Robert L. Bernstein..
May 02, 2013..
Hebrew Union College..
Robert L. Bernstein's remarks upon receiving the Dr. Bernard Heller Prize
Let me begin by thanking Hebrew Union College for giving me the Dr. Bernard Heller Award. When I was asked whether or not I would accept the award, I was given a list of past recipients, and I am certainly pleased to be on such a distinguished list.
Many years ago, I was given a quotation in a handsome frame, which said: “There is no limit to the good a person can do if he or she doesn’t care who gets the credit.” It has hung on my wall for many years, and I like to think that I believe it.
However, in my later years — I am now 90 — I have to admit that it is challenged by a line that creeps into my mind, which goes: “There seems to be no limit to the amount of praise I can’t get accustomed to.” So here I am.
My guess is that I was chosen for this award partly because I founded a successful organization called Human Rights Watch, was its Chair for the first 20 years of its now 34 year-life, and am still a member of the organization, serving as Founding Chair Emeritus. And, because, in October, 2009, I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in which I argued that Human Rights Watch was wrongly painting Israel as a pariah state in its reports on the Israel-Palestine conflict. And, more recently, I have established and been the chair of Advancing Human Rights, a new human rights organization, which focuses primarily on using the Internet to foster the spread of human rights.
Receiving awards should be a happy time. However, in a way, this is a sad moment. It is sad because while the cause of human rights has advanced so much in many ways since I started with Helsinki Watch 35 years ago, in some parts of the world, human rights have barely advanced at all, and in some ways, the cause of human rights is actually moving in the wrong direction.
In the short time allotted to me today, let me say a few words about one part of the human rights situation in the Middle East, and perhaps, what you as graduates of this great institution can do about it.
Three hundred million Arabs do not enjoy freedom of speech. Half of them, 150 million, as women, not only lack freedom of speech, but have barely any rights at all. And the private rights of how to pray and how to love are wrongly dictated by governments, all across the Arab World. Three years ago, we witnessed what was called the Arab Spring. Dictators who had oppressed their own people — and deceived them by telling them that Jews and Israel’s very existence were one of the primary causes of their misery — were toppled. It was a time for human rights organizations and governmental organizations to try to push for these rights long denied, with the hopes that they would take some root. One might have hoped, too, that it was also a time for human rights organizations to tell the people living in Arab countries that their governments not only misled them about their own rights, but also falsely portrayed Israel as a threat and an enemy to detract attention from their plight. Sadly, they did not do this. And the reason, in my opinion, is because of where many in the human rights community have placed their emphasis in recent years.
In my opinion, over the last few years, many in the human rights field have steadily retreated from upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Instead of focusing on insuring basic human rights for all citizens across the Arab world and in other closed societies, they have waded into the muddle of trying to become experts in the laws of warfare, deciding what constitutes a legitimate act of war and what does not, what should be considered a war crime and what should not. The result is that human rights organizations are trying to act like a referee at a sports event, calling war crimes of both sides. They come across like a group of litigator lawyers playing a game of “Gotcha!” mostly with the Israeli Defense Forces and occasionally with Hamas, Hezbollah, and from time to time, Iran.
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