IT'S ABOUT TIME - AT 6:20 P.M. ET:  The New York Times today runs a remarkable op-ed piece by Robert L. Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch.  Showing great courage, Bernstein, with absolutely good cause, attacks the very group he founded.  (He stepped aside in 1998.) 

He has watched Human Rights Watch become a farce, and, like other "human rights" organizations, a tool of the political left: 

At Human Rights Watch, we always recognized that open, democratic societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the ability to correct them — through vigorous public debate, an adversarial press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform.

That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights. We wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its followers from playing a moral equivalence game with the West and to encourage liberalization by drawing attention to dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky and those in the Soviet gulag — and the millions in China’s laogai, or labor camps.

When I stepped aside in 1998, Human Rights Watch was active in 70 countries, most of them closed societies. Now the organization, with increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies.

Bernstein is particularly critical of HRW's regular assaults on Israel.  The organization now has a Middle East department staffed entirely by Arab rights activists.  No one neutral.  No one on the other side.  Very trendy.

Nowhere is this more evident than in its work in the Middle East. The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.

And...

Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.

Finally...

Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world. If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished.

COMMENT:  Yay!  It's time someone broke the silence about Human Rights Watch, and who better than its founder? 

There are many organizations that operate the way red fronts operated during the Cold War.  They give themselves noble names like "Women for World Peace, Justice, and Equality," when in fact they support the world's worst regimes.  The language is familiar...except to some in journalism and in the academic precincts, who prefer not to know, or not to see.

Bernstein will be viciously attacked for his column.  He should get a medal.

October 20,  2009