Human Rights Watch's fundraising in Saudi Arabia has cast a welcome light on the organization's anti-Israel agenda. Much of the response among HRW's defenders has been along the lines of, "how dare you attack a human rights organization? Typical right-wing Zionist crap, attacking the messenger."
This criticism, of course, presumes that HRW is acting in good faith as a neutral human rights arbiter. The other possibility is that HRW's Israel policy is driven by a leftist "anti-colonialist" agenda masquerading as a human rights agenda, and using the halo effect of HRW's human rights work in other regions to provide it with credibility.
The evidence strongly suggests the latter.
Take a look at NGO Monitor's investigation of HRW's Middle East staff. It includes researcher Nadia Barhoum. Barhoum is a Palestinian activist who publicly supported divestment from Israel because of its "apartheid" policies.
A blog she wrote while living in the Palestinian territories hardly shows an even-handed concern with human rights abuses emanating from the Palestinian side. Here's what she wrote after Hamas won election in Gaza:
right now, the western powers are threatening to halt aid to the palestinians on account of hamas and its stance on the use of violence against the state of israel. ironic, because i never once heard a western power threatening to discontinue its billions of dollars in aid to israel on account of the violence used daily against palestinians.
And that's just one example. Read the whole NGO Monitor report.
Of course Human Rights Watch could counter that it hires "activists" on all sides, because they have a particular incentive to ferret out abuses by their opponents. A dubious argument, but completely undermined by the fact that HRW doesn't hire pro-Israel activists, and it's laughable to think it ever would.
That doesn't mean that HRW is never right when it points out perceived Israeli wrongdoing. It just means that HRW's reports on Israel should be treated with the same skepticism one would treat them if they came from any other anti-Israel NGO. The "human rights" halo is a false one, and the presumption of good faith unwarranted.
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So there is not a single person on HRW's staff that is "pro-Israel" (whatever that means)? And it's "laughable" to think that they would ever hire such a person? And you know all this...how?
Res ipsa loquitur. If there were anyone pro-Israel working for HRW, they would have produced an Ode to Bibi by now. Since no one has, the conclusion inevitably follows.
Moreover, I didn't say HRW was "pro-Arab." I said it was "anti-Israel," and provided proof that it hires Palestinian political activists as "human rights" researchers, and provided links that show that it's top Middle East staff are associated with far leftist, anti-Israel causes.
BTW, Nadia Barhoum is totally hot.
Given your statement above, that would be like saying in the 1940's, that sure, maybe both Hitler and Stalin are raving totalitarian maniacs bent on the mass murder of tens of millions of people in their quest to take over the planet, but, hey, look at how the US is persecuting poor innocent Alger Hiss. Both sides must be equally morally reprehensible. Let's take our limited resources for investigating and agitating for "human rights" and go toe-to-toe against the evil US government. Not only that, but let's go supplicate Adolph and Josef to fund our fight against this fascist American regime.
It's pretty obvious why the left is against Israel and is allied with the Muslims in the present. Since the US is responsible for all the evil in the world, then its allies must be evil as well, and its enemies on the right side of this conflict.
As are most of your comments here, but that hasn't stopped you. Happily for Kontorovich, he is a noted international law scholar. One word appraisals from the likes of you just don't cut the mustard.
OTOH, we might try applying a bit of rational choice theory: Since complaining about human rights abuses in Syria is about as useful as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum (© Baz Luhrman), it might be more useful to complain about a country that might actually listen.
I'm just glad someone's reading...
As for prof. Kontorovich's OJ posts, the good thing about Opinio Juris is that they frequently engage in blog-debate. Kontorovich's posts have been refuted much better than I ever could have by OJ regular Kevin John Heller (part 1 and part 2), although some of the comments to EK's posts are also well worth reading.
"Anti-Israel" does not necessarily mean "pro-Arab".
When human rights advocates were compiling evidence of the human rights abuses of the Soviet Union, would they have been discredited if they were anti-Soviet Union? Or would that have been the natural outcome of their work?
I also think the incident that brought this discussion to the top of the blogosphere this week - the fundraising in Saudi Arabia - is a bit overblown. When you engage in fundraising, you will structure your pitch to the concerns of the listener. If I was fundraising for a human rights group among American conservatives in 1981, I would probably pitch to them a narrative about the work my group was doing in Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union. Even if that was only a part of my group's total portfolio of work. I would do so because that would have been how to get that particular audience to open their wallets.
My comment amounted to "If you want to read someone carefuly explaining why everything EK wrote is wrong, look here." At the same time, it aimed to satisfy your apparent need for an argument from authority. (Since my word was apparently not good enough, I gave you the word of an actual international law professor instead.)
Yes, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin wall, it's still one big communist conspiracy.
Martinned, that is a tempting construction, that human rights groups should focus their energy where it might do the most good. But look where it leads. Those of sensitive conscience will become the recipient of more attention, while those with no conscience will receive progressively less. It would be a perverse incentive to punish countries the better they are and ignore them the worse they are on human rights. First rule of behaviorism: don't punish good behavior, don't reward bad behavior.
no consensus, I thought martinned's other comment was more off topic than anything. There are pro-Israel advocates he disagrees with - what's that got to do with the current discussion?
The fact that HRW doesn't give Israel a clean bill of health only lumps Israel in with about 190 other countries. Since the organization is almost constitutionally incapable of differentiating between severity of alleged offenses, the existence of the death penalty in Papua New Guinea and the mass rape of subject peoples by the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo are treated as equally newsworthy.
Therefore, Prof. Bernstein, I don't necessary buy your hypothesis that HRW secretly harbors an anticolonialist agenda beneath a more universally-acceptable veneer of human rights activism. HRW is more than free with its broadsides against former colonizers and colonized alike. Rather, I would suggest that other media outlets (with wider circulation) immediately seize on criticism of Israel (and America, which HRW also criticizes at great length on more-than-sporadic occasions) because they know what gets eyeballs. The magnification effect of the media echo chamber (including Internet media) gives the impression that HRW singles America and Israel out for more special treatment than is actually the case.
I'm still not going to defend them overmuch, since I think that they try too hard to expand the definition of what constitutes a human rights violation and that their blindness vis-a-vis severity serves no needful purpose. That said, I think you go just a hair too far in your obloquy.
Nothing. I only pointed it out because both sides combine to a pretty interesting discussion which, unlike the OP here, is actually about the nuts and bolts of human rights law. I figured some of the commenters here might like to read it.
I think it is a pretty good description of how human rights NGOs actually work, though. When an opressive regime has a moment of weakness, like Iran recently, they do what they can, but the rest of the time they focus their efforts where it can do the most good.
Think about the detention of high valued detainees in Bush's war on terror. That detention required the collaboration of several states, the US weren't doing it alone. But the bulk of the effort to end this practice was focused on the US, not only because the US were seen as the instigators, but also because campaigning in the US is more likely to pay off, compared to campaigning in Egypt or Pakistan. The problem wasn't that GITMO was worse than what, say, the Egyptians are doing to their prisoners. It's just that going after GITMO might actually work.
Since Israel makes up less than 5% of the population in a region rife with human rights abuse, is anyone arguing they get 5% of HRW attention? Hah. I couldn't tell you what percent they get, but its certainly wildly disproportional to their population. How many Palestinians have been killed in the last 20 years, even including those actively shooting at Israelis? Pick a number- I promise you it would be a bad weekend in a true genocide like Rwanda.
As far as the low hanging fruit point- great, but stop pretending you are standing up against the most heinous abuses known to man. In fact, take that logic to its obvious conclusion and stick to shaking down American corporations like Jessie Jackson.
By that argument, though, China and India should get almost all of HRW's coverage. The US and Indonesia should get the next largest shares. And once you get down out of the twenty most populous countries, you're practically dealing in rounding errors.
Also by that argument, Rwanda should have been practically ignored. It population was tiny. It just also got a whole lot tinier in a not-so-tiny hurry.
Who is doing that? My sense is that they're saving that retoric for Darfur at the moment.
I obviously didn't mean pure population. The logical way to do it is to consider the amount of people and how badly they are being abused. Body count is the obvious metric for this- its just about the ultimate abuse and its a clear number to count. Its when you get into more less quantifiable abuse that things get confusing.
But lets get real- is the plight of two hundred prisoners at Gitmo (3 of which were waterboarded) remotely important compared to, say, the abuses of a police state like North Korea that has its boot on the throats of tens of millions? HRW is a private organization, they can do what they want. But they can and will be called out for their hypocrisy.
