My response to Eric Goldstein of Human Rights Watch.

You might first want to read Goldstein's response, which is below, before reading my rant. I wrote it really quickly so apologies for spelling or whatnot.

Goldstein repeatedly mentions Hizbullah's targeting of civilian areas, but conveniently forgets Israel's bombing of every bridge in the country! By chooseing to remind only Hezbollah of "its obligations under international humanitarian law to spare, to the greatest extent possible, civilians from harm during armed conflict", Goldstein forgets the people of Qana, twice targeted by Israel. He shows scorn for over 1000 innocent Lebanese that Israel killed without a second thought. He shows himself to have a short memory span, forgetting that for many years Israel occupied Lebanon showing little consideration for civilians lives. He makes no distinction between the huge descrepancies in casualty numbers suffered by Israel and those by Lebanon. Furthermore, Goldstein conveniently omits the fact that Israel does not, and has indeed never showed any respect for international or humanitarian law, except for when it suits their purposes. He makes no mention that the people Hizbullah targeted in Israel are people illegally living on occupied land.Goldstein's claims that Lamb "is full of broad allegations of bias that are unsubstantiated and unworthy of response." Such a remarked betrays Goldstein is too cowardly to address what he cannot justify. Perhaps he does not remember, or care, that Lamb's wife and unborn son were killed in the US Embassy bombing in 1983. If Lamb was going to be bias against anyone, surely he would be biased against Hizbullah? He has overcome huge personal grief and managed to remain rational and honest. Goldstein, meanwhile, betrays his loyalty to his Jewish last name by refusing to acknowledge or report what actually happened in Lebanon in July 2006. All he is capable of is feebly cheeping on about Hezbollah. Lamb makes an important comment on the 70% Jewish contribution made to HRW, which like any mildly critical statement made about Israel, Goldstein and his cronies quickly denounce as "anti-Semitic." Lamb is not an anti-semite, rather he rightfully questions the loyalties of HRW. If 70% of Amnesty International's budget was donated by Muslims, Goldstein would no doubt comment on that fact and would certainly never be accused of being anti-Islamic. It's time for Goldstein to stop hiding behind the accusatory and over-used placard of anti-Semetic victimhood and be brave enough to criticize Israeli atrocities. Many Jews and Israelis do that, why can't he? Making one or two meek and blindingly obvious 'criticisms' against a military giant's flagrant abuse and misuse of force is not sufficient! Human Rights Watch? Whose Human Rights is Goldstein Watching?

Below is Eric Goldstein's response to Franklin Lamb:
HRW Caving to the Israeli Lobby?'By Eric Goldstein, published in Scoop

