Summary:

The articles below present the public debate between Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, Dr. Avi Bell of the Law Faculty, Bar Ilan University and the editors of the “New York Sun.”

On July 23, 2006 NGO Monitor published Dr. Avi Bell’s analysis of the Selective and Distorted Application of International Law in Human Rights Watch’s Q&A on Lebanon War, which charged HRW with “whitewashing Hezbollah’s crimes of aggression – and… hiding Lebanon’s, Syria’s and Iran’s legal responsibilities, diminishing other Hezbollah war crimes, and amplifying imagined Israeli wrongdoing.” Bell’s report was republished by the New York Sun on July 25. Roth responded with a July 31 letter to the Sun, arguing that “Iranian, Syrian, and Lebanese governments are not currently fighting in Lebanon” and that “…by design or callous indifference, Israeli bombing has killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians.”

Bell’s response to Roth was published in the Sun on the same day, along with an editorial by the paper. Bell countered that “[1]n his letter, Mr. Roth demonstrates a lack of the very qualities of objectivity, nonpartisanship and careful investigation that he claims characterize HRW.” And the Editorial strongly criticized Roth for “supersessionism, the de-legitimization of Judaism, the basis of much anti-Semitism ” when he “concludes his letter with a slur on the Jewish religion itself that is breathtaking in its ignorance.”

Roth’s Supersessionism

New York Sun Staff Editorial
July 31, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/36993

While the war against Hezbollah rages in Lebanon, let us turn for a moment to the war on the home front, where one of the major human rights organizations is veering sharply against the Jewish state. We refer to Human Rights Watch, whose executive director, Kenneth Roth, has written a letter to the editor of The New York Sun replying to the article that appeared July 25 by Avi Bell accusing Human Rights Watch of bias. If readers weren’t convinced of Human Rights Watch’s anti-Israel bias after reading Mr. Bell’s article, Mr. Roth’s letter to the editor makes it an open-and-shut case.

Mr. Bell had criticized Human Rights Watch for, among other things, failing to treat the war between Israel and Hezbollah as an interstate conflict. Mr. Roth replies that “the Iranian, Syrian and Lebanese governments are not currently fighting in Lebanon.” Yet the day after Mr. Bell’s article appeared in The New York Sun, Human Rights Watch itself – shamed into action – wrote to Presidents Ahmadinejad and al-Assad. The executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, Sarah Leah Whitson, wrote the Iranian of the “close and abiding relationship between Hezbollah and Iran, including the alleged role that Iran has played in supplying weapons to Hezbollah.” To Mr. Assad, the Human Rights Watch activist wrote of “Syria’s historically close relationship with Hezbollah, including reports that Syria has supplied weapons to Hezbollah.”

It’s not just Ms. Whitson to whom Mr. Roth might want to listen regarding the roles of Syria and Iran in Lebanon. On July 12 – fully two weeks before Human Rights Watch wrote to Syria and Iran – the White House issued a statement saying, “We also hold Syria and Iran, which have provided long-standing support for Hizballah, responsible for today’s violence.” The Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt told our special correspondent, Aaron Klein, that “Iran is bringing in sophisticated weaponry. The Iranians are actually experimenting with different kinds of missiles in Lebanon by shooting them at the Israelis.” Mr. Jumblatt said, “In truth, the Syrians never left Lebanon. They triggered this war through their proxy, Hezbollah. They continue to hold us hostage.” The Los Angeles Times reported on July 16 that a senior Israeli military official “said more than 100 Iranian troops, including members of the elite Republican Guard, were in Lebanon and assisting Hezbollah.”

Amir Abbas Fakhravar testified before Congress on July 20, “We see what the Islamic regime has done with its support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and what crime has taken place.” Mr. Roth might remember Mr. Fakhravar. A July 8, 2004, Human Rights Watch press release called for him to be released from Iranian prison. Now that Mr. Fakhravar, the chairman of Iran’s Independent Student Movement, is out of prison, Mr. Roth might want to pay attention to Mr. Fakhravar’s congressional testimony. It might prevent Mr. Roth from sending out any more letters to the editor mistakenly absolving the Iranian government of responsibility for what is happening in Lebanon.

