Human Rights Watch Cozies Up to Saudis
Saudi Arabia is ground zero for paranoid Islamic politics. Founded on a strict Wahhabist doctrine of Islamic social control, its media is entirely state-run; its women are kept in a state of second-class citizenry (if not sexual servitude), prohibited from driving cars or appearing unveiled in public; Jews from other countries are denied entry; and its homosexuals are executed in the capital in a site colloquially known as “Chop-Chop Square” (whose name tells you enough about the means of execution). The House of Saud also underwrites particularly virulent anti-Semitic editions of the Koran, many of which find their way into American prisons and madrassas around the world, many of which graduate members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist cells. And Saudi Arabia, one can’t forget, was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11.
Goldberg first got Roth to admit that he was not present at Whitson’s fundraising confab, which Roth explained included a “a guy from the national human rights commission and someone from the Shura Council; not sure whether you’d consider them government or not.” The Shura Council, established in 1993, is the unelected body of 150 government advisers, who recommend what laws to pass on everything from inflation to foreign policy; so it is safe to say that a “guy” from it indeed qualifies as Saudi government. The Shura Council’s role in pushing reform on the treatment of Saudi domestic workers — evidently, the ewe-lamb of HRW’s human rights concern in the kingdom — has not mitigated its role in supporting some of the most reactionary state laws in existence. Additionally, the presence of such a flunky indicates the government’s eagerness to hear what a prominent human rights NGO is selling on Saudi soil; no doubt the Shura Council’s man was there to report back on how some of the country’s richest and most philanthropically inclined citizens responded to such salesmanship.
After a few back-and-forth missives, in which Roth was oblique and evasive, Goldberg put it to him plainly: “I’m simply asking the question, did your staff person attempt to raise funds in Saudi Arabia by advertising your organization’s opposition to the pro-Israel lobby?” To this Roth finally responded: “That’s certainly part of the story. We report on Israel. Its supporters fight back with lies and deception. It wasn’t a pitch against the Israel lobby per se. Our standard spiel is to describe our work in the region. Telling the Israel story — part of that pitch — is in part telling about the lies and obfuscation that are inevitably thrown our way.”
HRW’s “standard spiel” is precisely the problem. When confronted with a roomful of potential benefactors and state monitors, all of whom were well disposed toward antipathy toward Israel, if not a Protocols-style conception of international Jewry, is it really responsible to play into such prejudices at all, much less for the sake of getting checks signed for humanitarian work? One also wonders what “lies and obfuscation” emanate from a country known for its libel tourism and unmatched ability to silence any Western criticism of how its vast oil wealth gets spent.
One has to be hyper vigilant when seeing the words ‘human rights’ and ‘peace activists’ attached to any organization.
It is not hyperbole to suggest that people involved in these organizations are for the most part serial violators of universal human rights.
It is not for nothing that ALL the UN rights forums, HRW and their attendant octopus organizations are mostly silent in the face of the genocide in Darfur, yet become apoplectic about Israel taking defensive measures against terrorists.
Now, forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but the fact that the Muslims in Darfur are Black and NOT Arab is the main reason why the slaughter is ignored. Their paradigm of thinking is that only Arabs need to be protected, otherwise the PA narrative will lose its essence, and their immoral blindness and silence as Arab Muslims wage war across the globe will be exposed.
In fact, to further expose their immoral obtuseness when it comes to universal human rights, ignoring Chinese slaughter of Tibetans is par for their course.
In a nutshell, their cause is a shell game, as they trot to the most repressive nations to beg for support, all the while turning a blind eye to the actual torture waged by their gracious hosts to their own citizens.
Ken Roth, Norman Finkelstein, Jerry Ben Ami–no shortage of kapos in the Jewish community.
The fact that these Jewish Uncle Toms are welcome in Saudi Arabia is no surprise. What rankles is that they’re welcome in the White House.
Given HRC’s defense of its fundraising practices is that money comes only from private sources, it is amazing that Roth said of the Shura Council “…not sure whether you’d consider them government or not.” You would think they would want to draw a bright line for their fundraising and would be understanding of their critics.
Obama’s deep and active commitment to ending racial apartheid in the 1980′s is now used as cover for his refusal to oppose gender apartheid: it is all of a piece.
Muslims must enjoy themselves no end when Christian groups and many so-called international organizations come
to them, cup in hand, begging for money. Western money, to be more precise, that has been channeled back from oil exports to U.S. and Europe. Most Western countries are true ‘dhimmi apprentices’, unable or unwilling to go after alternate sources of energy, including oil, to replace imports from areas under Islamic control.
What stuns me, is how few comments there are about this… Anti-Semitism is palpable in Europe, firey hot in the Middle East and becoming mundane in the U.S. Where is the anger or concern? More people are commenting on “Tenure in Academia” than this openly anti-Semitic organization having a respected voice in this country.
WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE??????
If I were a Jew in the U.S., I’d start to worry….
Saudi has over a million Christians (Filipino, Kerala Indians, Africans) and they have no church. Even worshiping in a house church can get them deported…their failure to give this basic human rights to their contract workers is an open secret, but try finding an article about it in the MSM…
What stuns me, is how few comments there are about this… Anti-Semitism is palpable in Europe, firey hot in the Middle East and becoming mundane in the U.S. Where is the anger or concern? More people are commenting on “Tenure in Academia” than this openly anti-Semitic organization having a respected voice in this country.
WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE??????
If I were a Jew in the U.S., I’d start to worry….
Many many years ago, we had neighbors, the Finkelsteins, who warned us incessantly of the day when Jew-hatred would become the rule in America and Europe. The warnings of the Finkelsteins have been borne out.
But Jews in America are so busy trying to forget they are Jews that they don’t want to know about Jew-hatred there or in Europe. For most of them, their “liberal social values” and their being victims of the Holocaust are all that remain of the Torah, Tana”kh, Talmud and Holy Zohar. Such people will disappear. G-d will allow them to escape their destiny, and they will be written out of the Tribe. I didn’t want my wife or sons to be among them. So,
Blessings from the Mountains of Samaria
ISRAEL
Human Rights Watch is not the only pack of liars amongst the “human rights” cabal. the Israeli organization b’tzélem has for years been alleging that the IDF committed “war-crimes” in attacking a Gaza Hamas military outpost, lying through its teeth, saying that innocent civilians were killed. Even though Hamas itself said that those killed were engaged in military activity, B’tzélem kept lying – until recently, when it quietly changed its tune.