WASHINGTON - One of the world's leading human rights groups is battling criticism for lashing out at Israel's record.
The latest accusation against Human Rights Watch came from an unlikely critic Tuesday, as former chairman Robert Bernstein blasted the group he helped found for "helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state."
Bernstein's charges, in an opinion piece published in The New York Times, revived Israeli propaganda over the organization that ranks as a respected leader in its field along with Amnesty International.
HRW, which counts over 275 staff members posted around the globe and publishes reports on some 90 countries each year, has been accused by Israel appeasers of anti-Israel bias.
But HRW has sought to deter any possible excuse for criticism, legitimate or otherwise, to shield itself from the powerful Israeli propaganda machine.
Last month, the New York-based rights group temporarily suspended Marc Garlasco, a US senior military analyst, after it emerged he was an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia.
The former Pentagon official helped investigate and co-authored an HRW report on Israel's use of white phosphorus in the 22-day Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip at the turn of the year that killed some 1,400 Palestinians (mainly civilians and a third of whom children) and 13 Israelis.
An HRW delegation's May visit to Saudi Arabia also came under scrutiny, with opinion pieces in leading US and Israeli newspapers claiming the trip sought to raise Saudi money without criticizing Riyadh's rights record.
The allegations were echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, the largest US pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and former Israeli minister Natan Sharansky.
The group, which began in 1978 as Helsinki Watch with a policy of publicly "naming and shaming" abusive governments, insisted it did not solicit funds from Saudi officials, noting it raises money from private sources and not governments.
HRW has always been exceptionally critical of the Saudi government.
Pointing the finger at HRW is merely a distraction, critics say.
"There is a very, very intense campaign dedicated to making sure that the conversation becomes about Human Rights Watch rather than the Israeli government's actions," said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who heads the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation.
"The real thing that threatens Israel's legitimacy is the way it behaves and maintains the occupation, and it's a tragedy," he said.
The row with Bernstein, the former HRW chairman, emerged at a critical time, amid a global spat over a damning UN report on the Gaza war that accused both Israel and the democratically elected movement Hamas of war crimes.
Bernstein initially raised his concerns in April at a full meeting of HRW's Board of Directors, which "unanimously rejected" his claims, the group said.
"We fundamentally disagree with Mr Bernstein's views," HRW said in a statement Tuesday, adding that it "does not believe that the human rights records of 'closed' societies are the only ones deserving scrutiny.
"'Open' societies and democracies commit human rights abuses, too, and Human Rights Watch has an important role to play in documenting those abuses and pressing for their end," it said.
Out of 75 HRW reports this year, three dealt with rights concerns related to Israel, one looked at Palestinian resistance groups' rocket attacks, another condemned political violence by Hamas and three drubbed Saudi Arabia's rights record.
The group's annual world report also criticized those violations.
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