Times forced to ‘correct’ its smear of Human Rights Watch
I’ve written a few times about the willingness of certain commentators to smear human rights agencies because they’re critical of Israel. Most recently this has been happening with Amnesty Int., and at the same time partly with HRW.
The Sunday Times has been a key player here – running hatchet jobs on Amnesty and last week HRW, here.
Yesterday, it was forced to issue this correction.
A Magazine article, “Explosive Territory†(March 28) by Jonathan Foreman, mostly about Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) work on Israel, requires clarification and correction.
The magazine said that HRW had not published any report on the post-election abuses in Iran when in fact the organisation published one in February this year. Marc Garlasco, the former senior military analyst for HRW, was not the only person in the organisation who had military experience; a number of the HRW staff have military expertise.
In the 20-year Kashmir conflict HRW has published nine reports, not four as the article stated.
One HRW researcher has had articles published by the Palestinian pressure group Electronic Intifada without her permission but was not directly employed by that group, as the article suggests.
Although HRW never produced a full report about the shelling at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in 2007 it did write three press releases, not one as the article stated.
We regret the errors.
Mr Foreman quoted a critic of HRW saying the group “cares about Palestinians when mistreated by Israelis but is less concerned if perpetrators are fellow Arabsâ€. In fact Human Rights Watch has reported on abuses of Palestinians by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan.
Mr Foreman cited unnamed sources that said Mr Garlasco resented what he felt was pressure to sex up claims of Israeli violations. HRW and Mr Garlasco both say HRW never pressured Mr Garlasco to change his findings. We are happy to clarify HRW’s position.
In other words Foreman didn’t really do his research properly and ran a hatchet job that smeared HRW. If he approached HRW in advance with these points that could have been corrected. So why didn’t he? Why did it require HRW to contact the Sunday Times after the article had been published?
This reminds me of when the Sunday Times misrepresented the views of Amnesty’s Asia directo Sam Zarifi to pretend he didn’t support Amnesty’s stances.
This agenda against human rights orgs is becoming all too predictable and blatant now.
via Ben White
Update: A good comment on this by Aosher at Brontides
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Is this the Jonathan Foreman of Standpoint?
No idea… it wouldn’t surprise me if it was, given that mag’s neo-con leanings.
In my minds eye, I see a neocon responding as follows:
“Yes, much like the Iraq War, our position on human rights organisations is shot through with factual errors,” he states, glancing up from the podium at the audience at the Henry Jackson Society. “Be that as it may, we still find HRW guilty as charged, for they miss that Muslims and those stinking towelheads are not humans, and thus have no rights that need protecting.”
That’s the only way I can justify Keep America Safe pursuing torture (oh, “enhanced interrogation”, ahem) as an end in itself, in spite of the overwhelming lack of evidence that it enhances national security.
Yes, it is Jonathan Foreman of Standpoint, the piece of shit who argued against Andy Worthington on The Big Questions which I watched and his performance was shambolic and shameful:
Foreman has no standing to criticise HRO’s but is perfect for Murdoch publications. I would imagine that Foreman is very able to research properly, but then that would ruin his story.
Well it’s good they have printed a correction.
There’s hyperbole on both sides, of course.
We’re still waiting for The Independent to apologise or correct for potentially explosive (sic) accusation that Israel had used a secret uranium bomb, even when the UN found no evidence for it.
People or groups act in a certain way, such as general bias against Israel, or Israeli aggression, and people start to see things that aren’t there.
Yes, it is Jonathan Foreman of Standpoint, the piece of shit who argued against Andy Worthington on The Big Questions which I watched and his performance was shambolic and shameful:
Foreman has no standing to criticise HRO’s but is perfect for Murdoch publications. I would imagine that Foreman is very able to research properly, but then that would ruin Foreman’s story.