Mr. Roth’s letter condemns Israel for an attack on a Red Crescent convoy that left “medicine” scattered on the highway. But a December 22, 2003, press release from the foreign ministry in Jerusalem details the ways in which the Islamist terrorists are using the Red Crescent and its ambulances as cover. A January 27, 2002, terrorist attack on Jerusalem involved three employees of the Palestinian Red Crescent, including the suicide bomber herself. On March 27, 2002, the Israelis arrested Islam Jibril while he was driving a Red Crescent ambulance containing an explosive belt and explosive devices.The explosive belt was hidden underneath a stretcher carrying a sick Palestinian boy. Palestinian documents seized by the Israelis refer to the terrorists transporting weapons hidden in the floors of ambulances. The Arab terrorists tried to turn medical chemicals like hydrogen peroxide, sulfuric acid, and nitric acid taken from hospitals and medical offices into bombs for use against Israel. If Human Rights Watch condemned any of these activities, we’ve been unable to find evidence of it. For Mr. Roth, in his letter, to condemn Israel for attacking a Red Crescent convoy without condemning the way that the Arab terrorists have misused the Red Crescent banner calls his motives into question.

Mr. Roth’s letter speaks of “Israeli abuses” that “should generate outrage,” including the destruction of civilian apartment buildings. But there’s not a word in Mr. Roth’s letter criticizing Hezbollah for using Lebanese civilians as shields for their command headquarters and missile launching activities. The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, boasted as recently as May of Lebanon’s willingness to sacrifice its children. As Jerusalem’s ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Gillerman, asked yesterday on “Meet the Press,” how would one propose that Israel deal with hardened Hezbollah terrorists using civilians as shields? Asked Mr. Gillerman, “Would you send them postcards? Would you send them flowers?”

Mr. Roth’s letter, denying his clear pro-Hezbollah and anti-Israel bias, declares Human Rights Watch to adhere to “strict neutrality,” not identifying the aggressor because it “almost invariably leads to lengthy historical digressions.” Then he goes on to accuse Israel of engaging in “slaughter,” of having lost “the moral high ground,” and of killing hundreds of Lebanese civilians either by “design or callous indifference.” Some neutrality.

Mr. Roth concludes his letter with a slur on the Jewish religion itself that is breathtaking in its ignorance.”An eye for an eye – or more accurately in this case twenty eyes for an eye – may have been the morality of some more primitive moment,” Mr. Roth writes. The reference is to the phrase “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” found in Exodus 21, in Deuteronomy 19, and Leviticus, Chapter 24. The sages have long made clear that this referred to monetary compensation, as the Talmud points out in Baba Kamma 84a. To suggest that Judaism is a “primitive” religion incompatible with contemporary morality is to engage in supersessionism, the de-legitimization of Judaism, the basis of much anti-Semitism.

The last time Mr. Roth was upbraided in our pages on the basis of his organization’s one-sided criticism of Israel, we rang him up to report out an editorial on the topic. He made the point that his father had fled Nazi Germany, and warned that crying wolf falsely about anti-Semitism would make it harder to confront genuine anti-Semitism. But now, Mr. Roth says he’s neutral while issuing one-sided condemnations of Israel – as the Jewish state tries desperately to defend its civilians and soldiers against an enemy, in Hezbollah, whose leader, Sheik Nasrallah, has appeared on television as recently as this year to say that “the alleged Jewish Holocaust in Germany” had been “proved” a “myth.” Mr. Roth may consider that a “lengthy historical digression,” but there are those of us who understand it is the central point.

