The Wonk Room reports:
Reporting that the Israeli government “has decided to take a much more aggressive stance” toward human rights NGOs, the Jerusalem Post quotes Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev attacking Human Rights Watch for raising raising funds from private Saudi individuals.
Regev told the Post that “A human rights organization raising money in Saudi Arabia is like a women’s rights group asking the Taliban for a donation.”
“If you can fundraise in Saudi Arabia, why not move on to Somalia, Libya and North Korea?” he said. “For an organization that claims to offer moral direction, it appears that Human Rights Watch has seriously lost its moral compass.”
Responding to Regev’s troubling suggestion that citizens of Saudi Arabia should come under suspicion simply by virtue of being Saudis, Sarah Leah Whitson, director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa Division said that “Certainly not everyone is tainted by the misconduct of their government.”