Excellent NY Times Op-Ed

Robert Bernstein, the founder of the Human Rights Watch, pens an excellent op-ed in the New York Times today:

AS the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state. [...]

Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.

His honesty and willingness to criticize an institution he founded -- which must be a wrench -- is quite heartening. Hopefully he will set a precedent for other so-called human rights organizations to come out and admit their biases (although I'm not holding my breath). Read the entire thing.

Hattip: ND

Quote of the Day

Hat tip: Eliezer Strongbad, this is from a piece in Commentary Magazine:

One day the U.N. Secretary General proposes that, in the interest of global peace and harmony, the world’s soccer players should come together and form one United Nations global soccer team.

“Great idea,” says his deputy. “Er, but who would we play?”

“Israel, of course.”

Sure, that's funny, but the rest isn't. Excerpt: (Note: I've watched this video. It's amazing in its brashness and straight-forwardness, and because of that, one of the scariest things I've seen. Hit expand to watch it.)

One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, a group wearing “BOYCOTT ISRAEL” T-shirts entered a French branch of Carrefour, the world’s largest supermarket chain, and announced themselves. They then systematically advanced down every aisle examining every product, seizing all the items made in Israel and piling them into carts to take away and destroy. Judging from the video they made, the protesters were mostly Muslim immigrants and a few French leftists. But more relevant was the passivity of everyone else in the store, both staff and shoppers, all of whom stood idly by as private property was ransacked and smashed, and many of whom when invited to comment expressed support for the destruction. “South Africa started to shake once all countries started to boycott their products,” one elderly lady customer said. “So what you’re doing, I find it good.”

SerandEz On Crack

That's probably not such a good title... Ah well. I started using a "stuff to post" folder in my bookmarks sidebar recently, figuring it'd be easy to put together posts and articles I really enjoyed or thought were worthy of greater dissemination, but don't have much to add to them. This latest pull started a few days ago, and as I waited to post due to the sudden burst from my friends, it built up way too fast - there's just too much worthwhile stuff out there. The following is the latest batch; some are serious, some are not; some will move you, some will make you cry; some will make you laugh, and some are just plain interesting. Enjoy!

Just so you know, this is how I grew up:

You know what else makes you question things? Waking up in Cleveland, Ohio, and looking north out the window of your Marriott hotel room and realizing that there’s a barely discernible line out there in the distance, and that that line separates the gray lake from the slightly less gray air; then going down to breakfast and watching out the window as two men carrying stacks of overstuffed binders walk straight into the teeth of the wind screaming o Lake Erie, their faces being savaged by tiny airborne razor blades; then going back up to your room and looking out your window again and observing that, while the gray slab of day has lightened a little, the contrast between lake and sky is still imperceptible; and then finally realizing that the people of Cleveland live a large portion of their lives inside a howling, subfreezing, youth-repelling, job-vanishing, anti-light box.

That's part of a really fascinating piece on LeBron James in GQ. Also, Broadway apologized to Cleveland for making fun of it in an ad, and is giving out free tickets to people with Ohio licenses! Elsewhere...

Israel vs. Gaza:

• A Soldier's Mother relates the difference in reactions in two cities... and what it's like to see your son for a brief moment during war.
• The best compilation of clips a person would need to show anyone why children die in Gaza. The scariest one is this really sweet kid, playing games with Hamas members as shooting is going on outside, talking about his future, them talking about his future, answering the reporter's questions... and then what the kid is doing at the very end: Acting as a lookout at night while Hamas carries out attacks and moves from place to place.
• RafiG posts Menachem Lipkin's excellent piece detailing what it's like to suddenly understand how Sderot lives, after the sirens went off in Jerusalem. (And about having a son in Gaza.)
• A piece in the WSJ notes that the Palestinians are helping Israel to defeat Hamas.
• EoZ has an amazing (old) video of an Israeli soldier using a Palestinian as a human shield. Wrong? Well, no - he used the Palestinian who had just thrown a grenade at him as a shield against that very grenade. Ridiculous.
• RafiG on the meetings between the army and R' Shteinman, with the army encouraging R' Shteinman to allow Arab workers to work. Interesting.
  

World (& Media):

• These riots are actually a bit scary. Batya has some crazy clips of protests in London against Israel, which are mostly large masses of Muslims and others chasing the British police for blocks, throwing orange cones and other items at them in the process. (Note: I'm pretty sure that there have been no violent pro-Israel demonstrations.)
• Via Yourish, watch this takedown of a CNN anchor by Israeli spokesman Mark Regev. He did a fabulous job answering every point.
  
