Haifa, Israel — To some, they are courageous heroes bringing transparency to the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces. To others, they are a collection of turncoats who publish unaccountable and unverifiable reports, motivated by politics and a hatred of their military.
The nongovernmental organization claims to be an apolitical watchdog set up to “demand accountability regarding Israel’s military actions in the Occupied Territories perpetrated by us and in our name.”
Its detractors claim that nothing could be further from the truth. “Breaking the Silence appears uninterested in uncovering individual violations, but instead is fueled by a political motivation to condemn the entire IDF for institutional wrongdoing,” claimed Gerald Steinberg, chairman of the Political Studies Department at Bar-Ilan University and executive director of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem organization that critiques nongovernmental organizations.
A group of 64 IDF veterans launched Breaking the Silence in 2004 with a photography exhibition in Tel Aviv showing alleged abuses of the Palestinian population of the West Bank town of Hebron by Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers. The exhibition generated controversy then, and more recently when it went to Harvard University last year. Harvard Hillel, which hosted it, drew fire from national Jewish groups for doing so.
The group also published soldier testimonies that it claimed “demonstrate the depth of corruption which is spreading in the Israeli military.” To date, it has published five books of testimony and generated dozens of press articles on specific incidents.
Up to now, the group has regarded its biggest coups as shining the spotlight in 2004 on the conduct of soldiers in Hebron and publicizing what it claimed was misconduct resulting from the IDF’s failure to publish Rules of Engagement between 2000 and 2006. Breaking the Silence claims that its testimonies were decisive in the decision to resume publishing them — a claim the IDF has never confirmed.
The group’s relatively modest budget is funded from a variety of sources. This year, the European Union gave it $68,000 for testimonies, the British Embassy in Tel Aviv donated $50,000 toward its educational work and the New Israel Fund gave it $35,000 for general use. For its admirers, the fact that it has such illustrious patrons indicates that Breaking the Silence’s credentials are trustworthy; to its detractors, it is symptomatic of the bias against the IDF found in such bodies.
Breaking the Silence’s director, Mikhael Manekin, states that the group’s main purpose is to tackle the “large gap between what’s happening in the territories vis-à-vis the Palestinian population and what the civilian population thinks is happening.”
Steinberg said that such statements hide the fact that it is really “a political organization that uses claims of human rights violations by very few soldiers as a means of opposing the Israeli government and military, and to promote efforts against ‘the occupation.’” Critics such as Steinberg accuse the group of doublespeak when it claims to be apolitical. Manekin told the Forward that Breaking the Silence takes no position for or against the occupation, but holds that “inherent to occupation is abuse of the civilian population.”
He claims that its activists, around 20 in total, are “loyal Israeli citizens” motivated by truth, not politics. To them, the suspicion with which their reports are viewed by large sections of Israeli society simply attests to the existence of what Manekin terms the “blind eye” of Israeli civilians when it comes to the territories. But their critics say there is an underlying problem with how they operate.
The harshest criticism is that of unaccountability. IDF spokesman Mark Regev dismissed the group’s latest report as failing the “smell test.” He noted that all the testimonies recorded in the report were anonymous and that they contained no details on where or when any of the alleged incidents took place, rendering them unverifiable.
For government and army officials, this raises question marks about not only the trustworthiness of Breaking the Silence’s reports, but also its motivation. If the group is interested in helping to root out bad apples, the IDF and government claims, it would give details of alleged incidents.
“The decision of the organization ‘Breaking the Silence’ to present such testimonies raises doubts about whether the organization really wishes for a credible and thorough investigation regarding the claims to be carried out, as is the norm in the IDF,” claimed a statement released by the Foreign Ministry in response to the report.
The statement threw down the gauntlet: “In order to ensure that the claims made in these testimonies are dealt with in an appropriate manner, the organization ‘Breaking the Silence’ should urge those who made these claims to really ‘break their silence,’ and to present specific complaints to the IDF, and not hide behind general and anonymous statements.”
But the group claims that it has to publish testimonies anonymously. Otherwise, its members say, soldiers would not come forward, because of social pressures and claims that the IDF blows related problems out of proportion. “Whoever in the military wants to find out when and where things happened can do so,” Manekin said.
Hours after Breaking the Silence released its report, another nongovernmental organization joined it in claiming that if the IDF wanted to get to the bottom of what happened in Gaza, it could.
B’Tselem, a long-established, more prominent human rights organization, released a statement drawing attention to the fact that the only investigation since the Gaza operation ended in January has been an internal affair in which the IDF vindicated itself. “The military has refused to open serious, impartial investigations… choosing instead to rely solely on internal debriefings conducted within the involved units as a method for determining the truth,” it said.
Contact Nathan Jeffay at jeffay@forward.com
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I couldnt care less about the fictional testimonies of Breaking Wind. Israel should get into the act and start funding NGOs in Europe to investigate abuses of minority groups like the Roma, Basques, Welsh, and Scotland, who dont want to be forcibly incorporated into the EU
Unlike you, Frank, they served in the military and risked their lives for Israel.
The Breaking the Silence testimonies booklet is available for downloading:
http://www.shovrimshtika.org/oferet/ENGLISH_oferet.pdf
The IDF claims that they can't investigate because the charges are anonymous.
This is a phony objection.
