Hypocritical attacks on Israel are common, but Sarah Leah Whitson takes them to a new level. As Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, she is one of the sharpest critics of the Jewish state\u2019s presence in the West Bank, promoting boycotts and international prosecution for the supposed crimes of occupation and settlement. Yet elsewhere Ms. Whitson strongly supports settlements in occupied territories\u2014suggesting that she and her colleagues don\u2019t take their own legal claims against Israel seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The settlements Ms. Whitson supports are in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area that was within the borders of post-Soviet Azerbaijan until 1994, when Armenia occupied the region after a protracted war. Since then, the Armenian leadership in Yerevan has actively encouraged the movement of settlers into the area. Many Armenians regard Karabakh as their historic homeland. But the United Nations, international courts and the U.S. all consider it occupied Azeri territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ms. Whitson, who is from an Armenian family, served as master of ceremonies at a 2018 fundraiser for the Armenian National Committee of America, a pro-settler charity that views Karabakh as an \u201cintegral part of the Armenian homeland.\u201d Even as Ms. Whitson led Human Rights Watch\u2019s campaign to boycott Israeli economic activity in the West Bank, she took to Twitter to promote Armenian wines, including from the occupied territories. Asked about the inconsistencies between her positions, Ms. Whitson responded by email: \u201cMy personal support for Armenian diaspora organizations pertains to their charitable and educational work in Armenia and their efforts to advocate for recognition of the Armenian Genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This explanation is at odds with HRW\u2019s approach to Israel, where the group calls for boycotts of entire companies\u2014including unrelated divisions\u2014because some of their work is in settlements. It is also at odds with the record: Ms. Whitson\u2019s fundraising appeals for pro-settlement groups are in no way limited to educational issues. She has celebrated the work of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, which supports new settlement construction to encourage \u201cyoung families to set down their roots.\u201d She specifically praised the group for helping Syrian Armenians who have \u201cresettled in Armenia\u201d; many or most such refugees have been resettled in the occupied territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ms. Whitson is fully within her rights to support Armenian settlements. Nothing in international law requires boycotts or sanctions against such communities. But if HRW were serious about its opposition to \u201csettlers\u201d and \u201coccupation,\u201d it wouldn\u2019t have a supporter of them heading its Middle East division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ms. Whitson isn\u2019t alone in opposing occupation and settlements only in Israel. Nancy Kricorian, leader of a Code Pink boycott campaign against Israel, also turns out to be an Armenian settler activist. Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib urges a boycott of Israel while co-sponsoring a bill to normalize relations with Armenian settlements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The European Council on Foreign Relations has led efforts to restrict connections between Europe and Israeli activities in the West Bank. The think tank claims this is the clear and impersonal command of international law. Yet it has recently emerged that some of its largest corporate donors have significant and direct business interests in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara and Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus. The council doesn\u2019t seem bothered by connections to those occupied territories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly, the revelations about Ms. Whitson will almost certainly not compromise her position at HRW or in the \u201cantisettlement\u201d movement. This shows that there is more than a double standard at play. The acceptance of settlement activity by supporters of sanctions on Israel suggest they know that the international law they claim to enforce against the Jewish state is not international law at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Human Rights Watch\u2019s Sara Leah Whitson has one standard for Israel, another for Armenia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n