Jeffrey Goldberg Defends Israeli Actions by Smearing Human Rights Watch

Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic is accusing Human Rights Watch of "fundraising corruption" for allowing some of its officers to discuss the group's work in Gaza at a fundraiser in Saudi Arabia. The corruption charge is specious. Assuming Goldberg believes what he's saying, he got punk'd by an Israel-based group called NGO Monitor with ties to the Israeli government. The whole pseudo-controversy seems calculated to distract from HRW's latest revelations about Israel's use of white phosphorus in Gaza. 

It all began with a May 26 story in Arab News about the rising stature of Human Rights Watch in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim world. AN reported that prominent Saudi businessman and intellectual hosted a welcoming dinner for HRW officials during their recent visit to the kingdom. The host, who also happens to be a managing director at Morgan Stanley in London, reportedly praised group for its work in Gaza.

HRW attracted worldwide attention for its work on Israel and the Gaza Strip including its reportage on Israel's use of white phosphorous in Gaza.

A non-profit calling itself NGO Monitor picked up on the story nearly two months ago in a post entitled, "HRW Raises Funds in Saudia Arabia by Demonizing Israel." The author was incensed by the following passage in the Arab News story:

Human Rights Watch provided the international community with evidence of Israel using white phosphorus and launching systematic destructive attacks on civilian targets. Pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations have strongly resisted the report and tried to discredit it," said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa Division. [AN]

That's exactly what happened. HRW presented evidence that Israel was exploding white phosphorous shells in heavily populated areas of Gaza and inflicting hideous burns on civilians. Pro-Israel pressure groups absolutely freaked out about the HRW report and did their best to discredit it. HRW defended its work.

The IDF stopped using white phosphorus in the middle of the occupation after media reports revealed its effects on civilians. Yesterday, HRW published accounts of Israeli soldiers who admit using white phosphorous indescriminately in Gaza under unprecedently loose rules of engagement. HRW, FTW.

Predicatably, Israeli officials denounced HRW for its latest report.

Would it surprise you to learn that NGO Monitor is a pro-Israeli pressure group? According to his official bio, the group's founder and executive director, Professor Gerald Steinberg is a consultant for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and serves on a steering committee sponsored by the office of the Israeli Prime Minister.

Today, the Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Foreign Ministry has decided to take a "much more aggressive stance toward future reports issued by these [non-governmental] organizations":

The Foreign Ministry is currently considering how best to expand its focus and deal more systematically with this issue, and it is assumed this will be done together with the Prime Minister's Office, the Post has learned.

At a press conference last week, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the Foreign Ministry was currently involved in a reform that would place a much greater emphasis on dealing with NGOs, which Lieberman said were replacing diplomats as the engine for setting the international community's agenda. [JP]

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, said that for HRW to fundraise in Saudi Arabia was equivalent of feminists hitting up the Taliban for money.  According to the aforementioned Post story, Regev was responding to op/ed by Prof. David Bernstein that ran in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal , a version of which had originally appeared on the Volokh Conspiracy blog.  On the blog, Bernstein gave a hat tip to the "invaluable NGO Monitor" for highlighting the Arab News story.