Oh my God – thank you earwicga, for that link! I saw Foreman in action by chance, but only for a few minutes near the start of that particular episode of TBQ. I was wondering who he was. He claimed, as AW mentions in your link that sleep deprivation wasn’t torture, saying ‘I’m a journalist and I don’t get enough sleep’ or something similar. I was beyond gobsmacked at him attempting to compare prolonged sleep deprivation as torture with not getting enough sleep because one is a journalist. I think I switched the TV off precisely because I was so aghast. I figured that he had to be in some way affiliated to the ‘decent left.’ Well, it would appear so!
I remember I met Daniel Pipes once at a debate and questioned him about Gitmo.
He said it was a “marvellous” place!
Neo-cons aren’t so much as deluded as basically pathologically fucked in the head.
I like how you’re relating some completely unconnected event there marvin to justify what is a completely shoddy piece of journalism and a smear attempt aimed at a very reputable human rights org.
Printing articles about countries is one thing. Deliberately trying to undermine human rights orgs is quite another.
What’s worse, painting a human rights organisation as more biased than it is, or pretending that the the Jewish state has used nuclear weapons against the Palestinians, thus inspiring jihadis around the world in their hatred for Israel, so either strongly expressing their emotions on our streets or flying abroad to do so?
And it’s hardly unconnected. Broadsheets newspapers asserting factual inaccuracies about sensitive issues. One issued a correction, the other has not. Which I’m sure you’re deeply concerned about… not.
We king of expect the Sun to have dodgy stories about Jewish hitlists by Muslims or The Mirror to print fake Iraqi abuse pictures. But we expect accuracy in the broadsheets.
So boo to The Times and boo to The Independent.
thus inspiring jihadis around the world in their hatred for Israel,
I think the blockades and invasions of Gaza are more likely to do that than the spectre of nukes.
According to Standpoint’s website, Jonathan Foreman is Standpoint’s ‘Writer at Large’.
The Independent reported in December 2008, “But there are several reasons, and one in particular, to think that Standpoint has an exceptional position within the industry, and may be more immune to the recession. Funded and published by the Social Affairs Unit (SAU), a think tank, the magazine exists only because of a shipping magnate and metals trader named Alan Bekhor, who helped set up the SAU. In April, the Sunday Times Rich List claimed the 49-year-old is worth at least £120m. The basement of Bekhor’s apartment in London’s Manchester Square provides Standpoint with its offices. Bekhor has given Johnson an informal financial guarantee for at least one year, and probably twoâ€.
Last year, investigative reporter Peter Oborne produced a documentary and accompanying report on the British pro-Israel Lobby. The report shows that in 2007 a certain Alan Bekhor, a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel group, gave two cheques – one for £5,000, the other for £4,999 – to prospective conservative candidate Joanne Cash.
It might also worth noting that the Social Affairs Unit published the manifesto of the Henry Jackson Society.
The first link is to the Independent article; the second is to Peter Oborne’s report.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/will-standpoint-fall-at-the-first-hurdle-1214898.html
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/peter-oborne-james-jones/pro-israel-lobby-in-britain-full-text
HRW employs as its chief military analyst, to sit in judgement over Israel, a man who collects Nazi insignia and flaunts his affiliation by displaying the notorious code “88″. Its senior organizer goes to Saudi Arabia, a monstrous violator of human rights, to raise money, using HRW anti-Israeli reports as a selling point. Amnesty International has long since abandoned its principles of opposition to violence and advocates in favor of bestially violent criminals of all descriptions.
notmarvin,
I think is is a known fact that Israel has nuclear bombs. And like all nuclear states, will use them in specific circumstances. Their own specific circumstances.
I’d prefer discussion about Israel, particularily in the USA, to at least admit that fact.
Israel is not weak in a conflict.
—————————–
Y’know what I think?
I think that having a nuclear capability makes anyone that has it a tit.
See India and Pakistan…
Or the USA or the UK or France, China or the USSR.
Take your fucking pick of bullies with bombs…
It is any of those arseholes that could kill you, and justify it later, see Oliver Kamm, passim…
Sunny Hundal,
But the reality of nukes? How does that sway the debate?
They are no ghost machines….
Thay are a disgusting part of the immoral equation you outline.
