Prof David Bernstein (a fellow Flatbush alum I might add) has written another excellent follow-up on HRW's anti-Israel bias, this time focusing on the past pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activities of Sarah Leah Whitson, it's Middle East Director.
You can read the complete post at http://www.volokh.com/posts/chain_1247622550.shtml (scroll to the bottom for August 4) but here it is in a nutshell:
"What the official bio doesn't tell you is that Whitson was an active member of the New York chapter of the American-Arab Antidiscrimination Committee. She had served on the Steering Committee (source: ADC Times, Apr 30, 2002). When HRW hired her, she was serving a two-year term on the new Board of Directors, which replaced the Steering Committee (Source: ADC Times, Jan. 31, 2004).
The Jan. 31, 2004 ADC Times, which noted Whitson's election to the Board of Trustees, reported that the New York chapter "continued our Palestine activism over the summer."
So when HRW hired Ms. Whitson to be its Middle East director, it was hiring someone that was in the middle of serving what amounted to a second term on the Board of Directors of an organization that was firmly and openly on the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli conflict. And she had personally engaged in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activism while serving in that position.
In short, Human Rights Watch, while purporting to be a neutral arbiter of human rights issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict, hired as its Middle East director a person who at the time was intimately involved in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel political action, and who, not surprisingly, appears to have rather strongly held, far left-wing views on the Arab-Israeli conflict."
As I wrote last week, it's a shame that this story is not more widely reported but kudos to Professor Bernstein for not letting it die and for digging out the truth.
You can read the complete post at http://www.volokh.com/posts/chain_1247622550.shtml (scroll to the bottom for August 4) but here it is in a nutshell:
"What the official bio doesn't tell you is that Whitson was an active member of the New York chapter of the American-Arab Antidiscrimination Committee. She had served on the Steering Committee (source: ADC Times, Apr 30, 2002). When HRW hired her, she was serving a two-year term on the new Board of Directors, which replaced the Steering Committee (Source: ADC Times, Jan. 31, 2004).
The Jan. 31, 2004 ADC Times, which noted Whitson's election to the Board of Trustees, reported that the New York chapter "continued our Palestine activism over the summer."
So when HRW hired Ms. Whitson to be its Middle East director, it was hiring someone that was in the middle of serving what amounted to a second term on the Board of Directors of an organization that was firmly and openly on the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli conflict. And she had personally engaged in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activism while serving in that position.
In short, Human Rights Watch, while purporting to be a neutral arbiter of human rights issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict, hired as its Middle East director a person who at the time was intimately involved in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel political action, and who, not surprisingly, appears to have rather strongly held, far left-wing views on the Arab-Israeli conflict."
As I wrote last week, it's a shame that this story is not more widely reported but kudos to Professor Bernstein for not letting it die and for digging out the truth.
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