In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Avi Bell

04 Sep

According to these stories from the New York Times and the Washington Times, the US is finding that international assistance to Lebanon (including American) almost always ends up going through the hands of Hezbollah because Hezbollah effectively controls all services in south Lebanon. Both stories speak about the issue as a political inconvenience. However, if, indeed, it is true that...

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03 Sep

That thud you hear is the collapse of Security Council Resolution 1696 (2006). Resolution 1696, adopted July 31, specifically invoked Chapter VII in order to demand that Iran stop uranium enrichment and other worrying aspects of its nuclear program, and warned in paragraph 8 of the resolution that the Security Council would impose economic and/or diplomatic sanctions in the event of...

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03 Sep

It is sad to see that Professor Heller, like HRW's employees, is unwilling to acknowledge any HRW misteps. It is even sadder to see that Professor Heller, like HRW's employees and other supporters, is willing to distort the facts in order to excuse HRW's and Kenneth Roth's inexcusable behavior. (a) Contrary to Professor Heller's contention, HRW's philosophy has never been...

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01 Sep

Rosa Brooks' editorial is a must-read. It is also a non-sequitur. The New York Sun attacked Ken Roth as an anti-Semite for Roth's remark that Israel's behavior was an "[a]n eye for an eye - or more accurately in this case twenty eyes for an eye — [which] may have been the morality of some more primitive moment." Whether Mr. Roth...

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29 Aug

Having done no empirical work on the subject whatsoever, I have no idea whether there are any real world cases that fit this theory. However, at least in theory, one plausible reason for empowering new institutions is to dissipate accountability and thereby centralize, rather than dissipate power. This, for example, is the reason that politicians frequently empower "blue...

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29 Aug

Actually, contrary to Professor Heller's explanation for HRW's behavior ("given the brevity of HRW's visit to Sreifa on July 31, the researchers would not have had time to interview residents to determine whether Hezbollah fighters had moved into the area; they would only have had time to determine whether there were any visible manifestations of their presence"), Human Rights Watch...

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29 Aug

Professor Heller insists that it is "excruciatingly clear" that the NYT sentence that reads "Mr. Kamaleldin, the Sreifa official, estimated that up to two-thirds of the town's homes and buildings were demolished, leaving more than 43 people buried in the rubble" refers to casualties from the August 13 attack alone. Perhaps it is clear to Professor Heller. For the rest of us,...

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28 Aug

Another interesting false report of an Israeli war crime has popped up in the blogosphere. According to the ICRC, "on 23 July, at 11.15 pm in Cana, a village in southern Lebanon[, a]ccording to Lebanese Red Cross reports, two of its ambulances were struck by [Israeli] munitions, although both vehicles were clearly marked by the red cross emblem and...

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28 Aug

And, finally, in reference to Professor Heller's piece, a little math: According to the HRW figures, at least 23 were killed in the July 13-19 Israeli attacks. According to the NYT story, on August 16, there were 43 total dead of which at list 22 ("most") were Hezbollah/Amal fighters. 43 less 23 is 20, which means that at least 2...

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28 Aug

Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division, takes issue with my critique of Human Rights Watch's anti-Israel bias. As I noted earlier, I critiqued HRW's accusation that Israel had committed war crimes by bombing the Lebanese village of Srifa, where, according to HRW, there was "no evidence that there had been...

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