B'Tselem gave many well-documented reports, with sworn affidavits, of IDF killings that violated Israeli law, to the IDF, and the IDF refused to investigate them. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE02/005/2002
In fact, if you follow that link, you'll see that the IDF got caught lying red-handed.
Thanks Norm. My point exactly.
Thanks, Sephardiman. Most important point:
There are many of us Jews who support peace, justice and reconciliation with the Palestinians -- and who utterly oppose killing.
I think we are the majority.
I think it's important for us to post our opinions on these comment pages, because we're telling the Forward:
when you publish articles about the Israeli peace movement, you're not going out on a limb, you're not doing something dangerous or reckless, but instead you're reporting on the news your readers want to know about.
Your readers are in the peace movement, and we're grateful to you when you write about that.
What a great scam. Creat3 some extreme left wing group & con European countries to give your money. Easy money.
REALLY? Does the Forward choose to publish only anti-Israel screeds and anti-Semitic rants, while DELETING the following "vigorous debate and reasoned critique" by a pro-Israel Jew?
.....
Yet one more sensationalized anti-Israel propaganda story brought to you by the anti-Israel "Jewish" Forward. A real tempest-in-a-teapot, featuring libels based on "anonymous testimonies", brought to you, reportedly by "20" "activists", funded by political enemies of Israel, including a particularly bad actor, an NGO, "The New Israel Fund". ( NGO Monitor - Human Rights NGOs - Arab Israeli Conflict - http://www.ngo-monitor.org/editions/v2n02/v2n02-2.htm )
Why continue to rehash the fabrications that were long ago debunked? This is the stuff of virulently anti-Israel J Street, which likewise vilifies Israel for protecting itself during the Gaza action.
It is odd that with all of the really juicy true human rights violations by Hamas in Gaza - including torture chambers, murders of families, throwing people off roofs, intentionally maiming them, murdering them for smiling in public, using women and children as human shields, stealing food and medical supplies from non-combatants to sell and give to terrorists, ad nauseum - that this kind of anti-Israel propaganda is published instead.
Wouldn't it be nice if instead of constantly joining Israel's enemies to attack her, the Forward would publish a few pro-Israel news stories? How about a few news stories about the courage, determination and idealism of the Jews who daily face the threats of arab attacks, and who soldier on in the face of international attacks? Isn't Israel an extraordinary country, that has many wonderful stories to tell? Wouldn't it be nice if a "Jewish" publication would choose to tell them?
If no pro-Israel stories come to mind, perhaps the Forward could solicit ideas from its readership for stories about Jewish life in Israel?
I have to wonder just how safe from various forms of retribution these folks could be guaranteed of by renouncing their anonymity and being more specific.
We've seen here in the US that despite a "Whistleblower Protection Act", those who 'expose the truth' within a self-protective organization tend to place themselves at risk.
Remember Serpico?
And we've also seen the execution of SOP by the Israeli govt to critcism of it's actions...the labeling and charges of the 'losing it's meaning and impact' "anti-semetism".
Frank,
These soldiers are men who, unlike you, have fought and risked their lives to protect Israel.
"The group’s relatively modest budget is funded from a variety of sources. This year, the European Union gave it $68,000 for testimonies, the British Embassy in Tel Aviv donated $50,000 toward its educational work and the New Israel Fund gave it $35,000 for general use. For its admirers, the fact that it has such illustrious patrons indicates that Breaking the Silence’s credentials are trustworthy; to its detractors, it is symptomatic of the bias against the IDF found in such bodies."
NGO my foot. An organization that takes money from the EU and the British government is not an NGO. It is a GO a government funded organization.
Still they are not as bad as "human rights watch" so called which has received money from the Saudi government and wahabi organizations.
These groups are not human rights groups they are antisemitic groups.
"These soldiers are men who, unlike you, have fought and risked their lives to protect Israel." Norman
So have mnay other Israeli soldiers which you hater because they don't support your political aims, Norman.
Is you last name Finkelstein, Norman?
It doesn't matter what Norman's last name is.
His posts are in support of antisemitic points of view. This is what matters.
I'd take Claude Lanzmann's point of view over people like Norman and his ilk any day:
"Claude Lanzmann's liberated memories"
"Claude Lanzmann belongs to a breed of Jew rare in England: defiant rather than discreet. At once Parisian and globetrotting, he combines remnants of leftist sympathies (the Soviet Union was for a long time “comme un ciel sur ma tête”) with defence of Israel. His films Pourquoi Israel? and Tsahal (about the Israeli Defence Force) celebrate both Jewish survival against the odds and the reappropriation of manliness after centuries of sufferance, study and “huckstering”, as a famous apostate put it. Lanzmann’s reference to “drones” – the unmanned aircraft used in modern warfare – as “une merveilleuse invention israélienne” is just the kind of remark to nettle the bien-pensants."
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6665894.ece
Let's put Nathan's group "Breaking the Silence" in context:
"The legal assault on Israel is gathering speed"
Gerald Steinberg , THE JERUSALEM POST
"Although talk of peace, "two states for two peoples" and the "Arab League initiative" fill the lofty speeches of American and European leaders, the political war to delegitimize Israel is accelerating.
Officials of the Arab League and the Palestinian Authority, working with powerful groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam, exploit the rhetoric of international law to brand Israeli defense against terror as "war crimes" and "collective punishment." As a result, talk of peace process continues to be a façade, demonstrating that the core ideology and objectives - the elimination of Jewish sovereignty and statehood - remain unchanged since 1947.