Franklin P. Lamb’s article “Is Human Rights Watch Caving to the IsraeliLobby?”, published on September 4, 2007, is full of broad allegationsof bias that are unsubstantiated and unworthy of response. However, hischallenge to the methodology and evidence in our report “Civiliansunder Assault: Hezbollah’s Rocket Attacks on Israel in the 2006 War,”merits closer scrutiny and a response.The main conclusion of “Civilians under Assault” is that Hezbollah“repeatedly bombarded cities, towns, and villages without any apparenteffort to distinguish between civilians and military objectives. Indoing so, Hezbollah, as a party to an armed conflict governed byinternational humanitarian law, violated fundamental prohibitionsagainst deliberate and indiscriminate attacks against civilians….Insome of those cases, we could find no evidence there had been alegitimate military target in the vicinity at the time of the attack,suggesting it was a deliberate attack on civilians.” As an initialmatter, contrary to what Lamb writes, Human Rights Watch does notoppose (or endorse) “the right to resist” of Hezbollah or thePalestinian people – or of any armed group anywhere in the world. Wesimply hold Hezbollah, as we hold any party to an armed conflict,whether a state or an armed group, to its obligations underinternational humanitarian law to spare, to the greatest extentpossible, civilians from harm during armed conflict. Lamb’s maincriticism seems to be that Human Rights Watch discounted the presenceof Israeli military objectives placed in civilian areas, which wouldundermine our finding that Hezbollah’s attacks amounted to a pattern ofindiscriminate and sometimes deliberate attacks on civilians. Lambeither missed or ignored the several instances where we indeeddocumented the presence of Israel Defense Force (IDF) troops or weaponsin the vicinity of a Hezbollah rocket attack. I know of no other publicdocument that identifies so many Israeli military objects situated nearsome of the civilian areas that Hezbollah rockets hit, such as thenaval base adjacent to Rambam Hospital in Haifa, the IDF northerncommand in Safed, the Raphael defense industry campus north of KiryatYam, and artillery pieces near Arab al-Aramshe and Kiryat Shmona. Andwe accordingly criticized Israel for failing in its duty to avoidendangering civilians by placing military assets in populated areas.Yet the presence of IDF military assets in populated areas does notabsolve Hezbollah of culpability for indiscriminately firing into them:that is, even if Hezbollah had a military target in mind, it failed totake precautions, in its targeting and its use of weapons, todistinguish between military and civilian objects in order to minimizecivilian loss. Human Rights Watch similarly criticized Israel forfailing to discriminate between legitimate Hezbollah military targetsand civilians in its bombing of southern Lebanon. Furthermore, Lambdoes not account for the numerous instances where we found no evidenceof any IDF military target in civilian areas that Hezbollahnevertheless repeatedly targeted. Lamb complains that we acknowledgeIsraeli censorship of news about successful Hezbollah strikes onIsraeli military targets but then ignore the extent to which it callsour findings into doubt. As a human rights organization, we focus onattacks that kill and injure civilians and determine whether they violated international humanitarian law. So whether Hezbollah hitmilitary objects more than is known is neither relevant to our analysisnor would excuse the scores of Hezbollah’s indiscriminate anddeliberate attacks on civilian areas. The attacks on Nahariya andKarmiel are illustrative. Hezbollah struck these two cities withhundreds of rockets throughout the course of the war, hittingresidential neighborhoods in various parts of each city. Based on sitevisits and interviews, we concluded that there were no significantmilitary objectives in either city, although there are defenseindustries located near, but outside, both. Our conclusion was thatHezbollah set out deliberately to hit these cities, in violation of thelaws of war. Even if it turned out that we had overlooked a militarytarget in either town, its presence would not justify Hezbollah’sfiring of hundreds of rockets that landed all over Nahariya and Karmielnot on one or two days, but over an entire month. Lamb also assailsHuman Rights Watch for accusing Hezbollah commanders of war crimeswithout having the requisite evidence to back up such serious charges.We stand by our findings. Firing deliberately or indiscriminately atcivilians with criminal intent is a war crime. Our report quotes manystatements by Hezbollah leaders indicating their intent to fireindiscriminately if not deliberately at civilian areas. For example,Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah stated on July 29, 2006:When, throughout the Arab-Israeli conflict [have] 2 millionIsraelis [been] forced [before] to leave their areas or stay inshelters for 18 days or more? This number will increase when we expandthe “beyond-Haifa” stage. The shelling of the city of Afula and itsmilitary base represented the beginning of this stage. Many cities inthe centre will be a target in the beyond-Haifa stage if the barbaricaggression against our homeland, people, and villages continues.This indication of intent, when coupled with the evidence we collectedon the ground of deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, isevidence of war crimes, regardless of the justifications Hezbollah mayhave offered for pursuing this policy. Lamb’s critique of Human RightsWatch’s methodology is familiar because it resembles the arguments usedby many of those who seek to discredit our finding that Israel’sindiscriminate fire was the main cause of Lebanese civilian deathsduring the 2006 war. (See our report “Why They Died: CivilianCasualties in Lebanon during the 2006 War”. These critics assert thatif Human Rights Watch found almost no Hezbollah presence near Lebanesecivilians when Israeli fire killed them, it is because of flaws in ourmethodology: that we relied on untrustworthy Lebanese witnesses, orthat we lacked access to the classified, real-time intelligence theIsraeli army used concerning Hezbollah’s whereabouts. Some Lebaneseand Israeli witnesses may have been uninformed or untruthful whenanswering our questions about the proximity of military objects at thetime of enemy attacks. But in both our reports on Israel and Lebanon,we explain the additional evidence that supports our conclusions as tothe nature of the attacks in their midst. In Israel, we interviewedwhenever possible both Jewish and Arab eyewitnesses, favoring thosewhose testimony could be corroborated by other independent testimoniesor physical evidence; we conducted on-site visits; and we monitoredHezbollah’s declarations to the media about specific attacks it carriedout. I invite readers to consult the reports and judge for themselves.In closing, writing in a strictly personal capacity, I am repelled byLamb’s assertion that “70 percent of [Human Rights Watch’s] budget [is]estimated to be provided by Jewish contributors.” Make no mistake: thisunsourced and factually untrue statement is anti-Semitic and notanti-Zionist. It perpetuates the time-worn canard that all Jews share apolitical agenda – Israel right or wrong – and that with their lucrethey pull the strings behind the scenes.