On Monday, Patricia Cohen of the Times discussed Shlomo Sand’s claptrap, The Invention of the Jewish People. Cohen, who based on prior writings and my prior correspondence with her, is a left-winger who likely has a fair amount of sympathy for Sand’s political views, bends over backwards to be “even-handed.” Nevertheless, if you read Cohen’s […]
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Human Rights Watch Update
1. My op-ed about HRW’s problematic Middle East staff appeared in the Examiner newspaper websites. 2. HRW added new members to its Middle East and North Africa advisory board. Surprise, surprise, they include several individuals with a history of anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian political activism, and none with the opposite history. 3. HRW’s Iain Levine, talking […]
Bloggingheads TV on Moses as the essential American hero
Robert Wright’s BloggingHeadsTV is often the best place on the Web for highly intelligent conversation about politics and culture. Particularly excellent is a new episode, posted today, in which Wright interviews Bruce Feiler, author of the new book America’s Prophet, Moses and the American Story. Wright is a scholar of the history of religions, so the conversation […]
What Kind of People Affiliate with Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Division?
This kind: Helena Cobban is on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division. In a recent blog post, she took exception to the Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb criticizing her because “she likes to compare Israel to Hamas.” (H/T: Richard Landes) Cobban was offended not because Goldfarb was wrong, […]
JStreet–The American Kadima?
The mystery of just what JStreet is, or intends to be, is growing deeper. “The party and the viewpoint that we’re closest to in Israeli politics is actually Kadima,” JStreet’s founder Jeremy Ben-Ami told the Jerusalem Post. (Hat tip: Ilya) You mean the Kadima founded by that old Likudnik*Ariel Sharon, and run by another old […]
Yglesias at JStreet
Matthew Yglesias: I was debating with Jon Chait at a J Street panel this morning on the subject of “what does it mean to be pro-Israel?” As expected, we disagreed on a number of points, most of which I was right on and he was wrong on. But one thing he said in his opening […]
Some Friendly (Really) Advice to JStreet
JStreet, which bills itself as a “pro-peace, pro-Israel” lobby, and aims to be a progressive counterpart to AIPAC, is having its convention starting tomorrow. Unlike some in the pro-Israel community, I’m not hostile to JStreet. First, I know one of the bigwigs in JStreet, and though he and I don’t have much in common politically, […]
Andrew Sullivan on Human Rights Watch–Ignorance is Bliss
Sullivan quotes me: “I suggest that if Yglesias and similarly-situated bloggers want to address the root causes of R. Bernstein’s obviously painful decision to denounce the organization he founded and nurtured, they read this comprehensive report by NGO Monitor” (by the way, I’ve since heard from a very reliable source that R. Bernstein in fact […]
Yglesias on Robert Bernstein and HRW
I wrote yesterday that “I wonder how long certain liberal bloggers who have been reflexive defenders of HRW without bothering to seriously investigate the bill of particulars against it (e.g.) can continue to repeat things like ‘the idea that HRW is some kind of Israel-bashing organization is nonsense’ now that the founder and former longtime […]
Heller (Kevin) Again
Just about every time I post something about Human Rights Watch, Kevin Jon Heller at Opinio Juris, who served as HRW’s external legal advisor on the trial of Saddam Hussein, posts a nasty response. His response almost never addresses the substance of my post, but instead provides readers with an attack on the messenger, i.e., […]
Bernstein (Robert!) Denounces Human Rights Watch:
Robert Bernstein (no relation), the founder of Human Rights Watch, has issued a stinging condemnation of the organization he led from 1978 to 1998. Here’s a taste: I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics…. When I stepped aside in 1998, Human Rights Watch was active in 70 […]
Raiding Strategies with Predators
By Kenneth Anderson on October 18, 2009 1:43 pm in Counter-Terrorism Policy, International Law, Israel
Patrick Cronin over at Facebook points to a new review essay from Edward Luttwak in the latest Times Literary Supplement, but unfortunately not up online. (I subscribe but apparently Patrick gets this stuff a lot faster than I do.) However, Patrick posted a couple of paragraphs. Luttwak reviews David Kilcullen’s widely noticed book among several […]
Was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Born Jewish?
This could just be disinformation, but if true it explains a lot. Note that some of the worst anti-Semites in history, including Torquemada and Karl Marx, were of recent Jewish descent, and used anti-Semitism to ingratiate themselves with their non-Jewish constituencies. Ha’aretz: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s scathing attacks against Israel and his repeated denials of […]
Congo, Sudan, and Israel
It’s almost reassuring to see that the various controversies surrounding Human Rights Watch’s reporting on Israel–Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson’s fundraising trip to Saudi Arabia, deputy director Joe Stork’s long history of anti-Israel activism, military analyst Marc Garlasco’s fetish for Nazi memorabilia–hasn’t led Whitson to even pretend she and HRW will treat Israel fairly […]