The Gaza war that took place six months ago, like the 2006 Second Lebanon War, provided major platforms for accelerating political warfare against Israel. Erasing the context of Hamas rocket attacks, this coalition uses international frameworks to pursue a campaign of delegitimization. The UN Human Rights Council's Goldstone Commission, with a mandate that found Israel guilty before any "evidence" was gathered, is one example, and there are many more.
These objectives unite the "moderates" and "radicals" who, on other issues, are bitter enemies. In theory, the PA, dominated by Yasser Arafat's old Fatah organization, is supposed to be the moderate wing and Israel's peace partner, while Hamas, which controls Gaza, is the militant Islamic terror group. But in campaigns to label Israel as an "apartheid state," Mahmoud Abbas' PA and Amr Mousa's Arab League are on the front lines.
A PROMINENT example of this division of labor, and the façade of the peace process, is seen in the efforts to use the International Criminal Court as another front in which to attack Israel over Gaza. While standing in the ICC is supposedly limited to state parties, and the PA does not qualify, its leadership manipulated the system in filing a declaration aimed at opening a case against Israel.
The ICC was created in 1998 ostensibly to deal with cases of genocide and crimes against humanity in instances where the national courts do not function, such as in Rwanda or in brutal military dictatorships. But like the NGOs and the UN's human rights frameworks, moral principles have been hijacked for ideological campaigns, particularly targeting Israel, which resisted calls to join the ICC precisely for this reason.
On February 13, ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo met with PA Foreign Minister Riad Malki and Justice Minister Ali Khashan. The ICC's press release noted that "326 communications under Article 15" had been already submitted "by individuals and NGOs, related to the situation context of Israel and the Palestinian territories." In the months that followed, many more such "communications," primarily from NGOs that lead the anti-Israel campaigning, have been added to the file.
The Arab League and Amnesty International have presented the ICC with unsubstantiated claims of Israeli war crimes. Such "research reports" consist of lengthy compilations from Palestinian "eyewitnesses," accompanied by pseudo-technical analysis with no methodology and no credibility. John Dugard, a virulent anti-Israel campaigner and recipient of the "Gaddafi Human Rights Prize," was its chairman. But Moreno-Ocampo has ignored such details, and on July 1, he published an article in The New York Times ("Impunity no more") which highlighted this bogus "first-ever fact-finding report on crimes committed in Gaza." Inadvertently exposing the moral absurdity, Moreno-Ocampo listed the Gaza campaign with instances of mass murder in Africa and similar examples.
The role of the Arab League in delegitimizing Israel is central, and provides another reason that Israelis do not take the talk of peace and the various "initiatives" seriously. While exploiting the ICC to purse attacks against Israel, the Arab League rejected the court's decision to open proceedings against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir over the mass murder in Darfur.
IN ADDITION, European governments, including the leaders of the European Union, such as foreign policy head Javier Solana (who wants the UN Security Council to impose a Palestinian state), have a major role in anti-peace campaigning. They provide the tens of millions of tax euros every year to radical NGOs that lead this process, under the façade of "partnerships for peace" and the "European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights."
For example, the EU, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and other governments fund the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (to its credit, the Ford Foundation has ceased support), which prepared the agenda and coordinated the "field visits" for the 254-page Arab League report.
PCHR is a leader of anti-Israel lawfare in Spain and elsewhere, referring to the murder of Israeli civilians as acts of "resistance." Its reports list terrorists as civilians, including Nizar Rayan, a major Hamas terror leader who sent his own son to commit mass murder in a 2001 suicide bombing. By funding PCHR and dozens of similar groups that are responsible for this political warfare, European governments ensure the failure of their own policies.
If the claims of seeking peace are to be taken seriously, the leaders of this assault against Israel's legitimacy through exploiting international law and human rights need to reverse course. This group includes the Arab League, the PA and European governments that facilitate this warfare in the media, the ICC and elsewhere.
The writer is the executive director of www.ngo-monitor.org and chairs the Political Science Department at Bar-Ilan University."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443835245&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Several soldiers have taken up this report and decided to speak out against the charges with more specific details : http://www.soldiersspeakout.com/
The soldiers testifying to Breaking the Silence are an incredibly courageous group. Let's not forget they exist in an Israel that has become increasingly fascist where horrendous war crime are accepted and justified, including crimes of the scope of using white phosphorous shells on civilians knowing it would cause innocent children to cook slowly from the inside .
Breaking the Silence are my heroes!
Itamar "The soldiers testifying to Breaking the Silence are an incredibly courageous group."
No they are not. Nothing will happen to them for "speaking out" which is to say for making up stories. They will in fact be rewarded by the leftist media even in Israel.
“Let's not forget they exist in an Israel that has become increasingly fascist where horrendous war crime are accepted and justified,
Itamar is delusional. These are the very charges that have been alleged but not proven and a “report” by an anti-Israel group doesn’t prove a damn thing.
Moreover the ignorant Itamar doesn’t know what “fascism” is. Let her look at the charters of both Hamas and Hezbollah if “she” wants to see a contemporary version of fascism.
Finally her macabre description of the uses of white phosphorus is a form of blood libel.
