Vital info.
As one of the world’s best-known human rights groups, such a report ought to carry significant weight with its accusations that Arab people are systematically denied basic rights granted to Jews. But these accusations come from various human rights organisations frequently and face counter-accusations of bias, so the impact will be limited.
Israeli authorities immediately rejected the accusations as the usual type of antisemitic propaganda they face. A realisation is spreading internationally that anti-Israel propaganda has become the latest form of antisemitism, and it is often disguised as concern over human rights.
NGO Monitor is an organisation set up to hold non-governmental organisations to account, and it quickly published a rebuttal of this latest HRW report. A few key points are listed here:
As usual, international media organisations have written at length about the HRW report. The BBC’s news article covers some of the main accusations at length before quoting international human rights lawyer, Philippe Sands, as saying the report ‘was a balanced and rigorous wake-up call by a serious and authoritative organisation.’
Thankfully, they also quoted Gerald Steinberg, founder of NGO Monitor, right at the end of their article as saying the HRW report was part of a “vindictive vendetta ... against Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.”
He highlighted the fact that HRW had chosen to “completely ignore and erase deliberately decades of terrorism and the need for counter-terror measures.”
President of the British Board of Deputies, Marie van der Zyl, said the HRW report was a “sham which puts rhetoric above fact.”
“They consistently ignore or downplay the fact that Israel’s security measures in the West Bank and around Gaza are the response to well-documented terror activities. The ridiculous ‘apartheid‘ slur in this report is belied by the fact that, as it stands, Israel’s next government may well rely on the support of Arab parties, voted for by the country’s fully-enfranchised Arab citizens.”
Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Seth J. Frantzman notes that Israel’s human rights record regarding treatment of the Palestinians has improved in recent decades. ‘Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians rarely result in the death of civilians, a major change from how events unfolded during the First and Second Intifadas.’
He also emphasises the fact that an entire generation of Palestinians has grown up educated in Palestinian Authority schools in the West Bank and under Hamas rule in Gaza. Someone born when the Palestinians first began to administer their own affairs in a new authority under the Oslo Accords is now 25 years old.
Thus, the war of words over human rights in and around Israel continues.
If anyone doubts the claims of bias in the accusations levelled against Israel, one only has to look at the way the country is singled-out for criticism at the United Nations to realise that there is a significant international problem.