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Double Standards and Human Rights Watch

[Wall Street Journal] Noah Pollak - From 2006 to the present, Human Rights Watch's reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict have been almost entirely devoted to condemning Israel, accusing it of human rights and international law violations, and demanding international investigations into its conduct. It has published some 87 criticisms of Israeli conduct against the Palestinians and Hizbullah, versus 8 criticisms of Palestinian groups and 4 of Hizbullah for attacks on Israel. It was during this period that more than 8,000 rockets and mortars were fired at Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza. In response to the rocket war, Israel imposed a partial blockade of Gaza. Human Rights Watch then published 28 statements and reports on the blockade, accusing Israel in highly charged language of an array of war crimes and human rights violations. Human Rights Watch has never recognized the difference between Hamas' campaign of murder against Israeli civilians and Israel's attempt to defend those civilians, unwilling to distinguish between aggression and self-defense. Meanwhile, Egypt has also maintained a blockade on Gaza, although it is not even under attack from Hamas. Human Rights Watch has never singled out Egypt for criticism over its participation in the blockade. In 2007, the Lebanese Army laid siege to the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp for over three months, killing hundreds. Human Rights Watch produced two anemic press releases. At this very moment, Jordan is stripping its Palestinians of citizenship without the slightest protest from the organization. Unfortunately, Human Rights Watch seems only to care about Palestinians when they can be used to convince the world that the Jewish state is actually a criminal state.
2009-07-31 06:00:00
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