1. You’ve lost track of who you are quoting:
“the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world”
(His use of the plural in the names is also telling.)”

not “His use”- The quote referred to is the one by Helena Cobban. While I cannot speak for her, it seems clear that the name Bernstein was not “slipped” in, as Arnon says, but was mentioned because she was commenting on the NYT article he wrote. In fact, if you go to her original piece,
you see that “Robert Bernsteins” is a link to
the NYT piece.

2. More substantially, Arnon writes that Bernstein criticized HRW for, in part, “support of the genocidal organizations Hamas and Hezbollah” Whatever else one thinks of Bernstein’s column, he does not say that. He says that “Israel … faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism”, instead of Hezbollah and Hamas.

3. Arnon writes “Seth complains that Jews like Bernstein can’t stand that Judge Goldstein’s report criticized Israel, yet it is his organization …”

“his organization”? What in the world are you talking about? I’m not even a member of HRW. I’ve read a
number of their reports and the responses to them
by NGO Monitor and so on. (The NGO Monitor reports are a joke, by the way.) I was particularly
impressed by their efforts to publicize the effects of
the clusters bombs that Israel dropped on South
Lebanon (btw, during the 2006 war they put out
statements criticizing both Israel and Hezbollah in
this regard. The greater focus on Israel’s cluster
bombs is no doubt because Israel dropped a lot more
than Hezbollah and killed a lot more people and they
are continuing to kill more people.)

4. I thought Aryeh Neier’s response to Bernstein
was pretty good and I have nothing much to add to it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aryeh-neier/human-rights-watch-should_b_342680.html

okay, for jdyer:

1. You write that I should “not lump all Jews” into
my “imaginary enemies list”. Obviously I did nothing
of the sort. You seem to equate apologists for Israeli
collective punishment with “the Jews”, which is a
very distorted way of thinking, to say the least.

2. “Moreover there is not “commitment to a collective view of people” or “commitment in favor of collective punishment and state terrorism.” This is just nonsense.”

No, z-word is an enthusiastic supporter of collective
punishment and state terrorism, as long as it’s
directed against the people in Lebanon and Gaza.
By the standards used here, Hezbollah and Hamas
would be permitted to bomb political and military
institutions throughout Israel. Of course no
sane person would support such an atrocity, but
that is the reasoning of z-word, if one takes the additional step of assuming that Israeli and non-Israeli lives have the same inherent value.

See also the comments here:
http://blog.z-word.com/2008/12/gaza-israel-and-the-howling-chorus-of-hypocrisy%5C/

for a striking example of this from Petra, along with a quite amazing refusal to face up to the easily available information about the dropping of the
US/Israeli cluster bombs.

3. As a side note, I find it somewhat ironic that
not long ago Helena Cobban was being approvingly cited on z-word by Ben Cohen for her comments regarding
Marc Garlasco -

http://blog.z-word.com/2009/09/garlasco-evades-human-rights-watch-approves/

I can’t follow if the problem is that “it seems unlikely that Cobban’s concerns will register in the office of the organization’s boss, Ken Roth” or if
she’s herself one of the anti-semites infesting the
organization.

4. But most seriously, the problem though is that it’s not just HRW, and I do find the focus on HRW somewhat odd. It’s HRW, and it’s Amnesty, and it’s Btselem, and it’s just the Goldstone report - it’s every single serious human rights organization. So they’re all
anti-Semites? They’re all biased against Israel?
Could there possibly be another explanation as
to what’s going on? Don’t you realize how strange
this sounds to many people, especially when
information on Israeli violence is so much easier available than before?

5. As far as this new AP piece, perhaps it would be
good to consider all weapons being shipped to the area.
How do you think people feel when Israel keeps getting more weapons that get used to attack civilians and civilian infrastructure?

“Israel accuses Iran of war crime over arms ship”
By AMY TEIBEL (AP)

“JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister charged Thursday that Iran’s goal was to kill as many civilians as possible by giving Hezbollah what the military said were enough weapons to extend any war against Israel for one month.

Benjamin Netanyahu said the shipment of hundreds of tons of weapons on a seized ship Israel contends was bound for the Lebanese guerrilla group was a war crime that should be investigated by the U.N. Security Council. The Iran-backed Hezbollah denied that the arms were bound for them.

“Their goal was … to kill as many civilians as possible,” Netanyahu said of the Iranians…..”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h3S0DqyLu9CfgcBASy2XHOGCk0IAD9BPFF2G0

“the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world”

(His use of the plural in the names is also telling.)

Now this Robert Bernstein happens to be one of the original founders of HRW who had recently dared criticize his organization for its one-sided support of resolutions against Israel and in support of the genocidal organizations Hamas and Hezbollah.

Here is a short bio of Mr. Bernstein:

“After his experience in Moscow in 1973, Mr. Bernstein returned to the U.S. and established the Fund for Free Expression, which eventually grew into Human Rights Watch.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Bernstein

He is also a distinguished lawyer.

Now, Seth complains that Jews like Bernstein can’t stand that Judge Goldstein’s report criticized Israel, yet it is his organization which can’t stand Bernstein and others criticize what HRW has become, a rabid anti-Israel organization.

Because of his criticisms they accused him of being “pro” Israel as if that were a crime.

In any case, this is how HRW deals with all people who criticize their group. It is obvious that they are no longer a human rights ngo but a political anti-Israel organization.

Of course you don’t. But using terms like “the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world” reminds one of antisemites talking about “the Moishes, the yankels, the itziks of the world….” If you don’t see this as antisemitic, I can’t help you.