I don't think its a particularly compelling argument to say that HRW et al don't spend much relative effort taking on the monster regimes because its too hard. Of course its hard, but in that case the people need the help all that much more. Its hard, but success would be far more impactful on far more lives. I guess cops could just patrol nice neighborhoods too... after all, its much easier.
And I don't even know if I buy the utility argument- if that were the case it should be wall to wall Iran coverage, where millions of people are being badly abused AND where HRW can lend material and moral support to reformers. I know they are working on Iran, but its hardly drop everything, bottom of the ninth bases loaded.
1. I suspect that human rights organizations allocate their efforts based on the ability to make a difference with their donors' funds, rather than based on body counts.
2. I do not think that allocating resources based on body counts will put Israel off the radar screen (assuming a per capita analysis, rather than an absolute number analysis in which all countries with an oppressed population smaller than China's are disregarded).
Of course, as the rabbis say, he who saves one life saves the entire world...
Hypocrisy is such a stupid thing to talk about. Ok, so how many North Koreans have YOU saved from oppression recently?
None, but I don't claim i'm trying to.
1. I suspect that human rights organizations allocate their efforts based on the ability to make a difference with their donors' funds, rather than based on body counts.
I'm sure thats what they think they are doing, its an easy justification. Of course Israel has occupied the WB for almost 50 years now, so I'm not sure at what point they decide they aren't 'making a difference' and move on to something easier still. Why not just compete with the ACLU and spend their resources getting the 10 commandments out of court houses? There's your bang for your buck.
But you're telling others that's what they should be doing with their time, while not doing it yourself. That's hypocrisy. You're not a self-styled professional human rights observer, I imagine, but you're going to tell those who are how to do their jobs? Hypocrisy.
But really, hypocrisy is a stupid topic. At root, it's nothing more than an argument ad hominem. Is anything they've said wrong? Does the measure of oppression in one place mean that their descriptions of injustice anywhere else is less accurate?
Um, that's not hypocrisy. Armchair quarterbacking, perhaps, but not hypocrisy. That's no more hypocritical than criticizing the IDF despite never having worn an Israeli army uniform, or criticizing investment bank compensation structures despite never having been a banker.
So if I tell my buddies at the bar that Derick Jeter should be working on his swing, I'm a hypocrite because i'm not trying out for the Yankees? Bad news for the blogosphere. What else do we all do all day long but talk about how things should be being done. I suspect we have different ideas of what hypocrisy is.
Sure it is - if he's telling the HRW/IDF/investment bankers that what's really important is goal X, while doing nothing to advance goal X himself, that's hypocrisy.
As there's nothing you can actually do to help Derek Jeter work on his swing, I think you're excused there.
However, if you claimed to be a Yankees fan, but never went to a game, bought any gear, and never watched one on TV/radio, then I think a charge of hypocrisy could stick, since that's how fans actually support the Yankees.
So this wouldn't be an argument ad hominem, then?
Speaking of which, what's wrong with anti-colonialism?
I happen to live in a country founded on anti-colonial principles.
(If Israel does not want to be tagged as "colonialist" or "imperialist," then for one thing, their arguments re: settlements should not bear such a strong whiff of what America did to the Indians.)
Ah yes, that old dodge. As a result, the Human Rights, Inc. brays incessently about minor violations in the West "because it can make a difference" and thus wittingly or unwittingly provides aid and comfort to truly horrible regimes.
I, for one, appreciate DB's leaving the comments open on contentious subjects, and also his continuing participation in the discussion.
But what trier of fact would prefer "real documentation" over eyewitness accounts? And what kinds of documents is he even talking about? If he's talking about documents prepared by a party in interest solely for purposes of the dispute, we pretty much ignore those, don't we?
And as far at that little synopsis of HRW's findings and the notion that statements of the IDF cannot be trusted, I seem to recall there is a full time columnist with Haaretz, Gideon Levy, who has said much the same and on many occasions. So is he on the payroll of the House of Saud? Is he ignorant of what he speaks?
So the idea is that HRW criticising Israel allows China to do whatever it likes to the Uighurs? How does that work?
