fake hr outfit hrw drops its mask, raising dough in saudiarabia by promising to fight israel, downplaying saudi hr cirimes

The fake "human rights" outfit, "human rights watch," has lately hit a new low. It sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia of all places to raise funds, telling the Saudis of how eagerly they had smeared Israel's good name over the Gaza war in January of this year. This fund-raising mission was written up in the Arab News published in Saudi Arabia. The Arab News report was then discovered by NGO Monitor which was shocked by the blatant hypocrisy of raising funds to fight alleged Israeli violations of human rights by seeking donors in Saudi Arabia, a land where the laws explicitly deny human rights, instead embodying traditional Islamic supremacy which has long oppressed scores of millions, indeed hundreds of millions of non-Muslims since the Muslim conquests began in the seventh century.

The controversy ensuing on the revelations of hrw's unscrupulous acts was covered by NGO Monitor, by a column in the Wall Street Journal, by Jeffrey Goldberg's blog in the Atlantic Monthly, and on many web sites including Augean Stables. It is interesting in this context to note that at least two Saudi government officials were present at one of the hrw fund-raising meetings in Riyadh, according to the admission of Kenneth Roth, HRW executive director. Note the cutesy deceit employed by hrw when referring to Saudi Arabia.

The organization recently called on the Kingdom to do more to protect the human rights of domestic workers [in the Arab News report].

As far as I know, the Wahhabi Kingdom of Saudi Arabia violates the human rights of domestic workers, particularly foreigners, rather than protecting them. Indeed, wealthy Saudis belonging to the kingdom's elite often have slaves. One Saudi couple brought a young girl as a slave with them to live in the United States, in Colorado, I think. This was discovered a few years ago and the couple had to go to jail. Seems to me that the Saudis have an awful lot of human rights improvement to do right there in the kingdom before they point their fingers at Jews whose human rights are rather explicitly rejected by Saudi law.

Here are several links on the issue which I will follow with my own comments made first on Augean Stables.
1. The Arab News report here

2. The first NGO Monitor report here.

3. The CAMERA report ici, later CAMERA report [7-28-2009]

4. Law professor David Bernstein in the Wall Street Journal.

5. Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic [qui] . Goldberg also interviewed Kenneth Roth, executive director of hrw, who revealed that two Saudi govt officials were at one of the fund-raising sessions.

We certainly weren't soliciting Saudi government funds and would never take them. As for whether any government people were there, the closest was a guy from the national human rights commission and someone from the Shura Council

Now, isn't Roth being just a bit too disingenuous? Isn't the very presence of govt officials [one from the human rights commission no less!] in a state that violates human rights regularly in accord with its own laws compromising when the emphasis of the fund-raising appeal was Israel's alleged hr violations, not those of Saudi Arabia, which I repeat rejects the very idea of human rights??

6. NGO Monitor article of May 27, 2009, report of 16 June 2009 and NGO Monitor fact sheet on hrw & fresh article by NGO Monitor director, Gerald Steinberg כאן

7. Posts and discussion threads on the Augean Stables blog on this issue.
a) here - b) aqui c) ici

Here are some of my own comments on the hrw/Saudi scandal first made on Augean Stables:

Here’s a sincerity test for whitson and roth. Whitson says the following, insinuating that she may have harshly criticized Saudi anti-human rights policies while in the kingdom. [In an interview with the Jerusalem Post,]

Whitson dismissed the impression left in the Arab News report that the organization’s sales pitch in Saudi Arabia had been based on its work slamming Israel, saying there was Saudi press censorship, and it was clear that HRW’s work in Gaza was the angle that the authorities in Riyadh would want to highlight.
Most of this sentence is true enough and I agree that the Riyadh govt would want to highlight critiques of Israel. But, if she did criticize Saudi practices and policies, and such criticism was omitted from the Arab News report, then why did she not make it forcefully clear once she had returned to the USA that she strongly disapproved of the ban on religious worship other than Muslim worship in Saudi Arabia [isn’t this an HR issue?] and she disapproved of the severe limits on women’s freedom, and cruel treatment of foreign workers, especially, but not only, non-Muslims, etc???
Since she did not make such a critical attitude towards Saudi practices clear once she had come back to the US [as far as I know], one must assume that she had little if anything to say about these matters while in the kingdom. Hence, her insinuation about omissions in the Arab News Report was meant to mislead, that is, to lie.

I would go further. Why do we hear so much about HRW “reports” and “critiques” of Israeli policy in the media but so little, if any, about “reports” and critiques of Arab regimes practices, including those of Saudi Arabia, which is near an extreme even within the Arab world?? Then, in the course of criticizing alleged Israeli violations in Gaza, has hrw ever discussed the anti-human rights implications of the Hamas charter [inc. Article 7] which now governs Gaza??

RL sarcastically remarks, “And, of course, the HRW fundraisers paid no attention to Saudi preferences.” Obviously. Further, making a funds appeal to the Saudis on the grounds of HRW’s leading role in anti-Israel propaganda or, if you like, “information” warfare or agitprop or perhaps “public spirited, disinterested, testimony to Congress based purely on principled concerns, already shows a bias on hrw’s part. That is, stressing anti-Israel efforts to Saudi donors implies that hrw has taken sides.