And so are phrases like: “ Goldfarb, Bernstein, and many other die-hard supporters of “Israel– right or wrong.”

I know of no “strong supporter of Israel” who supports that country whether “it is right or wrong.” This is at best insulting and at worst also antisemitic. You are attempting to dehumanize supporter of Israel.

This is what your whole post is about.

Moreover there is not “commitment to a collective view of people” or “commitment in favor of collective punishment and state terrorism.” This is just nonsense.

It is you and other members of “HRW” the so called human rights organization that is stigmatizing all supporters of Israel.

Your rebuttal is pathetically inadequate. Please try quoting in the future the people you are arguing against and not lump all Jews into your imaginary enemies list. You sound feverish and a little insane, Seth.

Repeating your quotes doesn’t really accomplish anything. Cobban is clear that she is referring to “die-hard supporters of “Israel– right
or wrong”.

The commitment to a collective view of people is really
quite strong here. I knew there was a strong
commitment in favor of collective punishment and
state terrorism
http://blog.z-word.com/2009/10/long-live-the-dahiya-doctrine/

But I had not fully appreciated to what extent
the most fanatical supporters of Israeli actions
are associated with “The Jews”, such that
a criticism of such people becomes an
attack on “The Jews” or “Jew-baiting”.

Altogether, another example of how so-called
supporters of Israel are constantly giving arguments
in support of terrorism against Israel, if one takes
the step of assuming that the lives of Israelis and
non-Israelis are worth the same.

Here is what Cobban said:

“So here’s the thing that Michael Goldfarb and people of his ilk really don’t seem to understand: For the vast majority of the people on God’s earth today, Palestinians are just as fully human as Jewish people, and just as deserving as Jewish people of our compassion and our understanding.”

“That is the true value of putting a human-rights frame on world affairs. But the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world truly don’t get this. They truly think there is something so “special” about Jewish people and their experience in the world that somehow the (and especially the allegedly “Jewish” state, Israel) deserve to be given a free pass on the application of any neutral standards of behavior, such as would be applied to anyone else.”

http://justworldnews.org/archives/003863.html

This is taken from Cobban’s web site.

The question is where do “Michael Goldfarb and people of his ilk” (people of his ilk could mean all Jews or only those Jews that Cobban and Seth despise), any way where does Goldfarb say that only Jews are “fully human?”

Isn’t this an antisemitic projection what is really going on, isn’t it?

Cobban’s and Seth’s denigration of people who come to the defense of Israel is a sign that they can’t deal with facts. In their eyes all Jews who are critical of antisemitic attacks on Israel are to be thought of, without evidence, as people who “cannot stand… the idea is that Israel be judged by the same standard,…”

The opposite happens to be the case, the problem with the Goldstone report is that Israel was not judged by the same standard and Goldstone himself on many occasions since has said as much.

I thought Cobban was actually quite clear here, with who she was referring to, and why:
———————
And more importantly, Goldfarb, Bernstein, and many other die-hard supporters of “Israel– right or wrong” truly couldn’t bear it when the distinguished Jewish (and as it happens, also Zionist) criminal investigator Judge Richard Goldstone came out with the report in which he tried to apply a single unified “human rights” standard to the behavior of the decisionmakers on both sides of the Israel-Hamas divide.
———————-

which seems to me the heart of the matter regarding the Goldstone report. What Bernstein, Dershowitz, and,
I would, add, z-word cannot stand is the idea is that Israel be judged by the same standard, and that the death of a Palestinian in Gaza or the West Bank or a civilian in South Lebanon matters as much as the death of an Israeli. Perhaps if you can find a farmer in South Lebanon who has said something like, “my child my have gotten a leg blown off by a cluster bomb, but at least the cluster bomb was dropped by a country with a vibrant free press”, there might be reason to change one’s mind about this fundamental, and for most people, obvious principle.

“Helena Cobban on the Jews”

Noah Pollak - 10.29.2009 - 2:04 PM

Helena Cobban sits on the board of Human Rights Watch and was a member of the blogger panel at the J Street conference. She recently ruminated on the question of why so many Jews are disgusted with the Goldstone/HRW treatment of Israel (hat tip: Richard Landes). Her answer:

“But the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world truly don’t get this. They truly think there is something so “special” about Jewish people and their experience in the world that somehow the [sic] (and especially the allegedly “Jewish” state, Israel) deserve to be given a free pass on the application of any neutral standards of behavior, such as would be applied to anyone else.”

Ah, so the Jews think they’re superior to everyone else — where have we heard that one before? And what is the “allegedly” Jewish state? (Sorry, I’ve misquoted her. That’s the allegedly “Jewish” state.) Her writing is so sloppy that it’s impossible to discern what specific slander she has in mind.

Cobban concludes:

“So now, frustrated by their inability to dream up a “Cast lead II,” Israel’s hardliners are taking out their frustrations by railing against Goldstone and “demanding deep changes in the laws of war.””

The pop psychology here is entertaining but of a thematic piece with the rest of her thinking. The criticism of Goldstone, she intones, is not serious or rational — it is in fact the redirected frustration of a predatory and sadistic people whose desire for more war on Palestinian civilians has been thwarted. Get it?

Just to remind people again: this petulant woman sits on the board of Human Rights Watch.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/147252

I suspect Anthony is the same Anthony Lowenstein ref’d by Petra in her comment above at Oct 27, 7:01 a.m.