 
Why this headlong rush to judgment? 
Was HRW seeking to appease pro-Israel critics  after taking the heat for its 
report documenting Israeli war crimes in  Lebanon? 
After Martin Luther King delivered his famous  speech in 1967 denouncing the 
war in Vietnam, mainstream Black leaders rebuked  him for jeopardizing the 
financial support of liberal whites. "You might get  yourself a foundation 
grant," King retorted, "but you won't get yourself into  the Kingdom of Truth." 
HRW now also stands poised at a crossroads:  foundation grants or the Kingdom 
of Truth? 
A first step in the right direction would be for  it to issue a retraction of 
its press release and an apology. 
HRW executive director Kenneth Roth "commended"  Israel during its last 
invasion for warning people in south Lebanon to  flee--before turning it into a 
moonscape, slaughtering the old, infirm and poor  left behind. It would seem that 
Palestinian leaders and people, too, merit some  recognition for embracing 
the tactics of Gandhi and King in a last desperate bid  to save themselves from 
annihilation. 
Email HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah  Whitson--_whitsos at hrw.org_ 
(mailto:whitsos at hrw.org)  - and HRW  executive director Kenneth Roth--_RothK at hrw.org_ 
(mailto:RothK at hrw.org) . 
Norman Finkelstein's most recent book is _Beyond  Chutzpah: On the misuse of 
anti-Semitism and the abuse of history_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520245989/counterpunchmaga)   (University of California Press). His web 
site is _www.NormanFinkelstein.com_ (http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/) .



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