World

Careless talk

NGOs like Human Rights Watch must choose their words carefully

February 19, 2013
(photo: IDF)
(photo: IDF)

Just before Christmas, Human Rights Watch announced that “Palestinian rockets unlawfully targeted Israeli civilians” in the fighting last November. HRW has a fraught history of reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, collecting accusations of bias from various quarters. A 2006 press release was criticised for attempting to prevent Palestinian civilians from engaging in non-violent resistance. HRW withdrew it three weeks later, denying that it had intended to suppress such resistance. It also concluded that it had mischaracterised an Israeli attack as “an act of war” when it was instead “an administrative action by the Israeli government,” in line with its policy of demolishing houses “not as legitimate military targets but as a punitive measure.”

HRW seeks to shed light on human rights abuses by communicating effectively with the global media. On this occasion it was forced to admit that it “did more to cloud the issues than clarify them.” The organisation’s willingness to admit its mistake is commendable, but it is not reassuring. HRW’s previous history of reclassifying an “act of war” as an “administrative action” makes it difficult to trust its recent claim about Palestinian armed groups. It also raises questions about how NGOs operate.

The Israeli-based NGO Monitor claims that in HRW reports “Israel is consistently singled out for condemnation, using particularly harsh language, while Palestinian and Arab human rights violations are minimised.” NGO Monitor points out that HRW has employed people with connections to groups critical of Israel—former employee Lucy Mair, who used to managed the group’s Jerusalem office, is accused of “sharing a platform with anti-Israel activists such as Phyllis Bennis at a Freedom and Justice for Palestine Conference” in 2001. They argue that such connections are made more often than is appropriate for a neutral watchdog.

In a WikiLeaks cable, Gerald Steinberg, the president of NGO Monitor, was quoted welcoming the possibility that “NGOs’ current monopolisation of human rights rhetoric for politicised purposes” might weaken. As the language of human rights concerns legality and morality, there should hardly be ground for shrugging it off as rhetoric. But in recent years such language has been employed by governments and their supporters to justify various kinds of warfare, and this has lent the charge some weight. It is important that accusations of human rights abuse are not routinely dismissed as political attacks—otherwise, it is even less likely that they will be addressed.

If NGOs have a “monopoly” on human rights issues, it’s because they are trusted as nonpartisan observers. But when it is revealed that they are funded by suspect interests, or are accused of bias, there is no fair system in place for investigating such claims. The project of defending moral language from corruption and misuse isn’t helped by the fact that NGO status is available to anyone: there are no set criteria.

Organisations with names like “Human Rights Watch” are unquestioningly assumed to be neutral and staffed with qualified, unbiased researchers. It’s impossible for them to fully immunise themselves against the charges of “rhetoric” but they should adopt more safeguards. One measure would be the use of a set of well-defined legal terms according to strict definitions in its reports. If human rights organisations aren’t certain if something is a war crime, for example, they should report neutrally without using the phrase. Without such efforts, they may well find trust and support draining away. Human rights can only suffer as a result.