Human rights groups and the Middle East

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Human rights groups frequently run into controversy when reporting on an emotionally charged issue such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Often there is more attention given to their claims and counterclaims on Middle East issues than to their coverage of the rest of the world.

Contents 1 Human Rights Watch 2 Amnesty International 2.1 Israel and Sudan 3 References

[edit] Human Rights Watch

For more information about Human Rights Watch and the Middle East, see Human Rights Watch and Criticism of Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch has been criticized as having an anti-Semitic or anti-Israel bias. Prominent critics include the Anti-Defamation League, NGO Monitor, Abraham Cooper, Anne Bayefsky, Gerald Steinberg, Shimon Peres^{[citation needed]}, and Ana Palacio.

[edit] Amnesty International

[edit] Israel and Sudan

In 2004, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs's NGO Monitor released a study comparing Amnesty International's treatment of Israel to its response to the twenty years of ethnic, religious and racial violence in Sudan (a predominatly Arab country) in which (at that time) two million people had been killed and four million displaced. They argued that Sudan's human rights abuses were incomparably worse than Israel's: US Secretary of State Colin Powell said “there is perhaps no greater tragedy on the face of the earth.”^[1] Columnist Anthony Lewis further wrote that “the Sudanese Government in Khartoum bombs southern villages and blocks food relief flights to areas where it wants the population to starve.”^[1] In June 2001, the UN's International Labor Organisation reported that in Sudan, as well as in three other African countries, “the wholesale abduction of individuals and communities is not uncommon.”^[2] The New York Times reported murder, abductions, and property destruction against the southern Sudanese.^[3]

When NGO monitor focused on the year 2001, they found that Amnesty International issued seven reports on Sudan, as opposed to 39 reports on Israel.^[4] They specifically called attention to the difference in both scale and intensity:

While ignoring the large-scale and systematic bombing and destruction of Sudanese villages, AI issued numerous condemnations of the razing of Palestinian houses, most of which were used as sniper nests or belonged to terrorists. Although failing to decry the slaughter of thousands of civilians by Sudanese government and allied troops, AI managed to criticize Israel's "assassinations" of active terrorist leaders.^[4]

– Asleep at the Wheel: Comparing the Performance of Human Rights NGO's on Sudan and Arab-Israeli Issues, NGO Monitor

Expanding the scope of their investigation to include the years 2000–2003, they found the imbalance in issued reports to be 52 reports on Sudan to 192 reports on Israel. They state “[t]his lack of balance and objectivity and apparent political bias is entirely inconsistent with AI's official stated mission.”^[4]

In 2004, Professor Don Habibi of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington lamented the 22 year drought of responses on Sudan and Darfur, compared to the intense focus on Israel. He condemned Amnesty International, among others, for their obsession with Israel, to the exclusion of other, worse violators. He writes:^[5]

This obsession would make sense if Israel was among the worst human rights offenders in the world. But by any objective measure this is not the case. Even with the harshest interpretation of Israeli’s policies, which takes no account of cause and effect, and Israel’s predicament of facing existential war, there can be no comparison to the civil wars in Sudan, Algeria, or Congo. Like the UN, the policies of AI and HRW have more to do with politics than human rights.

– Human Rights NGOs and the Neglect of Sudan, Don Habibi

AI defenders respond by asserting that all nations should aspire to absolute respect for human rights, and that the difficulties associated with monitoring 'closed' countries should not mean that 'open' countries should receive less scrutiny.

With the outbreak of the more easily covered Darfur conflict, the imbalance was rectified. Between 2003 and 2006, AI issued 110 reports per year on Sudanese issues [1]. This compares with less than 100 articles per year for Israel and the Palestinian Authority combined between 2001 and 2006 [2].

[edit] References