• EoZ catches the ICRC President in quite the lie - not only is Gaza not so incredibly densely populated, but guess what is many times more densely populated than Gaza - or even Gaza City? That's right: Manhattan.
• Israel Matzav calls this the best commentary on Gaza. It's up there.
  
• Treppenwitz notes that every one of Israel's neighbors has checked into the fight.
  

Judaism & Life:

• Who wants to help Irina pick a Jewish name?
• MiI and ProfK on questions to consider when picking a school.
• R' Dr. Benzion Twerski on suicide.
• Nephtuli pointed out this interesting piece on Mr. Mom on CNN.

Where To Read About The War

Firstly, the IDF Spokesperson now has a blog as well, which shows, discusses, and gives some explanation of some of the actions being carried out in Operation Cast Lead, or even some footage of Hamas actions just to show how they truly work, such as shooting mortars from a UN school. It also has a post in memoriam for the soldier who was killed by a rocket two days ago.

Jameel (@ the Muqata) and Dave (IsraellyCool) are the live-bloggers of this war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Jack keeps churning out roundups of posts from the J-blogosphere and pieces from the media, though it's worthwhile to note that the stories the media picks up tend to be about a day or two behind the blogs. Even some of the news aspects are slightly trailing the blogs...

A couple posts I particularly liked in addition to Gila's below were Treppenwitz' on the media being allowed into Gaza, and WestBankMama's on an impressive feat the Israeli school system is pulling off, educating even the 200,000 students who are within range of the rockets and can't go to school. Excerpts on expand.

3. The Palestinians have demonstrated their willingness to play to the cameras during two Intifadas. Your presence has a tendency to get young, bored, otherwise-non-political Palis out onto the streets and into violent confrontations with our troops. So far we've been able to limit our attacks to Hamas leaders and combatants. But once your camera crews draw out the idle young mobs, the casualty figures will shoot through the roof. And that will end up being your story. Reporters are supposed to report the news... not manufacture it.

4. You have demonstrated that you have no contextual or historical background for covering this conflict. You have also made it clear you have no desire to acquire either. You will inevitably send in 'journalists' who don't know the geography, language, culture or history of either side in this conflict, forcing them to rely on unreliable (and biased) local sources and 'fixers' to supply the meat of their stories. There are already Palestinian journalists inside Gaza. Your stories are going to end up echoing their propaganda, so why not just take their feed?

The educational ministry has set up a way to teach the kids (at least part time) by having both the students and teachers go online. Each schoolkid gets a special code and a time to go on to a site, and he gets assignments from his teacher. Sometimes the teacher is online also, and can answer questions in real time.

Due to the fact that the cities of Sderot and the small villages near the Gaza border have been under rocket attack for years, the government saw to it that each child received a computer. They haven’t done the same for the students in Ashdod or Beersheva, because the rockets haven’t reached there until now. But at least most of the kids are covered.

J Street and Palin

Sarah Palin was invited to speak at the UN Rally against a Nuclear Iran today. Unfortunatly, J Street felt that her presence there would turnt the rally into a partisan event. Under some pressure, the organizers had to rescind the invitation.

Now, had the organizers, The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations had instead only a liberal guest, (which is no big deal) would J-Street protested them making the rally into a partisan event? I mean, aren't THEY the ones now making it into a partisan event? Couldn't this rally, even if they disagree with her on major issues been a time when people can come together? Go figure these people.

Missing the Boat

This doesn't make much sense. Hillary Clinton has canceled her plans to attend the rally outside the UN protesting Iranian President Ahmadinejad because she found out Sarah Palin was going to be there:

“Her attendance was news to us, and this was never billed to us as a partisan political event,” Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines said Wednesday. “Sen. Clinton will therefore not be attending.”

But if it was supposed to include Palin and Clinton, how was it a partisan event? It's only partisan now that Clinton has backed out - something which won't reflect well on her, and by extension, perhaps Democrats in general and Barack Obama. Then again, perhaps she's not so upset by the idea that Obama could lose.

Also on the subject: Chaim, DA, Trep.

They Diden't Waste ANY Time

Are any of us surprised about the UN human rights council condemning Israel?