The left has become so desperate to smear Israel that they have taken to recycling stories found on antisemitic websites including those by Holocaust deniers and Islamicist groups.
“… including crimes of the scope of using white phosphorous shells on civilians knowing it would cause innocent children to cook slowly from the inside .”
Breaking the silence is a cowardly group making wild charges for which they will never be called to account. All they are doing is giving more ammunition to antisemitic Israel haters.
"Double Standard Watch: The UN kangaroo "investigation" of Israeli "war crimes"" Posted by Alan Dershowitz http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/dershowitz/entry/the_un_kangaroo_investigation_of
"Just as Spain's national Court decided to shelve a phony war crime investigation of a 2002 Israeli air strike in Gaza, a group of lawyers and military experts assigned by the United Nations Human Rights Council continued its phony investigation of "the grave violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip."
The UN Human Rights Council is a scandal. It's a successor to the defunct UN Human Rights Commission. Both organizations have a long history of singling out Israel for condemnation and of ignoring real human rights abusers by the world's worst offenders, several of which dominate the Human Rights Council and it predecessor.
As Hudson Institute scholar Anne Bayefsky recently noted: "The Council has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all the other 191 UN member states combined. The more time the Council spends demonizing Israel, the less likely it becomes that it will ever get around to condemning genocide in Sudan, female slavery in Saudi Arabia, or torture in Egypt."
The very mandate that authorized the Gaza investigation reveals its bias against Israel. The council has already concluded, without any pretense an investigation, that Israel is guilty of "grave violations of human rights.due to its military attacks."
It has also concluded that the Gaza Strip "remains occupied," despite Israel having ended its occupation and having removed every single soldier and settler in 2005. Moreover, the Council's current president has limited the scope of the investigation to "violations committed in the context of the conflict that took place between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009." Those are the dates of the Israeli response to more than seven years of rocket attacks by terrorists operating behind human shields in Gaza. During the period prior to 27 December 2008, Hamas and its terrorist allies fired thousands of rockets and mortar shells into civilian areas of Israel, killing, maiming and traumatizing Israeli women, men and children. But these attacks that provoked Israel's self-defense military actions, are excluded from the investigation, according to the mandate and its interpretation by the president of the council. It would be as if they UN convened an investigation of the United States and terrorism but limited the investigation only to actions taken after September 12, 2001.
The very idea of the UN Council conducting an "independent" or objective investigation Israel is preposterous. It would be as if an all-white Mississippi court were investigating a black man's self-defense in response to years of lynchings by whites and limiting its investigation to the event following the lynchings. There is simply no way of an investigation conducted under the auspices of the UN Human Rights Council and be fair. Its history of bias should not be legitimated by men and women of decency who care about real human rights.
That is why it was so surprising and disturbing to see a good man like Richard Goldstone agree to head the investigation team appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Goldstone is a South African who fought against Apartheid and led an important investigation into the causes of violence there, ultimately blaming the government itself for instigating violence through a "third force." Would he have succeeded if his commission had been limited to white members only, and if its mandate of his investigation was limited to the black violence and excluded the white violence that provoked it? Would he have been willing to lend his good name to legitimate the bad history of all white Apartheid courts? What if he were a black lawyer, deliberately selected by the all white court to be an "Uncle Tom" precisely because he was black?
Goldstone was selected to head this investigation precisely because he is Jewish. Let there be no mistake about that cynical reality. I don't blame the UN Council for selecting a Jew to legitimate its kangaroo investigation of the Jewish state, but I wonder why a man like Goldstone would allow himself to be used in this manner. Does he not realize how he is being played? How his distinguished reputation is being exploited in the interest of bigotry? Oh yes, Goldstone will be "even-handed." That is precisely what the Council wants: equivalent condemnation of Israel and Hamas for unequivalent actions.
Hamas admits-indeed boasts-that it has committed multiple war crimes: first it boasts about firing rockets at Israeli school children; it fires its rockets primarily at times when Israeli children are on their way to and from school; it has hit several kindergartens, elementary schools and playgrounds (fortunately, the children had been sent home); it celebrates every civilian death and injury it causes. Targeting civilians is a war crime.
Second, Hamas boasts of hiding behind human shields, which is also a war crime. A prominent Hamas legislator has boasted of the fact that Hamas:
....[has] formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: 'We desire death like you desire life.'"
Third, since Hamas is the elected government of Gaza, every rocket attack from Gaza is a violation of Article 51 of the UN Charter, which authorizes member nations to defend itself against "armed attack."
Fourth, these attacks are part of a long term strategy to destroy a member nation of the United Nations, as the Hamas charter clearly proclaims.
No "investigation" is needed to conclude that Hamas engaged in war crimes.
Israel, on the other hand, is engaged in legitimate self defense: as a leading British expert, Richard Kemp put it on the BBC during the Gaza War:
I don't think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when an army has made more efforts to reduce the civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza."
