Israel Lobby Watch

For progressives who are even mildly critical of Israel, a never-ending concern is the response of the Jewish community. Generally, Jews are among the biggest backers of liberal causes. But a common refrain from liberal Jews is that Hamas and Hezbollah represent threats to Israel's very existence, and so conversations about policy take on an emotional and religious character. "There's a deep schizophrenia in some of the Jewish community, and people who are at the forefront of every single rights issue, from racial justice in the United States to the ethnic cleansing in Darfur--on Israel, it crumbles, and there is all this hand-wringing," says Sarahleah Whitson of Human Rights Watch. "And everyone [who is critical] is successfully marginalized."

The struggle for Jewish hearts and minds explains the latest battle in the ideological war over the Middle East: the firestorm over Human Rights Watch's reports from the Lebanon war. The New York City-based monitor issued a couple-dozen reports during the conflict, some sharply critical of Israel for killing civilians, and has had to fight a rear-guard action to maintain its standing among American Jews.

The leading human rights organization in the world, HRW has a dry and thorough manner that reflects its executive director, lawyer Kenneth Roth, who is given to tweezerlike fact-finding and incisive conclusions, with a moral backbeat. The restrained tone has allowed HRW to grow by half in the past five years and stay firmly in the mainstream. When I asked him if he had a special connection to the New York Times, which frequently cites its reports, Roth quipped, "There's a phone in the drawer."

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