Some time ago, I attended a fund raiser for Human Rights Watch. There, I took Ken Roth to task for being so negative on alleged Israeli violations of human rights, while giving the Palestinians and others a free pass. Ken is very smart, and has a silver tongue. Unfortunately, he managed to keep the audience on his side, although I'd like to think that I at least sewed at least some doubt.

Now, Alan Dershowitz has taken him to task for outright lies.

He starts the article thus:

When it comes to Israel and its enemies, Human Rights Watch cooks the books about facts, cheats on interviews, and releases predetermined conclusions that are driven more by their ideology than by evidence.

Later on, he writes,

How could Human Rights Watch have suppressed this evidence from so many different sources? The only reasonable explanation is that they wanted there to be no evidence of Hezbollah's tactic of hiding behind civilians. So they cooked the books to make it come out that way.

Lastly, Alan Dershowitz writes,

Many former supporters of Human Rights Watch have become alienated from the organization, because of, in the words of one early supporter, "their obsessive focus on Israel." Within the last month, virtually every component of the organized Jewish community, from secular to religious, liberal to conservative, has condemned Human Rights Watch for its bias. Roth and his organization's willful blindness when it comes to Israel and its enemies have completely undermined the credibility of a once important human rights organization. Human Rights Watch no longer deserves the support of real human rights advocates. Nor should its so-called reporting be credited by objective news organizations.

Get it all here:

What Are They Watching? - August 23, 2006 - The New York Sun

By ALAN DERSHOWITZ

August 23, 2006