To be even-handed in the face of such uneven conduct, or to find moral equivalence where there is none, would be the worst sort of immoral bigotry. Yet moral and legal equivalence is precisely what this investigatory commission will "find," following its "independent fact-finding mission," unless it finds that Israel's conduct was worse than Hamas's because more people died from Israeli fire than from Hamas rockets. The investigators will ignore the law that holds murderers who hide behind human shields responsible for the deaths of these human shields, even when the bullets that killed them came from the weapons of those who engaged in legitimate self-defense. Consider the analogous situation of the Navy SEALs who killed the Somali pirates that had kidnapped American merchant captain Richard Phillips. Similar rescue attempts have sometimes resulted in the tragic deaths of the hostages. Would it be fair to try the SEALs for murder, instead of the pirates? That is exactly what the Gaza commission aims to do to Israel. It will also ignore the fact that Hamas always exaggerates the number of civilians killed by including in that category armed police (who double as terrorists), "civilians" who willing serve as human shields or who willingly allow their homes to be used to manufacture, store or fire rockets, "children" and "women" who have become terrorists, and even "collaborators" killed by Hamas.
Goldstone will try his best to be even-handed. But he knows that unless his report condemns Israel, at least as forcefully as it condemns Hamas, it will never be accepted by the UN Human Rights Council and his work will come to naught. He is an experienced international diplomat. He knows who appointed him. He understands his mandate. He will try to expand it to include Hamas war crimes, so as to be "even-handed," even though Hamas already boasts of its crimes.
Israel too knows this. They know Goldstone. They know that his appointment was calculated to make it difficult for Israel to refuse to cooperate with a Jewish investigator who has had close ties with the Jewish state. Their refusal to cooperate with this distinguished group of investigators, they will be seen by some as afraid of the "truth." Had they cooperated, they know that "the truth" produced by this investigation will be a lie. They are in a no-win situation, precisely because Richard Goldstone accepted an appointment he should never have agreed to accept.
Israel should conduct its own thorough investigation and let the chips fall where they may.
Richard Goldstone should resign in protest if the Human Rights Council finds moral or legal equivalence between the multiple war crimes deliberately committed by a terrorist and the inadvertent deaths caused by the use of human shields to protect terrorists from legitimate self-defense actions taken by a democracy to protect its citizens.
Ephraim,
Sadly for you, the horrendous war crimes committed in Gaza by the IDF have been documented by many.
"Israel's military fired white phosphorus over crowded areas of Gaza repeatedly and indiscriminately in its three-week war, killing and injuring civilians and committing war crimes, Human Rights Watch said" - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/25/israel-white-phosphorus-gaza
Sorry I forgot Human Rights Watch are anti-Semites funded by wahabists, as is the UN, Amnesty International etc!
As for Israel becoming more fascist, you only have to read what lieberman says about his plans for Israel's Arab citizens. These plans bear an uncanny resemblance to declarations of a certain genocidal maniac who rose to power in Germany in the 30's!
It your choice to whitewash all this. Just keep in mind that some of us are interested in truth and we don't appreciate being the subject of hasbara from right wingers and apologists all the time!
Human Right's watch is up to its old tricks:
"Human Rights Watch Coverup" Anne Bayefsky
April 13, 2004
Jerusalem Post
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article.php?id=908 "When it comes to anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias, Human Rights Watch still has a lot of explaining to do notwithstanding Executive Director Ken Roth's umbrage at criticism.
Roth, however, volunteers a test of his organization's reliability when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, namely Human Rights Watch's behavior at the UN's infamous "anti-racism" conference held in Durban, shortly before 9/11. If the organization's actions were assailable there, he says, it would make "it easy to reject the objectivity of Human Rights Watch reports on Israeli conduct."
It is a test that Human Rights Watch fails hands down. I know because I was there as the representative of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (IAJLJ). Roth himself did not attend.
Just prior to the conference Roth telegraphed his convictions in an interview on US National Public Radio, August 14, 2001, when he said about the pending controversy and the effort to focus attention on Israel: "Clearly Israeli racist practices are an appropriate topic."
So in the lead-up to Durban, Human Rights Watch fanned the flames of racial intolerance notwithstanding that 's citizens are one-quarter Arab and enjoy democratic rights they have nowhere else in the Arab world, while neighboring Arab states are Judenrein.
At Durban one role of Human Rights Watch was to exclude the representative of Jewish lawyers and jurists from over 40 countries. Here's what happened:
As a representative of the IAJLJ, I was a member of the caucus of international human rights nongovernmental organizations. Human Rights Watch, along with others such as Amnesty International and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (renamed Human Rights First), was also a member of this caucus. Together we had a right to vote on the final NGO document, and hours before the last session gathered together to discuss our position.
The draft included egregious statements equating Zionism with racism, and alleging that is an "apartheid" state guilty of "genocide and ethnic cleansing designed to ensure a Jewish state."
As we arrived at our meeting the chief Durban representative of Human Rights Watch, advocacy director Reed Brody, publicly announced that as a representative of a Jewish group I was unwelcome and could not attend. The views of a Jewish organization, he explained, would not be objective and the decision on how to vote had to be taken in our absence. Not a single one of the other international NGOs objected.
THE HUMAN Rights Watch role at Durban? To inhibit Jewish lawyers and jurists from being fairly represented or defended.
Later that afternoon, my colleague Daniel Lack and I insisted on entering the meeting, but their minds were made up. In the face of the flagrant anti-Semitism all around them the group, including HRW had decided neither to approve nor disapprove of the final declaration, and not to vote.
Instead the international NGOs, including HRW planned to introduce an introductory paragraph that would cast the document as a legitimate collection of the "voices of the victims."
