On Tuesday, September 8, 2009, NGO Monitor will release a systematic study on Human Rights Watch (HRW), analyzing its activities related to the Arab-Israeli conflict from 2002 through the middle of 2009. This report recounts HRW’s consistent pattern of ideological bias, lack of professional qualifications in contrast to claimed expertise, and unsupported claims based on faulty evidence.
In advance of the monograph’s publication, NGO Monitor op-eds appeared in the Baltimore Sun and the Jerusalem Post (in response to HRW's executive director Ken Roth’s attack against Prof. Irwin Cotler, who criticized the Goldstone Commission), summarizing some of the report’s findings. These articles also discuss HRW’s obsessive support for the one-sided Goldstone Fact Finding Mission - Justice Goldstone was an HRW board member until the beginning of his mission - and demonstrate how “the fate of [HRW] and Goldstone’s commission are closely connected, and exposure of one’s failings unmasks the other.”
The Baltimore Sun
“Israel obsession leads HRW astray,” Gerald Steinberg and Dan Kosky, August 30, 2009
...HRW’s activities in more recent years have been characterized by an obsessive focus on Israel and only muted criticism of dictatorships such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Libya....In May, Arab News reported that HRW officials had visited Saudi Arabia to raise funds, using their pseudo-research on Israel over the Gaza war as bait...Serious questions are rightly being asked of a human rights organization that sees fit to have its pockets lined with the gold of one of the world’s most oppressive countries.
The Jerusalem Post
“Isolating Israel through language of human rights,” Gerald Steinberg, August 30, 2009
NGO Monitor’s detailed research shows that HRW has promoted this strategy by issuing at least 68 calls for “independent investigations” of Israel - including Jenin (2002), Rafah (2004), the Gaza beach incident and the Lebanon war (2006)...The Gaza war gave Roth the opportunity to expand these efforts, and HRW worked closely with the UN Human Rights Council in creating the “independent inquiry” headed by one of its own - Judge Goldstone.
