I do!
Augean Stables has a pretty thorough one of my interview yesterday with Human Rights Watch’s Sarah Leah Whitson.
It’s worth reading.
Essentially, AS says that in seeking answers to specifics about her meetings in Saudi Arabia, I elided over two broader and more meaningful issues:
* The morality of her (apparently) invoking Jewish influence during her trip to Saudi Arabia, even in the context of "we get criticism from all sides."
* The idea that in a society as repressive as Saudi Arabia’s, the notion of a "private" donor or interlocutor is a nonsense. (AS actually alludes to this argument in the fisking and articulates it at greater length here.)
I plead guilty! Or not. Or kind of.
Whitson was under a pressing deadline; she offered specifically to address my three questions. We didn’t have time to delve deeper.
I think she did, directly (AS does not). But what’s true is that perhaps my three questions amounted, in the end, to an easy snap quiz — no difficult essay question (as in, how is it that you equate Israel’s sins with those of the entire region, especially including SA and Iran?).
As I said, I hope to speak with her again, and to raise these and other questions.
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