• See Avi Bell’s original article “Human Rights Watch’s Q&A on Lebanon War: Selective and Distorted Application of International Law“ published by NGO Monitor and the the New York Sun

“Getting It Straight”
Exchange of Letters between Ken Roth and Dr. Avi Bell, published in New York Sun, July 31, 2006

It is sad testament to the severity of Israeli bombing for Lebanese civilians that the best defense Avi Bell can come up with is his blame-the-messenger diatribe against Human Rights Watch [“Getting It Straight,” Opinion, July 25, 2006]. Rather than an honest discussion, Mr. Bell distorts the organization’s views and then, knocking down the straw man, decries “bias.”

For example, Mr. Bell claims that Human Rights Watch refers to Hezbollah’s abuses “only in passing.” That’s odd given Human Rights Watch’s high-profile July 18 statement revealing some Hezbollah rockets fired into cities to have been filled with ball bearings that have little military value but are designed to injure or kill civilians. Human Rights Watch denounced Hezbollah for “at best indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas, at worst the deliberate targeting of civilians. Either way, they [are committing] serious violations of international humanitarian law and probable war crimes.” Which part of that was “only in passing”?

Mr. Bell then displays a curious ignorance about even the basic requirements of international humanitarian law – essentially, the Geneva Conventions and customary law. With great fanfare, he criticizes Human Rights Watch for not treating the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict as an interstate one involving Iran, Syria, and Leba non, noting that different sections of the Geneva Conventions would then apply. But the Iranian, Syrian, and Lebanese governments are not currently fighting in Lebanon. And even if they were, the rules regulating bombing, rocket, and artillery attacks would be exactly the same.

Similarly, he defends Israel’s attack on the Beirut airport and other civilian infrastructure because of their “potential” use in transporting military supplies, ignoring the duty to weigh that theoretical military advantage against the enormous immediate civilian costs. He dismisses the possibility that Israel might attack food or medical supplies as “imagined,” despite Israel’s July 18 attack on a Red Crescent convoy that destroyed three trucks and four passenger vehicles, and left medicine, vegetable oil, sugar, and rice scattered on the highway.

Mr. Bell does not even discuss the most serious Israeli abuses: the attack on Srifa village (10 houses destroyed, as many as 42 civilians killed); the attack on a vehicle of villagers fleeing Marwaheen (16 civilians killed, including many children); or the destruction of some 60% of a 9-by-9 block area of southern Beirut, composed mostly of 8-10 story civilian apartment buildings. In the face of abuses that should generate outrage, Mr. Bell gives us silence.

In one of his more bizarre arguments, he cites the Hezbollah leader’s genocidal wishes to suggest that Hezbollah is in fact committing genocide against the Jews. It should be enough to join Human Rights Watch in calling Hezbollah’s attacks war crimes. But to claim that the ultimate crime of genocide is now underway is to cheapen a concept whose continued vitality could be a matter of life and death for those who are really facing it. To make that claim on behalf of a people who have experienced the real horror of genocide does their slaughtered ancestors a particular disservice.

Ironically, given Mr. Bell’s charge of bias, much of his harangue is devoted to faulting Human Rights Watch for not being partisan enough. He wants, for example, the organization to criticize Hezbollah for “violating Israeli sovereignty.” Leaving aside the regular Israeli overflights of Lebanese territory that preceded the recent conflict, Human Rights Watch, like the Red Cross, has a longstanding mandate requiring strict neutrality on such political questions. The organization never identifies the aggressor or the defender for three reasons: 1) because international humanitarian law applies the same rules to all warring parties regardless of the legitimacy of their cause; 2) because Human Rights Watch’s primary goal of pressing all warring parties to respect international humanitarian law would be compromised if the organization were to take sides in the conflict; and 3) because the question of who started any given conflict or who is most at fault almost invariably leads to lengthy historical digressions that are antithetical to the careful, objective investigations into the contemporary conduct of warring parties in which the organization specializes. But Mr. Bell doesn’t seem to want objectivity. He wants nothing short of another Israel defender.