In the evening, as the declaration was considered, a motion was made to delete draft language that had come from the Jewish NGO caucus. The Jewish caucus had proposed including a statement that the demonization of and the targeting of Jews for destruction because of their support for was a form of anti-Semitism.
The vote to delete the Jewish caucus's proposal succeeded and all Jewish organizations from around the world walked out.
What did Human Rights Watch do? The organization said nothing. It made no move to vote. It stayed. Notwithstanding that the Jewish voices had been silenced, two days later at a press conference, HRW (along with Amnesty International, and the Lawyers Committee/Human Rights First) repeated the claim that the "voices of the victims" had legitimately prevailed at the NGO conference. HRW spokesperson Smita Narula said: "The document gives expression to all voices."
What else did Human Rights Watch do in Durban? It misrepresented the final outcome to the world press.
AFTER THE fact, Human Rights Watch got nervous about the possible reaction of its many Jewish funders. So the cover-up began.
On September 6, 2001 Human Rights Watch spokespersons Reed Brody and Joel Motley wrote in the Conference News Daily that the NGO declaration "marks a major success... and recognizes the scourge of anti-Semitism."
They neglected to mention that the declaration had redefined anti-Semitism, changing its meaning from the hatred of Jews to something which included "anti-Arab racism."
Six months later, in February 2002, Human Rights Watch published an update stating: "What really happened at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban? The conference we participated in was completely different from the one covered in American newspapers."
What else did Human Rights Watch do after Durban? It denied what happened there.
As for Roth's claim of the organization's objectivity in reporting on governments throughout the region, one need look no further than its inability despite an annual budget of $22 million to produce a specific report on human rights abuses in a country like Libya, or the relative paucity of attention over the years given to states with appalling human rights records like Saudi Arabia and Syria, as compared to Israel.
So there should be no surprise when HRW wrongly describes as violating international legal norms, for example, by labeling the killing of someone like Sheikh Ahmed Yassin or Ismail Abu Shanab an "assassination" or "liquidation."
International law does not protect all combatants from being targeted before judicial process, or grant them immunity from military operations when they use civilians as human shields.
Having the courage to speak out against the tide of hate directed at and the Jewish people is not one of the strengths of Human Rights Watch.
When will this leading international human rights NGO stop believing it has to earn its stripes by demonizing Israel, or that to stay in business it must avoid criticizing Israel's enemies?
The writer, a professor at York University in , is an international lawyer and a member of the Governing Board of UN Watch, based in Geneva."
Jew hating “Itamar” says: "Sadly for you, the horrendous war crimes committed in Gaza by the IDF have been documented by many."
No, they haven't been "documented" there have been allegations made which have not been verified by independent observers.
"Sorry I forgot Human Rights Watch are anti-Semites funded by wahabists, as is the UN, Amnesty International etc!"
The UN is the largest disseminator of antisemitism in the world today.
HRW and AI are not independent organizations as they get monies from government agencies hostile to Israel.
"Just keep in mind that some of us are interested in truth and we don't appreciate being the subject of hasbara from right wingers and apologists all the time!"
Truth? There is no truth in anything you post.
"The UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Durban, South Africa"
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/durban1.html
By Elihai Braun
"The United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance met in Durban, South Africa from August 31 to September 8, 2001. The UN General Assembly authorized the conference in Resolution 52/111 in 1997, aiming to explore effective methods to eradicate racial discrimination and to promote awareness in the global struggle against intolerance.
Yet the noble goals of the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism were undermined by hateful anti-Jewish rhetoric and anti-Israel political agendas, prompting both Israel and the United States to withdraw their delegations from the conference. Participants revived the scurrilous charge that "Zionism is Racism" and used false and hostile allegations to delegitimize Israel.
In the weeks prior to the conference, the United States had warned organizers that it would withdraw from Durban if the early anti-Jewish charges and the condemnations of Israel remained unchallenged. After four days of fruitless negotiations, the U.S. delegation withdrew on September 3, midway through the conference, unable to turn the focus of the conference back to its original goals. The aim to combat discrimination and intolerance worldwide was ironically superceded by a bigoted campaign to single out one nation for criticism.
The September 3 statement of withdrawal of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell read:
Today I have instructed our representatives at the World Conference Against Racism to return home. I have taken this decision with regret, because of the importance of the international fight against racism and the contribution that the Conference could have made to it. But, following discussions today by our team in Durban and others who are working for a successful conference, I am convinced that will not be possible. I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of "Zionism equals racism;" or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world--Israel--for censure and abuse.1
Copies of the anti-Semitic work, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, were sold on conference grounds; anti-Israel protesters jeered participants chanting "Zionism is racism, Israel is apartheid," and "You have Palestinian blood on your hands"; fliers depicting Hitler with the question, "What if I had won?" circulated among conference attendees. The answer: "There would be NO Israel and NO Palestinian bloodshed."
