I am going to ask Danielle Haas about this.
Danielle Haas is going to have a conversation with Bret Stephens on April 1 about her new article in Sapir, “The Human Rights Establishment.” I was engrossed in her fascinating description of her experiences with Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other so-called human rights organizations and I hope to get the chance to ask her a question about one sentence that was particularly jarring for me. It disturbed the flow of the article, and I am curious about why she felt it necessary to write it.
The sentence is:
Focusing on the warped thinking and practice, never mind the deafening silence of many NGOs on Hamas’s wanton savagery of October 7, does not abnegate Palestinian suffering or Israeli abuses.
Coupling ‘Palestinian suffering’ with ‘Israeli abuses’ has become cliché.
I wonder for how many people this sentence stuck out like it did for me.
My first thought when I read this sentence was: Haas, show me what you mean. Because we could just as easily write about Palestinian suffering at the hands of their own leadership — so exactly what suffering and what abuses is Haas referring to? Of course, going into this would involve a serious deviation from the point of her article. And because it is unreasonable to expect such a diversion in an already lengthy article, I wonder why she felt it necessary to have it in this article, and why Sapir editors did not edit it out (if they do such things).
My second thought was: all those predisposed to see Israel as responsible for her own victimhood on Oct 7th will find solace in this statement. Is it not true, many think, that Israeli abuses are to blame for the wanton torture, slaughter, and abductions committed that day? That we got what we deserve?
What will stay in people’s minds?
What are people going to retain from Danielle Haas’ article after having read the fascinating story of her personal journey among human rights organizations and how she was affected by the unfair targetting of Israel over all other places around the globe?
There is much to remember here, and I want to remember. But to be able to tell anyone else what this article says and not just share the link with them, I would have to read it repeatedly and commit certain details to memory. On the other hand, it takes no work at all to remember the phrase “Palestinian suffering [and/]or Israeli abuses.” Therefore, I ask again: what was the purpose of writing it?
Is it because of the bothsidesism with which we have become familiar? The fact that one cannot write anything positive about Israel without reminding readers that we also KNOW that Israel is not perfect? Or that one cannot criticize Hamas or the Palestinian leadership without balancing it out with criticism of Israel, or, better yet, of Bibi? The yes-but phenomenon?
It is as if, when writing about Nigerian Moslem abductions, rape, and child marriage of Nigerian Christian girls, one feels compelled to add something negative about the nation’s Christian population. As if the latter explains the former, at least in part.
Yet, with the Jewish nation, the very presence of a sentence pointing to Israeli abuses is commonplace as if the crimes of her enemies cannot stand on their own and must be explained away because . . . because. . . because, Israel!
Is inclusion of this sentence an example of how some Jews succumb to the very same malady affecting the NGOs about which Danielle Haas writes in this article? In a little way, I mean. Or perhaps it is because we just do not have as much confidence in ourselves as we should have?
What do you think?
Is this a reasonable question to ask or am I nitpicking?
Feature Image is a screenshot of the website page on which her article appears when the link is clicked.
reasonable.
Mme. Haas must indeed be made to further explain and clarify her thoughts about what she said. Israel has in fact very little to do with “Palesinian” suffering which was and is self inflicted and needless. It is they who, for instance broke the cease fire, provoked and chose war, aggression, invasion, violence, rape, torture, mutilation, burn people alive, destroy, plunder property, terrorise, abduct women, men, children, babies and older people and keep them as hostage under inhumane conditions. I read lately something like: When you start a war and lose it you are not a victim!