Ultimately this argument boils down to: "As long as North Korea exists, no one is allowed to devote any resources at all to criticizing anyone other than North Korea." And that's absolutely absurd.
If your neighbor was beating his wife out in the street, would you call the police? Or would you say to yourself, "Wait, now. There are worse injustices going on in North Korea. I should completely ignore what my neighbor is doing, because it would be wrong of me to expend any energy on it when I could be trying to think of a way to topple the government of North Korea instead."
If your son needed tonsil surgery, would you get it? Or would you say, "Well, the money I could spend on his tonsil surgery would do a lot more good if I sent it to be spent on mosquito nets to fight malaria."
Come on, give me a break.
The bottom line on criticism of HRW on the Israel issue has nothing to do with whether there are other countries that are worse. It has to do with the fact that even if everything HRW said about Israel was 100% true, Israel's advocates would want them to shut up about it. "Israel's security is threatened, therefore it doesn't matter what they do. They step outside the lines sometimes, but by an amount we think is OK. Since we think it's OK, everyone else should too." That's the real mindset behind these attacks and the rest of it is rhetorical windowdressing.
To an extent, yes it does. Attention is a limited good. The time and effort spent on Israel-Palestine is far, far out of proportion to it's importance compared to far more horrific injustices.
Well, is there anyone in the world you think IS helping North Koreans? That might be a good place to start.
I don't think Prof. Bernstein would agree.
The analogy struck me while listening to NPR (doubtless another anti-Israeli outfit ... aren't they all?), on which someone speaking for the Israeli point of view was discussing the "natural expansion" of the settlements due to birth rate etc., which was reminiscent of the argument that the Americans needed room to expand into the Indians' territories.
The American situation has other analogies; the Indians did commit atrocities and offenses, but their relative power vs. the U.S. was never in doubt. It also brings the situation home, as it were; Americans cannot be complacent about either the Israeli or Palestinian point of view when we remember How the West Was Won.
And how would more attention for the Uighurs restrain China? This time, they even invited all the foreign journalists to have a front row seat while they take care of those pesky Uighurs. No amount of Western attention is going to change that.
(If we did the unthinkable and actually put our money where our mouths are by imposing some economic sanctions against China, that still wouldn't make a difference. When it comes to Taiwan, Tibet or Xinjiang, the Chinese are immune to reason.)
A real trier of fact would want both, and would allow the side against whom the eyewitness testimony was offered to question the biases, perceptiveness, and memory of the witness.
Also, "documentation" of Israeli war crimes would mean things like photos, video, and audio of events actually happening. Obviously, even those are subject to manipulation, but as the old adage goes, the palest ink is better than the best memory.
Tiresome.
It also doesn't respond to the question of Levy's motivations. To the extent HRW is publishing a pack of lies, so is Levy. While Levy's motivations are understandably something on which one can only speculate, there seems to have been no hesitation whatever in speculating on Roth's and HRW's motivations.
(BTW, have you ever read ArthurKirkland's movie script, the one about settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by translocating all the Israelis to the badlands of Texas? Maybe you and he could collaborate on a movie incorporating both of your singular understandings of that conflict.)
But Ha'aretz is still leftist enough that it has low circulation, dwarfed by Ma'ariv and Yediot Aharonot, and a free daily paper, and only about twice the circulation of the english-language J. Post and several Russian language papers. So, no, there aren't two daily papers in Israel.
Ha'aretz has disproportionate influence in the U.S. because it has an English-language website, is well-written, and because it's general leftism makes it often very quotable among people who dislike Israel.
Bank robbers would be praised for their restraint in merely brandishing their guns in a threatening way instead of actually shooting anyone. Child-molesters who merely groped their victims instead of forcibly raping them would be admired for doing less harm than they were tempted to do. Crack dealers who operated strictly outside of "Drug Free School Zones" would be noted as respecting those boundaries.
It doesn't work that way. If you're accused of burglary, the prosecutor doesn't talk about what a nice guy you are when you aren't stealing people's televisions and jewelry.
You avoided shooting the kids when you bulldozed their home? What do you want, a cookie?!
If you don't believe in the legitimacy of a greater Israel, and that the Palestinians are entitled to their own state in the region, then you reach the opposite conclusion. I'd like to note, though, the distinction which David ignores between being pro or anti Israel and where you think Israel's borders should be drawn. Esp. in regards to the Golan Heights, people argue that drawing borders a certain way is sure to eradicate Israel because of strategic considerations.
