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By J. Zel Lurie
 DELRAY BEACH, Florida—A brouhaha rose in the austere pages of the New York Times last week over the many citations by Human Rights Watch of human rights violations by Israel.
The founder of Human Rights Watch, Robert L. Bernstein, began the discussion with an emotional op-ed piece on Oct. 20 titled “Human Rights Watchdog: Lost in the Modest.”
Mr. Bernstein founded the organization to protect dissidents in closed societies through publicity. Israel is a democracy, he argued, and should be treated differently from the dictators and tyrants who rule African and Asian countries.
He could not stomach the organization he founded to help dissidents in Sudan and Zimbabwe and many other countries, turning on the country he loved, the only democracy in the Middle East, Now he was going public and presenting his argument to the world.
The chairwoman of Human Rights Watch, Jane Olson, and the past chairman, Jonathan Fanton, immediately responded with a letter the next day. They note that “as recently as last April the full board of directors heard -- and rejected -- Mr. Bernstein’s proposal that Human Rights Watch should focus our research and reporting resources on closed societies.”
The rhetoric of the leaders of HRW reminds me of an old joke about a couple who were necking on a bench in Central Park when the lady lost a valuable earring. The lady was fumbling in the dark under the bench but the man searched under a lamppost 100 feet away. Asked why he was so distant he replied: “Here is where the light is.”
Yes. Israel is where the light is, and that’s where Human Rights Watch will look for abuses of human rights.
The second letter in the Times of October 21 was signed by the biggest guns in Israeli hasbara in the United State, Alan Dershowitz and Elie Wiesel.
They write that Human Rights Watch, which was founded by Mr. Bernstein more than 30 years ago has lost its way. “In a region dominated by regimes that violate human rights in horrendous ways, Human Rights Watch has instead chosen to single out Israel for condemnation…”
The third letter by Scott Leo of New York hits the nail on the head. The disputants fail to distinguish between the democracy of Israel and the autocracy of the West Bank and Gaza under occupation.
The human rights of over three million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are violated daily. B’tselem, a Jewish human rights organization based in Jerusalem is my source for news of human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza.
B’tselem’s innovative leaders have distributed video cameras to Palestinians in the West Bank who know how to use them. B’tselem’s 2008 report publishes in full color photos of masked youths from the Havat Ma’on illegal settlement attacking with clubs a Bedouin shepherd. Hundreds of attacks by settlers have been documented by B’Tselem.
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The Israeli police could not identify the masked Jewish youth armed with clubs. Imagine that the opposite had occurred. Masked Palestinians had attacked a Jewish youth. The Army’s CID (Criminal Investigation Department) would have quickly identified them and arrested them. That night the Jewish settlers would have invaded the nearby Palestinian village, vandalized parked cars, shot out windows and scared the daylights out of little children. This too has occurred many times.
Another startling photo in the 2008 report is that of Zev Braude, a settler in Kiryat Arba near Hebron, shooting at a Palestinian. His arm holding a revolver is pointing at the Arab in the B’tselem photo. It is unclear whether he was trying to abet the riot started by the Hebron settlers in retaliation for being forced to withdraw from a house they had squatted in or stop it.
It turns out that Braude was a secret operator for the Shin Bet. The Israeli prosecutor decided to srop the charges of causing bodily harm in order not to reveal state secrets.
“The settlers benefit from Israeli law but the Palestinians live under military occupation and are governed by Army regulations,” says Jessica Montell, Executive Director of B’tselem. “Two separate legal systems in the same territory.”
Asked by the Jewish Journal (of South Florida) for the outstanding human rights violations in 2009, Ms. Montell said the Gaza invasion is number one. B’Tselem’s independent investigation showed that 773 Palestinians, who did not participate in the hostilities, were killed. Included were 220 minors and 109 women over the age of 18.
Behind these dry statistics were shocking individual stories which were told on Israeli TV by the soldiers who witnessed them and are retold in the Goldstone report.
Second on Ms. Maxell’s list” “The ongoing siege of Gaza which has devastated the economy, created almost complete dependence on food from the international community and prevented reconstruction in Gaza.”
The third is administrative detention which is the subject of B’Tselem's latest report. Although the number has declined in 2009, 335 Palestinians are still being held without trial. Some have been in detention for up to five years without trial and a third have been locked up for over a year.
Last but not least is the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and its apartheid road system. As a general rule, paved roads are for Jews. The Palestinians are confined to potholes and dirt roads. The settlements are a leading cause for the Army of occupation’s severe restrictions on the development of Palestinian industry, agriculture and tourism.
My message to Human Rights Watch: You will find little to report in Israel but human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza are legion and are well documented by B’Tselem. You should devote your resources to Mr. Bernstein’s original purpose, helping the dissidents in closed societies.
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