In the past I’ve wondered about the obsession with Israel by Human Rights Watch. Now I wonder again, due to the organization’s new 74-page report entitled, “Ripe for Abuse: Palestinian Child Labor in Israeli Agricultural Settlements in the West Bank.” Check out the HRW web site to see what subjects merit such lengthy coverage, and one finds that the answer again and again is Israel. In a world sadly filled with oppression, aggression, human rights abuses, and tyranny, HRW focuses on Israel to a degree that cannot be explained or defended. Like the United Nations, HRW seems dedicated to condemning Israel–and occasionally other countries. If you think Israel is not responsible for the bulk of worldwide human rights abuses, well, they seem not to agree.
The substance of the report consists of interviews with Palestinian laborers at Israel settlements in the Jordan Valley. That’s problem number one: where are the interviews with the Israelis, who are accused of various crimes and abuses–and who might wish to comment on, deny, or cast a different light on some of the allegations? HRW did not consider that necessary. In fact there was an unofficial or semi-official Israeli response, published in The Times of Israel:
So, there are accusations, and there are denials–but HRW does not bother hearing the denials. It relies on the accusations, for which there is no documentary evidence. That does not disprove the charges, but neither does HRW prove them. It simply presents one side, and the report does not present evidence that HRW worked to prove or disprove accusations made against Israel. It accepted them. As NGO Monitor (on whose international advisory board I am happy to serve) and others have noted,
Some might call this an accident; others might call it another example of bias and one that had to be abandoned when HRW was caught. The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) in Melbourne has done a lengthy analysis of the HRW report, found here, pungently entitled “A labour of enmity: HRW’s distorted Jordan Valley report.” Here are some of the comments:
If Palestinian contractors are to blame for illegally employing minors, this suggests that Israeli labor laws are not being enforced. That’s a real issue, and one that Israeli authorities should examine. But AIJAC also offers some numbers, and some background, that HRW does not:
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the reason why it’s plausible that some minors may have been hired by Palestinian contractors to assist in farm labour is because child labour is so common in Palestinian society….The fact is, while airing unproven allegations against Israel over hiring underage Palestinians for agriculture work in the Jordan Valley, HRW ignored mountains of proven, documented cases of Palestinian exploitation of Palestinian children for labour in the Palestinian Authority, including in the same district.
Where does one then go with all of this? As AIJAC points out, HRW should be demanding that the government of Israel immediately investigate any labor violations, stop them, and punish violators. And it does demand that Israel “Impose penalties on employers or contractors who illegally employ children.”
But then it makes its political demands: that Israel “Abide by its obligations as the occupying power and dismantle civilian settlements in the occupied West Bank.” Uh-huh: some Israelis or some Palestinian contractors may be employing minors in the Jordan Valley, so every Israel settlement everywhere in the West Bank must be dismantled. To call that a politicized reaction would be the understatement of the year. HRW also demands that all agricultural products from all settlements be stopped: the EU must “Instruct European importers to cease imports of agricultural settlement product” and the United States must “Instruct US importers to cease imports of agricultural settlement products.”
This isn’t overkill; it’s the usual HRW assault on Israel. AIJAC sums it up:
But they do make sense in another way. They are part of HRW’s overall treatment of Israel, as NGO Monitor explains:
