Gerald M. Steinberg

Gerald Steinberg

Gerald M. Steinberg is an Israeli academic and political scientist.

Biography

Gerald M. Steinberg was born in the United Kingdom,^[1] obtained his doctorate in government from Cornell University, in 1981; M.A. Government Department, Cornell University, 1978. M.Sc. Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, 1975. B.A. University of California, Berkeley, Department of Physics and Near Eastern Studies, 1973.^[2]

Steinberg began teaching at Bar Ilan University in 1982, and is a professor of Political Science, and the founder of the Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation.^[3] He was awarded an Israel Science Foundation grant, (2008); served as team leader, Israel at the Polls research on the peace process and Israel-American relations (1988-2005); is a member of Israel Council of Foreign Affairs; is a member of the advisory board of the Israel Law Review International; appointed to the Israel Higher-Education Council, Committee on Public Policy (2013). Following the 1995 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Review Conference, he was appointed the Israeli delegate to the IAEA's annual academic conferences examining proposals of a Middle East Zone Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction.^[4]

He is a co-author of Best Practices for Human Rights and Humanitarian NGO Fact-Finding, published by Nijhoff, ISBN 978-9004218116.^[5] He has written academic articles in the field, including "Arms Control and Regional Security in the Middle East", Survival, Vol. 36, No. 1, Spring, 1994; Examining Israel's NPT Exceptionality: 1998-2005, Non-Proliferation Review, Vol. 13, No 1, March 2006; and "Realism, Politics and Culture in Middle East Arms Control Negotiations" International Negotiation, Vol. 10 (2005).

Extending his doctoral research, he published and participated in policy making on policy responses to proliferation: "Dual Use Aspects of Space Technology and the Implications for the Middle East", in Toward Fusion of Air and Space: Surveying Developments and Assessing Choices for Small and Middle Powers, Dana J. Johnson and Ariel E. Levite, editors, RAND, Santa Monica, 2003, pp. 86–97.^[6] He published the first Hebrew language textbook in the areas of nuclear deterrence, arms control and non-proliferation.^[7]

NGO Monitor

Steinberg is founder and president of the NGO Monitor,^[8] an institute whose stated aim is "to generate and distribute critical analysis and reports on the output of the international NGO community" and "to publicize distortions of human rights issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict and provide information and context for the benefit of NGOs working in the Middle East."^[9]

Steinberg has been a longtime critic of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Christian Aid, Oxfam and other organizations that he accuses of having "contributed to the hatred, rather than supporting peace".^[10] Writing in a 2004 Jerusalem Post article^[11] he said, "HRW's press statement exposes it as a biased political organization hiding behind the rhetoric of human rights." Later he accused HRW of "exploiting the rhetoric of human rights to delegitimize Israel".^[12] Human Rights Watch accused Steinberg of "sleight of hand" in his reporting of its activities, and of conveniently ignoring its condemnations of Palestinian militant actions and of not mentioning inconvenient facts.^[13]

Publications in this area include "The UN, the ICJ and the Separation Barrier: War by Other Means" Israel Law Review, (38:1-2, 2005), as well as opeds and short articles, examining bias, consistency, and credibility in reports published by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.^[14] Later, in an oped in the New York Times, Robert Bernstein, the founder of HRW, also accused the organization for distorting human rights values by cooperating with “those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state”.^[15]

Steinberg's research focus expanded to include funding processes which enable political advocacy NGOs to exert power, including European government agencies.^[16] In June 2010, he was invited to speak on this issue before the human rights committee of the European Parliament.^[17] In January 2010, after the European Commission refused to release documents on NGO funding, Steinberg initiated legal action under the EU's Freedom of Information statutes. In November 2012, after almost three years, and without hearing arguments or probing the issues, the European Court of Justice dismissed the FOI request, upholding the EC's lack of transparency.^[18] The court ruled that instability in the Middle East and the prospect that "such information may pose a danger to human rights groups" justified the refusal.^[19]

The 2013 Menachem Begin Prize was awarded to NGO Monitor, "a leading organization defending the State of Israel and the Jewish people." The Begin Prize is awarded for "extraordinary act(s) for the benefit of the State of Israel and/or the Jewish People." Richard Landes, professor of history at Boston University and director of the Institute for Cognitive War Research, said, "Steinberg and his associates identified a key area where the West was unexpectedly and terribly vulnerable and started to shed light on the moral and venal corruption of the global ‘human rights’ NGOs."^[20]

According to former Associated Press reporter Matti Friedman, the AP bureau in Jerusalem gave "explicit orders to reporters...to never quote [NGO Monitor] or its director, an American-raised professor named Gerald Steinberg." Friedman continues, and says, "In my time as an AP writer moving through the local conflict, with its myriad lunatics, bigots, and killers, the only person I ever saw subjected to an interview ban was this professor."^[21]

The AP responded by saying, "There was no "ban" on using Prof. Gerald Steinberg. He and his NGO Monitor group are cited in at least a half-dozen stories since the 2009 Gaza war."^[22]

Civil society activities

Steinberg is founder and president of NGO Monitor.^[23]

Steinberg has been a longtime critic of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Christian Aid, Oxfam and other organizations that he accuses of having "contributed to the hatred, rather than supporting peace".^[24] Writing in a 2004 Jerusalem Post article^[25] he said, "HRW's press statement exposes it as a biased political organization hiding behind the rhetoric of human rights." Later he accused HRW of "exploiting the rhetoric of human rights to delegitimize Israel".^[26]

Criticism

Human Rights Watch accused Steinberg of "sleight of hand" in his reporting of its activities, and of conveniently ignoring its condemnations of Palestinian militant actions and of not mentioning inconvenient facts.^[27]

Yehudit Karp, a former Israeli deputy attorney general, charged that Steinberg published material he knew to be wrong "along with some manipulative interpretation".^[28]

Publications

• A Realistic Assessment of Peacebuilding Theory, scheduled for publication in the Encyclopedia of Peacebuilding, 2013
• IHL 2.0: Is There a Role for Social Media in Monitoring and Enforcement? (co-author with Anne Herzberg), Israel Law Review (Vol. 45, no. 3, November 2012)
• Best Practices for Human Rights and Humanitarian NGOs, Co-authored with Anne Herzberg and Jordan Berman, Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden, 2012

• “Unilateralism and Separation: Internal Developments and External Pressures after Oslo”, in Routledge Handbook on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict, 2012
• “From Durban to the Goldstone Report: The Centrality of Human Rights NGOs in the Political Dimension of the Arab-Israeli Conflict”, Israel Affairs, Volume 18, Issue 3, 2012
• The Evolution of Israeli Military Strategy: Asymmetry, Vulnerability, Pre-emption and Deterrence, in Israel Studies: An Anthology(October 2011)
• “The Politics of NGOs, Human Rights and the Arab-Israel Conflict”, Israel Studies, Volume 16, Number 2, Summer 2011, pp. 24–54
• NGOs, the UN, and the Politics of Human Rights in the Arab–Israeli Conflict, Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, 1:2011, January 20, 2011

References

External links

• NGO Monitor home page