Bashing of Human Rights Watch unfair

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.

Bernstein is just plain wrong that the organization's Middle East program focuses on Israel's alleged human rights violations while ignoring those committed by Arab governments and the Iranian regime. Even a quick glance at Human Rights Watch's Web site, where recent reports are posted, shows that the majority of those on the Middle East relate to countries other than Israel. According to Human Rights Watch, it has produced 1,776 total documents on the Middle East since 2000 — 250, or 14 percent, of which were devoted to Israel.

Bernstein describes a Middle East “populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records,” most of which “remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent.” Without excusing any of them, the reality is not so simple.

Hosni Mubarak's Egypt, for example, is hardly Saddam Hussein's Iraq; the Saudi ruling family cannot be equated with the Taliban either. When it comes to Israel, Mubarak has maintained the 1979 peace treaty throughout his 28 years in power; Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah sponsored the 2002 peace initiative proposing a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace accord.

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