That may well be true, but people who think Israel should give back the Golan Heights or acknowledge a Palestinian state generally aren't making those claims with the goal, expectation or intent that Israel will be destroyed as a result.
I'd rather spend time discussing those points than trying to score partisan advantage
To some extent, Israel gets enhanced scrutiny because Israel might respond to it; they're the only liberal democracy in the region, and they believe in human rights. Saudi Arabia, not so much. Israel also doesn't have oil, so they aren't as insulated from international public opinion as say, Saudi Arabia is.
Places like Qatar, SA, and Egypt aren't going to get better unless they see regime change or massive internal reforms that democratize the country. I'd think the first option is much more likely. That's unfortunate, as it will likely align pro-democracy forces with militant islamists, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
General comment: AFAIK, part of writing persuasively is to make oneself seem as fair and objective as possible, while portraying one's opponent(s) as ideological hacks. Given that, I'd imagine the last thing anyone would want to be doing is using the word "leftist" all over the place, since that tends to signal that what follows is the very opposite of fair and objective: "rightist" diatribe.
Then again, what do I know. English isn't my first language...
This is the niche that HRW has chosen -- they don't engage in discussions of "well, they're doing the best they can under the circumstances," or "let's step back and look at the bigger picture."
In this, they are similar to other narrowly-focused advocacy organizations like the National Rifle Association and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
This is the niche that HRW has chosen -- they don't engage in discussions of "well, they're doing the best they can under the circumstances," or "let's step back and look at the bigger picture."
In this, they are similar to other narrowly-focused advocacy organizations like the National Rifle Association and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
For my part, calling Gideon Levy a leftist is purely descriptive, and accurate. You can't call someone like him a liberal or an ultra-liberal because, among other things, "liberal" in Israel still has the European connotation of being, well, liberal, in its original meaning.
Ahem. Many of these people have absolutely no problem associating with those who DO seek the destruction of Israel.
Does HRW's silence about Israel's violating the civil liberties of Jews who live on the wrong side of the Green Line, or who advocate against surrendering territory to the Arabs, increase or decrease the likliehood that Israelis will pay attention on those occassions that HRW comes up with a valid criticism of Israel's treatment of Arabs?
Nice thesis, Martinned, but the facts don't seem to support it.
It's not only tiresome, it's a frequent tactic to intimidate anyone who tries to defend Israel against false criticism. And when anti-semitic comments are introduced, it's a common tactic to intimidate anyone who points them out.
I didn't doubt the descriptive accuracy of calling someone leftist, I just think that it has a similar effect as the habit of many Republicans of describing the other side as the "Democrat Party". It tends to signal the speaker's ideological position in a way that - I'd imagine - wouldn't be conducive to the persuasiveness of what is being said or written. A more neutral term would be "left-wing".
And incidentally, the strange meaning of the word liberal in the US is still one of my pet peeves. How did the cause of liberty ever come to be associated with the left, to the point that they had to invent the word libertarian to describe what would otherwise, in the rest of the world, be called liberal. In European politics, the tag Liberal covers a variety of sins (cf. ALDE in the European Parliament), but on the whole it does tend towards the right. The range is roughly from the LibDems in England, who are quite far left, to the FDP in Germany. The latter's wiki page starts by saying:
Could you maybe be a bit more specific? What human rights violations are you talking about?
, You mean the 2005 transfer of thousands of Jews, who -- simply for being Jews -- were forced to abandon homes they had built and farms and factories they developed on land they had lawfully purchased in Gaza, where they had lived for decades? I'm not aware of any other population transfers that Israel has conducted. The average Palestinian on the West Bank has a lot more to fear from other Palestinians than from Israel. And whatever actions of Israel makes life there inconvenient was in response to decades of violent attacks on Israel and Israelis. Which came first, the terrorist attacks or the checkpoints? The suicide bombings or the security fence?
Few Israelis have any illusions that the Palestinians are going anywhere. But given the events of the last several years, progressively fewer Israelis have any illusions that the Palestinians want a state of their own living in peace alongside Israel, rather than wanting an end to Israel all together.
