Fund Raising Human Rights Watch Style

Human Rights Watch recently sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia but it mission was not to investigate mistreatment of Saudi women or the fact that homosexuals are subject to the death penalty in that country. No they went there to raise money and as David Bernstein reports in the Wall Street Journal their main strategy involved highlighting Human Right Watch’s anti-Israeli bias. Spokesperson Sarah Leah Whitson asked the wealthy Saudis for help with her organization’s battles against "pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations."

Bernstein also quotes Nathan Wagner at Opinio Juris saying that, “surely there is a moral difference between raising funds in free nations through appeals to ideals of universal human rights and raising money in repressive nations through appeals highlighting pressure brought against their enemies.”

Cross posted on The Trebach Report