Mr. Bell’s distortions do Israel no service. Israel could have maintained the moral high ground if it had responded to Hezbollah rocket attacks by targeting only Hezbollah military forces. Instead, whether by design or callous indifference, Israeli bombing has killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians and left much of the country’s infrastructure in ruins. Yet Mr. Bell’s see-no-evil defense only encourages more such slaughter. An eye for an eye – or, more accurately in this case, twenty eyes for an eye – may have been the morality of some more primitive moment. But it is not the morality of international humanitarian law which Mr. Bell pretends to apply.

KENNETH ROTH
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch

Mr. Bell’s Response:

Sadly, Mr. Roth engages in ad hominem attacks, distorts my positions and drags in red herrings, rather than address directly my observations of Human Rights Watch’s bias.

In his letter, Mr. Roth demonstrates a lack of the very qualities of objectivity, nonpartisanship and careful investigation that he claims characterize HRW. He further misleads readers about legal standards and he makes a slew of new political anti-Israel charges even as his organization’s website acknowledges that HRW has not yet investigated the facts.

For example, Mr. Roth charges Israel with illegality in an “attack on Srifa village (10 houses destroyed, as many as 42 civilians killed).” Yet, Mr. Roth provides us with no additional detail about the target beyond this damage. I found an AP report filed by Nasser Nasser that acknowledged that “[a]fter the first [Israeli] strikes, Hezbollah fighters carrying walkie-talkies rushed for cover whenever Israeli warplanes or pilotless aircraft appeared.” How many Hezbollah fighters were there? How many arms depots? Where were the targets located? In some of the houses? Mr. Roth doesn’t deign to tell us; perhaps he doesn’t even know. Similarly, Mr. Roth charges that Israel “attack[ed] a vehicle of villagers fleeing Marwaheen (16 civilians killed, including many children).” Yet, HRW’s own press release on the subject acknowledged Israel’s claim that the target of the attacks was “an area near the city of Tyre, in southern Lebanon, used as launching grounds for missiles fired by Hezbollah terror organization at Israel” and that “further investigation” was needed. Is there new information that permits Mr. Roth to charge that Israel illegally targeted civilians? If yes, where is it? The inescapable conclusion is that Mr. Roth has simply dramatized HRW’s original statement to fit his extra-legal faith in Israeli guilt.

Notwithstanding Mr. Roth’s protestations, the laws of war clearly permit attacking targets for their predicted contribution to the military effort, even in the face of certain civilian harm. The laws of war permit Israeli attacks on military targets located in residential areas unless the collateral damage to civilians is expected to be excessive in comparison to the military advantage. Every innocent death in war is a tragedy, but not every tragedy is a war crime by the attacker. Calling me ignorant does not change this law, even when the name-caller is Mr. Roth.

By contrast, there is no legal defense for Hezbollah hiding its fighters and weaponry in residential areas, mosques and near U.N. positions – just as there is no defense for Lebanon providing Hezbollah with safe harbor, Syria and Iran for arming Hezbollah, or Hezbollah for targeting civilian areas throughout the Israeli north, destroying Israeli property without military justification, holding hostages, engaging in collective punishment, carrying out ethnically motivated murders, and holding POW’s incommunicado.

Even as Mr. Roth clutches at the lone HRW document that focuses on Hezbollah crimes, nearly all HRW documents released since the onset of fighting on July 12 – like the HRW Q&A guide I criticized – focus their very partisan criticisms on Israel. HRW’s and Mr. Roth’s near-silence on Hezbollah’s, Lebanon’s, Syria’s and Iran’s crimes and obsessive accusations about Israel even in the absence of evidence of crimes speak volumes about Mr. Roth’s and his organization’s patently political, non-legal and nonobjective agenda.

AVI BELL
Law Professor
Bar Ilan University