Anyone familiar with Human Rights Watch -- or with Roth -- knows this to be lunacy. Human Rights Watch is nonpartisan -- it doesn't "take sides" in conflicts. And the notion that Roth is anti-Semitic verges on the insane.
But what's most troubling about the vitriol directed at Roth and his organization isn't that it's savage, unfounded and fantastical. What's most troubling is that it's typical. Typical, that is, of what \o7anyone \f7rash enough to criticize Israel can expect to encounter. In the United States today, it just isn't possible to have a civil debate about Israel, because any serious criticism of its policies is instantly countered with charges of anti-Semitism. Think Israel's tactics against Hezbollah were too heavy-handed, or that Israel hasn't always been wholly fair to the Palestinians, or that the United States should reconsider its unquestioning financial and military support for Israel? Shhh: Don't voice those sentiments unless you want to be called an anti-Semite -- and probably a terrorist sympathizer to boot.
How did adopting a reflexively pro-Israel stance come to be a mandatory aspect of American Jewish identity? Skepticism -- a willingness to ask tough questions, a refusal to embrace dogma -- has always been central to the Jewish intellectual tradition. Ironically, this tradition remains alive in Israel, where respected public figures routinely criticize the government in far harsher terms than those used by Human Rights Watch.
In a climate in which good-faith criticism of Israel is automatically denounced as anti-Semitic, everyone loses. Israeli policies are a major source of discord in the Islamic world, and anger at Israel usually spills over into anger at the U.S., Israel's biggest backer.
With resentment of Israeli policies fueling terrorism and instability both in the Middle East and around the globe, it's past time for Americans to have a serious national debate about how to bring a just peace to the Middle East. But if criticism of Israel is out of bounds, that debate can't occur -- and we'll all pay the price.
Back to Human Rights Watch's critics. Why waste time denouncing imaginary anti-Semitism when there's no shortage of the real thing? From politically motivated arrests of Jews in Iran to assaults on Jewish children in Ukraine, there's plenty of genuine anti-Semitism out there -- and Human Rights Watch is usually taking the lead in condemning it. So if you're bothered by anti-Semitism -- if you're bothered by ideologies that insist that some human lives have less value than others -- you could do a whole lot worse than send a check to Human Rights Watch.
rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com
