4.2.12 WC: 191694 The Guild decided to abandon any pretense of reporting neutrally on human rights and has continued to serve only as the legal and political arm of the hard left. It has now lost all of its credibility as a human rights organization. Nor was the Guild alone in shifting from “a purely human rights perspective” to a largely political perspective that used the label of human rights selectively against its ideological enemies. Other organizations which were founded on the principles of neutral human rights, such as Human Rights Watch,’ the Carter Center and Amnesty International, '® As an early supporter of Human Rights Watch and an admirer of its founder, I have taken upon myself the responsibility of monitoring its actions very carefully—of guarding the guardians. I was particularly critical of its reporting on Israel’s war against Hezbollah in 20___, after Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets at civilian targets in the north of Israel. I focused on the highly publicized “conclusion” reached by Human Rights Watch allegedly after extensive “investigations” on the ground: “Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack.” (emphasis added) After investigating a handful of cases, Human Rights Watch found that in “none of the cases of civilian deaths documented in this report [Qana, Srifa, Tyre, and southern Beirut] is there evidence to suggest that Hezbollah forces or weapons were in or near the area that the IDF targeted during or just prior to the attack.” No cases! None! Not one! That’s what Human Rights watch reported to the world. But anyone who watched even a smattering of TV during the war saw with their own eyes direct evidence of rockets being launched from civilian areas. Not Human Rights Watch. “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” That’s not Chico Marx. It’s Human Rights Watch. Their lying eyes belonged to the pro-Hezbollah witnesses its in