On September 3, in the Israeli official proclamation, delivered by Head of the Israeli Delegation Ambassador Mordecai Yedid, Deputy Foreign Minister Rabbi Michael Melchior wrote:
Racism, in all its forms, is one of the most widespread and pernicious evils, depriving millions of hope and fundamental rights. It might have been hoped that this first Conference of the 21st century would have taken up the challenge of, if not eradicating racism, at least disarming it: But instead humanity is being sacrificed to a political agenda. ... Can there be a greater irony than the fact that a conference convened to combat the scourge of racism should give rise to the most racist declaration in a major international organization since the Second World War?2
In addition to the UN government conference against racism, Durban simultaneously hosted a UN conference of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The NGO conference, according to the UN, aimed to publicize the "voices of the victims." In this forum, the Jewish Caucus proposed that Holocaust denial and anti-Jewish violence caused by Jewish support for Israel be labeled forms of anti-Semitism. The proposal was almost unanimously defeated. Anne Bayefsky, a NGO participant, and a representative of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, commented. "The only group that voted for it was the Jews. Of all the 'voices of the victims' put into the resolution, only one voice was deleted - the Jewish voice."3
Bayefsky reported, "Like all Jewish participants, I felt concern for my safety. The Jewish Center in Durban was forced to close because of threats of violence." During an NGO discussion on Palestinian issues, representatives of human rights organizations asked Bayefsky to leave: "They explained to me that as a representative of a Jewish organization, I was biased and couldn't be counted on to act in the interest of general human rights."4
The representatives at the NGO conference removed a key paragraph on anti-Semitism by unanimous vote, prompting a Jewish Caucus walk out. The removed paragraph read:
We are concerned with the prevalence of Anti-Zionism and attempts to delegitimize the State of Israel through wildly inaccurate charges of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, as a virulent contemporary form of anti-Semitism leading to firebombing of synagogues, armed assaults against Jews, incitements to killing, and the murder of innocent Jews, for their support for the existence of the State of Israel, the assertion of the right to self determination of the Jewish people and the attempts, through the State of Israel, to preserve their cultural and religious identity.5
Soon after the American and Israeli pullout, the Jewish Caucus formally withdrew from the NGO conference.
The final resolution of the NGO conference, which was overwhelmingly adopted, called Israel "a racist apartheid state," guilty of the "systematic perpetration of racist crimes including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing ... and state terror against the Palestinian people."6
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, called the allegations accusing Israel of war crimes "inappropriate and unacceptable," but did not reject the document. She mentioned that the NGO resolution included constructive proposals on hate crimes, indigenous peoples, and caste issues. In traditional UN practice, the Secretary-General of the conference officially "recommends" the NGO resolution to the government conference, but Robinson said she "could not recommend the document to the government delegates in its entirety."7
Major human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Lawyers for Human Rights, and Physicians for Human Rights also expressed criticism of the anti-Jewish language of the NGO resolution, but raised their concerns two days after the conclusion of the NGO conference. Overall, they endorsed the resolution. Amnesty International said, "Although not accepting or condoning some of the language used within the NGO Declaration, Amnesty International accepts the declaration as a largely positive document which gives a voice to all the victims of racism wherever it occurs."8
The UN government conference, stalled over references to the Middle East situation, concluded on September 8, a full day past its scheduled end date, with an adoption of a "compromise" proposal between the European Union and the Arab countries. The chair of the conference, South African Foreign Minister Zuma, asked delegates to leave complex Middle East issues aside and to "focus on not doing anything to cause this conference to collapse."9
But Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara insisted on adding language explicitly condemning Israel's "foreign occupation." Brazil proposed a "motion of no action" suggesting that conference not address issues on which it would not agree. The "motion of no action" was approved by a vote of 51-38. Arab and Muslim states voted against the proposal.
The final declaration of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance included the following passages relevant to Israel:10
63. We are concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation. We recognize the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to the establishment of an independent State and we recognize the right to security for all States in the region, including Israel, and call upon all States to support the peace process and bring it to an early conclusion;
64. We call for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region in which all peoples shall co-exist and enjoy equality, justice and internationally recognized human rights, and security;
65. We recognize the right of refugees to return voluntarily to their homes and properties in dignity and safety, and urge all States to facilitate such return;
151. As for the situation in the Middle East, calls for the end of violence and the swift resumption of negotiations, respect for international human rights and humanitarian law, respect for the principle of self-determination and the end of all suffering, thus allowing Israel and the Palestinians to resume the peace process, and to develop and prosper in security and freedom."
I wish people would stop spamming the Forward reader comments page with long, unedited articles from other publications.
If I wanted to read NGO Monitor, I would read NGO Monitor.
Norman, re your statement on "if I wanted to read..." -- your problem -- or at least one of your problems -- is that you don't read anything you might disagree with or anything that might challenge your willful ignorance.
Ephraim,
So all the human rights organizations including the Israeli ones are Jew haters and anti-Semites for documenting the IDF's war crimes in Gaza, which resulted in the brutal murder of hundreds of children. You claim there were no "independent" observers documenting these crimes. Could this be because Israel didn't allow any journalists into Gaza!
"Itamar" no one has "documented war crimes."
Any one can file charges, it's up to an impartial court to decide if war crimes were committed. Since you already decided that Israel is guilty your views are nor unbiased.
btw: what about the conduct of the Russians in Chechnya, or of the Chinese in Tiber or of the dozens of other and worse conflicts in the world? Do you care about that?
Where are the human rights commissions? Where is the UN when it comes to the other conflicts? Why is it that only the Jewish States is targeted by international "human rights" groups.
I smell an antisemitic rat being cooked up by Itamar.
Ephraim,
Doesn't look like you are up on your hasbara skills. Calling people antisemitic or self-hating Jews is so passé. As is deflecting attention to other conflicts where atrocities were committed.