Don't be silly. Their being Jewish had nothing to do with it. They lived on land that wasn't theirs, so they were forced to leave the same way any normal trespasser is.
Sorry. I should really watch my manners.
(Or perhaps we should just conclude that the linked HRW reports, and the many reports issued on human rights violations in Arab nations (which vastly outnumber reports concerning Israel, by the way), should be discounted because HRW's hearts weren't really in it, and they were just going through the motions to provide cover for their real obsession, which is hatin' on Israel.)
Mea culpa, I should have limited my comment to the English language dailies.
I'm just saying that what you happen to write about in seven blog posts isn't necessarily representative of your whole perspective on a situation, much less the perspective of your organization. Especially since she probably thinks that objections to Palestinian terrorism are well covered in the media, or that as a person living in Gaza she is particularly aware or well informed about violations of the rights of Palestinians.
I don't actually disagree with your broader point that human rights activists are likely to end up seeing themselves on one side more than the other in a conflict; I think that's just human nature. So to the extent that your point is that HRW is not a neutral umpire on the conflict, but has an ideological perspective, I actually agree with that.
Although I notice that my argument about her hotness goes unrefuted.
But Ha'aretz is still leftist enough that it has low circulation, dwarfed by Ma'ariv and Yediot Aharonot, and a free daily paper, and only about twice the circulation of the english-language J. Post and several Russian language papers. So, no, there aren't two daily papers in Israel.
You are wrong. NGO Monitor has analyzed HRW's reporting on the Middle East and in every year, reporting on Israel is either first or second. And in fact, HRW only began improving its one-sided coverage after NGO Monitor called them out on it beginning in 2003. See www.ngo-monitor.org for more.
See! All this work by NGOs is having an effect already!
My point is that people's intuitions about whether Israel is justified in any particular action is almost entirely dependent on a) whether they think Israel should exist, and b) If so, what borders Israel has a legitimate claim to.
Your point, in response, is that the Palestinians started it. Obviously, this is true - but I guarantee you someone who thought that Israel is illegally occupying land in the middle east would come back with an explanation that the Israeli settlement and behavior in 1948 is what "really" started it.
All anyone does in these discussions is have a proxy argument about Israel's legitimacy and the extent of their sovereignty. What really upsets me is that we're turning the assignment of moral blame into a tool for scoring political points.
Both sides excuse their wrongdoings by pointing to the wrongdoings of the other side - that "the other side is worse." I think it's counterproductive to pile up wrongs. But as a western secularist, i'm pretty sure that Israel is on the right side of most issues. Israel certainly have a right to defend itself. But the substance of the issue is not the point of why I posted - the point is that everyone's analysis is hopelessly outcome determinative because it's predicated on given assumptions about Israel and Palestine.
It's much more productive to discuss those assumptions than to muck around trying to tally up the bad acts of the other side to score debating pints.
That's an unfortunate choice of words, given the flame war above about the nature of hypocricy.
Also, I'd like to offer a wholehearted "hear, hear!" for drewp's comment, and note for the record that I agree fully that "as a western secularist, i'm pretty sure that Israel is on the right side of most issues".
Well, here's one response that goes a little beyond that:
But I suppose by quoting Heller's post, I'm merely shooting the messenger.
The problem with your analogy is that it fails to account for the actual context of what happened. It also highlights the fatuousness of using "crime" as an analogy.
The obvious difference here is that Israel was acting in self-defense -- hundreds of rockets were shot into its territory, and it acted to neutralize that threat by entering Gaza. Self-defense is a recognized right under international law. Unlike your hypothetical burglar, Israel here was entitled to use force to defend itself. By definition that means that it was entitled, at least to some extent, to inflict harm on the other side.
A better analogy to criminal law would be someone who is attacked and then fires back in self-defense. The prosecution claims, however, that the person went beyond what is necessary to defend himself and used excessive force, and hence must be prosecuted for assault (or even homicide if death resulted.)
There have indeed been such prosecutions. (Bernard Goetz for one springs to mind.) As a lawyer, let me tell you that, yes, if the prosecution has any hope of succeeding in such a case before a jury, he had better concede at the outset that the defendant had the right to use some force, but the State maintains that at some point he went beyond what is necessary. If the prosecutor tries to paint the person as a maurading monster, he will lose all credibility and lose his case.