Think perhaps that you are walking home, unarmed. Assume that a mugger attacks you and has a ‘big gun’.
Realistically, what are you going to do?
That is as near and about the situation with nuclear and non nuclear powers that I can see…
Sunny,
I like you, really I do, but realism can get you killed, so it can.
Everyone can get tooled up, I suppose…
I’d have even less confidence in the future of the human race than I do now, if that were to be the case.
As long as stupid bastards, see US and USSR citizens as fucked up mentalists originally proclaiming their ability to blow the world apart as ‘a good, nationalistically worthwhile thing’, well sadly no. Citizens of the aforesaid nations saw mutual destruction as a ‘final solution’. You do see the irony?
The existence of nuclear weapons is pretty well a disgusting expression of the state versus the people.
I take it you do not want to be incinerated?
The state has a limit. And is may, or may not, be yours. Just keep playing that Russian Roulette, you’ll find out one day….
Blam!
Having nukes and using them are as different having a day dream about punching your boss, and actually cutting his head off with a machete.
The Independent accused Israel of actually using nuclear weapons against the Palestinians. Luckily the story did not gain any runaway momentum. Probably because it was bollocks. If it had of gained traction people could have died.
James T, how terrible that we have a person who actually supports Israel, giving money to a prospective parliamentary candidate, and even worse, funding a magazine for godsake!
Labour would never allow itself to be funded to the tune of £11 million by a powerful lobby group run by crazy left militants.
The most terrible of all; a link to the All Powerful Henry Jackson Society. There’s a well-funded threat to the world if ever I saw one!
notmarvin,
Not really.
You have the potential to do it. Which is what it is all about.
To compare and contrast. If you walked along the street carrying a machete would you be too surprised if you were arrested and when you said you never intended to use it, the cops didn’t believe you?
Really?
Nuclear proliferation is a very bad idea, and it doesn’t matter whose philosophy has the nukes.
Least, that’s what I think….
As you can’t uninvent an evil, you need to deal with it.
We are, apparently, too stupid to do so.
I wish I could read the whole article. But the headline and the initial text indicated that there was strong suspicion that Israel used uranium when bombing Lebanon (not Gaza!). It did not state that as a fact. However, if any of the facts reported in the article which lead to the suspicion were proven false, then I agree they would need to provide a correction as the Times did. It is silly to debate which is worse.
Douglas.
Having a nuclear deterrent is exactly that. A deterrent, legal under international law. Not that international law actually means anything.
Carrying a machete in the street is illegal. Being trained in ninja arts specialising in machete attack is perfectly legal. I think our analogies are running away with us now
Ravi,
Of course, my memory fails me, it was in the recent Lebanon offensive.
The front page is like a Daily Mail one, with the horrific pictures and massive headline, completely sensational. They did not wait for the results of a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) investigation into the allegations.
It’s written by, quelle suprise, Robert Fisk
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-mystery-of-israels-secret-uranium-bomb-421960.html
notmarvin @ 19,
OK, no you have decided that having nuclear weapons is A – OK could you think of a country that you’d rather didn’t have the bomb?
Just checking.
I could name a few.
The list starts with the USA, GB, the USSR, Israel, etc, etc…
Maybe India and Pakistan. Oh! And North Korea.
How many countries do you want to have this ability until one of them blows us all to Kingdom come?
It is quite apparent that you have never read ‘When the Wind Blows’. It’s OK, it’s mainly pictures…
Please buy it and read it. I’d send you my copy, but I had to give it to another neo-con nut case. Never had it back. Never saw him again either….
UK should not give up it’s Trident deterrent whilst we have totalitarian states such as China, NK and Iran having theirs. And if France has them so should we!
Imagine a world where all the nice democratic countries gave up their nukes in order to prevent the ‘well they’ve got them so why shouldn’t we mentality’; and only totalitarian states wielded the ultimate threat?
Unless you’d give carte blanche to go take out the nukes in such states as the first step, I can’t agree with your methodology for a nuke free world. It would never work, never with gangsters in control of nations.