May I suggest you consult the Israel Project hasbara handbook http://www.newsweek.com/id/206021 for the latest guidelines.
The real question is are you able of any introspection? How do you sleep at night knowing that innocent children were killed in the most horrific ways by the army of a state that practices collective punishment and ethnic cleansing as an official state policy, ALL IN YOUR NAME.
Federico Marini it's obvious that you little screed in Italian isn't Israel friendly and saying that Israel is using German armaments from WW2 is one of your little jokes.
As an Italian you should ask yourself why there is so much Jew hatred in Italy even today half a centurey after the Holocaust when many Jews were sent to their deaths from your country.
"Just because you shout "ethnic cleansing" doesn't mean it's real." -- Ephraim
Of course it doesn't. How about this to prove it is real?
"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushu'a in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." - Moshe Dayan addressing the Technion in Haifa (as quoted in Ha'aretz, 4 April 1969)
"Of course it doesn't. How about this to prove it is real?"
Give it up, Itamar.
You are recycling quotes taken out of context.
Everyone knows that Arabs of mandate Palestine didn't accept the UN 1947 partition plan and made war in the Jews. They lost and when the Arab armies of five or six States attacked Israel these same Arabs left in order to give their brothers in arm a free hand to exterminate the Jews.
It didn't work out that way and Israel rightly didn't want the "refugees" back. In the mean time the Arab countries threw out more than half a million Jews who never made war on anyone.
Israel took these people in.
Afterwards the Arabs with their Communist friends in Europe started a campaign to demonize the Jewish State which is still ongoing.
This is the meaning of the Dayan quote.
Read
"1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War" by Benny Morris
Btw: just because you call yourself “Itamar” doesn’t make Israeli, or even Jewish.
"Desmond Tutu is a godamn Jew hating liar and so are you" --- Ephraim
So this is what right wing Zionists have been reduced to, calling everyone who criticizes Israel a Jew hating liar or anti-Semite.
Can you Ephraim care to elaborate as why someone like Desmond Tutu would hate Jews?
Talk about paranoia and being brain washed!
As for your sanitized version of history, Benny Morris did document the elaborate ethnic cleansing perpetrated under the leadership of Ben Gurion (and continued to this day by West Bank settlers).
there were something like ten million refuges in 1948 and people only focus on the Arabs that's because all the others were taken in by their kin.
The Jews took in more than a half million refugees from Arab countries while the Arabs refused to take in Arab refugees.
It's their problem and the UN should not have allowed them to stay in camps for all these years.
They should have gone to Egypt Syria and Iraq whose Jewish populatuions were expelled and where there were plenty of free houses left vacant by the Jews.
Right eteban, that's the whole story behind the so called "Palestinian refugee problem."
"There was no "ethnic cleansing" of Arabs in 1948 and there is no ethnic cleansing now.
There was ethnic and religious cleansing of Jews from Arab countries, something the Jew hating Itamar will not address." --- Ephraim
Ephraim, Jews from Arab countries moved to the newly established state of Israel because that is what the Zionists urged them to do. As for Benny Morris and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, you are sadly mistaken again (see the following extract from a interview with Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=380986&contrassID=2).
According to your findings, how many acts of Israeli massacre were perpetrated in 1948?
"Twenty-four. In some cases four or five people were executed, in others the numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing. Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot. A woman is found in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the village of Dawayima [in the Hebron region], in which a column entered the village with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved. .....
"That can't be chance. It's a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres."
What you are telling me here, as though by the way, is that in Operation Hiram there was a comprehensive and explicit expulsion order. Is that right?
"Yes. One of the revelations in the book is that on October 31, 1948, the commander of the Northern Front, Moshe Carmel, issued an order in writing to his units to expedite the removal of the Arab population. Carmel took this action immediately after a visit by Ben-Gurion to the Northern Command in Nazareth. There is no doubt in my mind that this order originated with Ben-Gurion. Just as the expulsion order for the city of Lod, which was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, was issued immediately after Ben-Gurion visited the headquarters of Operation Dani [July 1948]."
Itamar,
Good find. That's a link to The Israel Project's 2009 Global Language Dictionary, which is a 116-page confidential memo by Frank Luntz with advice for misguided Jews on how to defend Israel.
This was also the subject of a story in the Forward. http://blogs.forward.com/bintel-blog/tags/frank-luntz/
Luntz is the guy who helped the Republican Party take over the country until their incompetence finally became undeniable. Newt Gingrich wrote a similar memo.
The interesting thing is that Luntz says you should ignore the facts and use emotion. That might be a prudent strategy when the facts are against you, but it takes you down some dangerous paths (like war).
So the memo lies and ignores the facts. The best example is Chapter 8, "Settlements." As we were discussing the other day, Netanyahu lied and claimed that Palestinians are free to live in West Jerusalem (so why shouldn't Jews live in East Jerusalem?).
The fact is that the settlements are illegal under the Geneva Conventions, which were written right after World War II to prevent a repetition of what the Germans did to the Jews. Israel's own Foreign Ministry legal council, Theodor Meron, said the settlements were illegal. You can't have peace without obeying international law.
I don't need a 116-page memo. All I need is one line from Hillel: that which is hateful to you, do not do unto others.
Nicht vergessen.
Nicht,
Well said, especially the Hillel quote.