That is what is missing from much of the criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza: a frank concession that it was acting in self-defense and entitled to use some level of force. And some indication of what the critic believes is or is not appropriate an appropriate level of force.
One has the distinct impression from reading these reports that ANY use of force under the circumstances would be found to be a "war crime." That might make some armchair philosophers feel comfortable, but it has no connection to any reality that any country operates in.
That's called begging the question. (Notwithstanding the fact that you're largely correct.) The whole dispute is about the extent to which Israel was acting in legitimate self-defence, or was exceeding the bounds of legitimate self-defence. Hence the talk about proportionality, etc.
Not really. Discussions of the historical assumptions (e.g. the fact that I find the view that the Palestinians "started it" utterly absurd) goes around and around in circles and gets you absolutely nowhere. What's productive is discussing what can and should be done now to actually build peace between these two peoples. But that conversation is hard, and involves a lot of accepting of ambiguity and taking on the role of the other. Both sides would much rather spin in the endless cycle of who is to blame for the situation than actually solving anything.
That statement is unfounded. Provide specific and substantive proof before you level accusations you cannot support.
Hence, the reason why it does matter whether what Israel has done / not done is included, even if Frater Plotter disagrees.
To say it with Heller: Every single report by NGO Monitor this year supports Israel one way or another. (Heller the OJ poster, not the gun rights guy.)
http://blog.ngo-monitor.org/
No it isn't begging the question. The whole point is that there is a difference between an actor who has no right to use force at all and an actor that has a right to use some force, but may have exceeded the bounds of his justification. The first is an ordinary criminal -- who should not have engaged in bank robbery or burglary at all.
The second is not ordinary because you are claiming that his criminality lies in doing too much of what he is permitted, even justified, to do. That is a much harder argument to win, and certainly one has to examine the entire context to determine what is or is not "excessive." What the person did or did not do and what he hypothetically could have done to defend himself under the circumstances become highly relevant to the inquiry.
Incidentally, I should add that my analogy, like all analogies is imperfect. A private citizen is justified in using force to defend himself, but only to a very limtied extent. Civil authorities have broader leeway to do so, and sovereign nations have even broader leeway to do so.
While you're at it, why not correlate with the percentage posts that are actually about law for each poster.
So, how would Anderson have preferred the settlement of the US by Europeans to have had occurred?
You live in former Choctaw territory, don't you? Did you buy your home from a Choctaw?
Is the thief or the knowing buyer of stolen property more culpable?
I'm not sure if "appeal" is quite the word. Long threads are usually the result of either the original post or one of the first commenters writing something that very much does not appeal to a broad audience, or at least to a broad audience among VC readers.
@yankev: I plead a degree of ignorance here. My understanding is that whatever title the jewish settlers had, they obtained directly or indirectly from the Israeli government, who did not have the right to dispose of them without the consent of the original (Palestinian) owners.
(A comparable problem, and a legally glorious one at that, is the ownership of land in North Cyprus, where there are often competing claims between the original Greek Cypriot owners of the land, supported by the Greek Cypriot government, and those who have bought the land from the Turkish Cypriot government. The latter, even when they were in good faith, can often find themselves in significant difficulty.)
I refer to my comment of 2:31. As long as we're talking about Israel within the borders of 1967, I am wholeheartedly in favour of Israel existing, since it seems to have the consent of the governed. I have no general objection to Israel's actions in Gaza earlier this year, or against Hezbollah in 2007 (?). I do, however, reserve the right to have a problem with something specific Israeli forces may have done. Moreover, I reserve the right to argue for HRW's right to raise funds wherever it can get them, and for its right to criticise Israel without being painted as "anti-Israel". There has been no discussion in the present thread of any specific criticism by HRW, and I have expressed no opinion on the validity of any criticism they may have made about Israel.