One of the problems here is that the US MSM are already in the pockets of the anti-Israel, pro-Arab forces in the establishment.

By the way, while we’re on the subject of HR policies by Arabs govts, what about genocide going on in the Sudan since independence in 1956?

To continue:

The Hamas charter is clearly a pro-genocide document. This is very clear in Article 7, which quotes a medieval Muslim Hadith fable foretelling the genocide of the Jews at Judgement Day, a genocide to be performed by Muslims. The loyal Muslim, reading that fable, might logically ask, Why wait till Judgement Day. Now, if HRW still considers genocide an offense against HR, if it ever did, then Hamas’s pro-genocide position ought to be taken into account in any treatment of the Gaza War of January 2009. In other words, Hamas is a political/religious body that is blatantly opposed to human rights. The Gaza War has to be seen in that light.

Since HR are supposed to be universal, then opposing Jews’ HR means opposing HR as such. Also, supporting Hamas means opposing Jews’ HR. This applies to HRW’s wealthy Saudi donors too, obviously. Now, we come to another point, which no doubt bothers many critics of HRW. Was hrw’s ostensible concern for “civilians” in Gaza merely a pretext for supporting Hamas’ war against Israel, Hamas’ genocidal war on Israel??? No doubt, this belief caused some previous hrw donors to stop funding the fake HR body. I have not closely examined hrw’s indictment of Israel regarding that war. However, if hrw accepted false claims made by Hamas and other Arab interested parties that members of the Hamas armed forces [inc. the Hamas Gaza police] were “civilians”, then hrw not only lacks credibility but is consciously supporting Hamas’ genocidal efforts. This is because various sources identified persons claimed by name by Hamas and other Arab sources as civilians as being in fact Hamas policemen or members of other Hamas armed forces. Hamas had even claimed that commanders of its armed forces that had been killed were civilians. Since such claims by Hamas were belied, then hrw is taking the Hamas side by accepting its claims.

Next, what are the human rights bona fides of hrw’s Saudi donors? Are they supporters in good faith of human rights in Saudi Arabia while living in luxury in their palaces in Riyahdh, with their servants, foreign and domestic –or slaves, dare we ask?? Do these people accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the UN, for example??? Or do they adhere to the Cairo Declaration of human rights in Islam, which is a clearly anti-hr manifesto??? More particularly, do these donors accept the traditional Islamic doctrine that Jews are not only kufar [unbelievers] but the worst of unbelievers?? That Jews are destined to be humiliated by Muslims, slaughtered at Judgement Day, etc?? Do they agree with the endorsement of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Hamas charter??

In short, I would like to see proof in both word and deed that the Saudi donors to hrw are supporters of human rights as such, and not merely cleverly using HR against Jews and Israel. Until Whitson and Roth supply convincing indications about the hr commitment of their Saudi donors, then whitson, roth and hrw should be considered human rights fakers.

--end of my comments on Augean Stables--

To sum up about hrw's Saudi donors. Here are a few questions for hrw to answer about them:
Did or do hrw's Saudi benefactors acknowledge the humanity of Jews; are these contributors in Saudi Arabia people who believe in universal humanity? In the humanity of Jews in particular?
Or do hrw's Saudi donors believe in regime propaganda, in the Saudi school system, in the official Saudi Wahhabite creed which dehumanizes sectarian Muslims, let alone Jews and other non-believers in Islam?
Do the Saudi benefactors of hrw accept the Islamic prejudices against Jews that go back to the early days of Islam?

Or do they just see the utility and expediency in smearing Israel with the fake "human rights" brush?

As far as hrw is concerned, what has it done for violations of the human rights of Jews?? This is a big subject, but let us just ask about the human rights of Jonathan Pollard. Did hrw ever defend his rights? Pollard received a sentence that violates the 8th Amendment to the US Constitution which forbids "cruel and unusual punishments." Pollard life sentence --in practice-- is much longer than that of other persons convicted of espionage by the United States. Where was the voice of hrw to protest this miscarriage of justice?

Of course, our fake "human rights" outfit, hrw, went to Saudi Arabia in order to raise money against Israel. They did not ask for money for general human rights advocacy but for anti-Israel advocacy in particular. So the human rights of some are more equal than the hr of others.

Now, far be it from me to criticize HRW alone and neglect other phoney "human rights" outfits. Another one is Amnesty International. Here is a truly shocking example of "amnesty" deploring a film against stoning of women in Iran. This film exposed the ugly reality of that phenomenon. In short, amnesty international defends hr violations, provided that authorized human rights violators do the violating. In this case, the government of Iran and Muslim bigots there are allowed to violate the human rights of women.

"Human Rights" is very often a corrupt racket, just a political, propaganda club for beating designated targets, like Israel, while Hamas and Iranian Muslim bigots are allowed to get away with it.