U.S. magazine Newsweek has published an article entitled “How Coronavirus, Corruption and Cognitive Dissonance Are Shaping the NGO Landscape.” 

The article by Paul Miller, President and Executive Director, Haym Salamon Center, speaks of double standards against Israel. It noted that while some human rights groups criticize Israel, they turn a blind eye to crimes committed by other nations, including Armenia.

Unlike Israel, Armenia is somewhat of a darling in the NGO world, said the author.
“Sarah Leah Whitson—a former director of Middle East and North Africa division for Human Rights Watch (HRW), and more recently managing director for research and policy with the George Soros-backed Quincy Institute—is a prime example of this double standard. Both of these groups (HRW and Quincy Institute) have been sharp critics of Israeli building in Judea and Samaria, but then ignore other territorial conflicts, such as the decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”

He pointed out that Whitson apparently has no qualms concerning the construction of illegal settlements in Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is occupied by Armenia, as affirmed by several U.N. resolutions as part of Azerbaijan. In 2018, she hosted a fundraiser for the Armenian National Committee, a pro-settler charity that views Karabakh as an "integral part of the Armenian homeland."

“Nevertheless, Whitson is seemingly ignoring her own long-time support for Armenia's occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh under the guise of human rights activism. Such behavior can only be described as cognitive dissonance,” read the article.

“Such hypocrisy is hardly limited to Whitson,” the author said, stressing that NGOs like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), the Foundation for Defence of Democracies keeps taking similar positions.

Miller also pointed out the fact that products from Nagorno-Karabakh—which the United States and European Union recognize as part of Azerbaijan—freely enter Western markets labeled as products of Armenia.

“Like its supporters in the NGO world, organizations, charities and even politicians that back the Armenian cause have been caught up in legal controversies and corruption,” he concluded.

News.Az