I don't know how NGO Monitor came up with that conclusion. A quick tally of reports posted on the HRW website (going back to 1994) shows the following number of reports regarding Israel and various Arab countries (I did the tally very quickly so I may have miscounted a few, but even allowing for errors, the overall count is pretty decisively weighed toward reports on the Arab countries rather than Israel):
2009:
Israel 2
Palestinians 1
Jordan 1
Syria 1
UAE 1
Yemen 1
2008
Israel 2
Palestinians 1
Israel/Egypt 1
Iraq 1
Jordan 2
Libya 1
Saudi Arabia 4
Western Sahara 1
Yeman 2
various Arabs (Saudi Arabia/Sudan/Yemen) 1
2007
Israel 1
Palestinians 2
Egypt 4
Iraq 2
Jordan 1
Lebanon 1
Syria 1
Tunisia 1
UAE 1
various Arabs (Saudi Arabia/Kuwait/Lebanon/UAE) 1
various Arabs (Jordan/Syria/Egypt/Kuwait/Saudi Arabia)1
2006
Israel 2
Palestinians 1
Iraq 5
Jordan 1
Morocco 1
Libya 4
Saudi Arabia 1
UAE 1
2005
Israel 1
Algeria 1
Egypt 5
Iraq 4
Morocco 2
Syria 1
Tunisia 1
Tunisia/Syria/Egypt 1
2004
Israel 2
Egypt 3
Iraq 2
Jordan 1
Morocco 1
Saudi Arabia 1
Tunisia 1
2003
Algeria 2
Egypt 2
Iraq 7
Jordan 1
Tunisia 1
2002
Israel 2
Palestinians 1
Egypt 1
Iraq 1
2001
Israel 1
Israel/Palestinians 1
Palestinians 1
Bahrain 1
Egypt 2
Morocco/Western Sahara 1
Saudi Arabia 1
Tunisia 1
Yemen 1
2000
Israel 2
Egypt 1
Kuwait 2
Tunisia 1
1999
Israel 2
Algeria 2
Egypt 1
various Arabs 1
1998
Israel 1
Palestinians 1
Algeria 2
Bahrain 1
1997
Israel 2
Bahrain 1
Jordan 2
Lebanon/Syria 2
1996
Israel 1
Israel/Lebanon/Palestinians 1
Egypt 1
Syria 1
Saudi Arabia 1
1995
Israel/Palestinians 1
Egypt 2
Iraq 1
Kuwait 1
Morocco 1
Syria 1
Western Sahara 1
1994
Israel 1
Algeria 1
Egypt 1
Iraq 1
Yemen 1
Yes, a subtext of the greater criticism of Israel is that first world countries get more criticism for human rights violations than third world countries. I think that is starting to change in the human rights community, which is a positive development. But the way that should change is by holding third world countries to higher standards, not lowering the standards for the first world.
I appreciate your candid admission. In some cases the Israeli government purchased the land from the lawful title holders. In other cases, it was purchased by the Jewish owners from the lawful title holders.
So the idea is that Palestinian land owners in the Gaza strip at one point or another sold their land to jews under circumstances that would qualify as voluntary under normal civil law? Do you mind if I am reluctant to take your word for that?
Being a progressive means you get to cling to your views regardless of the truth or validity of the arguments you invoke to justify them.
Have you ever heard anyone from UChicago (other than Posner sr.) explain how the financial sector should be fixed post credit crisis?
But not for long.
Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows martinned is one of the more thoughtful, well-reasoned commentators. As someone who largely agrees with you and disagrees with him on these issues, I'd appreciate your not discrediting our arguments with that sort of ad hominem crap.
Actually, on that basis most of what HRW does would be pointless if it was simply counting on countries to improve their behavior because HRW told them about their abuses. But that's not how it works. HRW devotes much of its effort to the soft diplomacy of animating public opinion. That leverages its findings into pressure on nations that's broad enough to plausibly be effective. Which is why applying your rational choice theory punishes the countries that least deserve it by disproportionately highlighting their abuses.
I don't believe it. Give me one example.
Oops.
Keep pulling on that thread and the whole internet will unravel. Don't say I didn't warn you.
This paragraph resurfaces in these parts periodically. I still do not understand the reference to a movie script (unless it somehow relates to the fact that I was portrayed in a wonderful film , which portrayal was nominated for an Academy Award).
Unrelated to my cinematic pedigree, I have proposed offering every Israeli an opportunity to move to west Texas and/or West Virginia. The advantages for Israelis, Americans, the United States budget, West Virginia and/or west Texas, and others seem strong. I have seen no other strong proposal to resolve an unstable, costly, violent situation whose trajectory, from inception, has been unsustainable over the long term even if supported by massive amounts of money and misery.
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