From Ahmet in Tunisia: "Asad,
an insider
account: " Long’s account indicates that HRW observes a sort of fake
balance in which it must artificially generate criticism of Palestinians
just in order to offset criticism of Israel’s much greater and more
frequent human rights abuses and crimes:
Human
Rights Watch, where I worked for many years, strains all its muscles to
be completely objective on Israel/Palestine — an effort that has never
gotten it a scintilla of credit
from the militant pro-Israel side. Its releases on Israel and
Palestine are the only ones in the entire organization that are
routinely edited by the executive director himself. An informal
arithmetic dictates that every presser or report criticizing Israel
has to be accompanied by another criticizing the Palestine Authority or
Hamas — or, if that isn’t possible (the PA barely retains enough
authority to violate anybody’s rights) at least one of the surrounding
Arab states. A mathematical approach to objectivity
may help accountants detect embezzlement or captains keep ships afloat,
but that kind of balance looks ridiculous in the political world, where
the incessant fluidity of action disrupts the illusions of double-entry
bookkeeping. (The call for an “embargo
on arms” to “all sides” is an excellent example of “objectivity” that
benefits one side much more than the other. As often noted during the
Yugoslav civil war — when extremely well-meaning people urged that
unarmed Bosnians and the Serbian army both go cold
turkey on acquiring arms — a cutoff will matter much more to those who
have only scant resources than to those flush with weaponry. If you want
to stop that kind of fighting, an embargo alone won’t do it. It’s like
the majestic equality of the law as Anatole
France described it, forbidding both rich and poor to sleep under
bridges.)
Whatever
you think of the neighboring conflict, Egyptian activists are
undoubtedly reasonable when they ask what a similar “objectivity” would
have looked like in their 20-year
struggle with Mubarak. Should each documented act of torture by State
Security have been followed by a search for some malfeasance by human
rights organizations? Do the immense power of a state and the vulnerability of a people’s movement carry the same
responsibilities? At what point do you acknowledge (as Human Rights
Watch did in Egypt) that, though both sides may do wrong, one side’s
demand is right and the other’s is wrong?""
