Tuesday, September 15, 2009

HRW Suspends Nazi Memorabilia Enthusiast   [Mark Hemingway]

After initially defending him, Human Rights Watch has finally gotten around to suspending their senior military analyst, Mark Garlasco, while they look into his strange hobby. How does the New York Times report it?:

Yaron Ezrahi, a professor of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said he did not believe that Mr. Garlasco’s interest in memorabilia could support allegations of “premeditated bias.” He said, however, that Human Rights Watch’s credibility might have been wounded because Mr. Garlasco’s hobby “has armed the right-wing fanatics” who “work day and night to demonize any individual or organization that raises questions about the military practices of Israel when they end up even with unintended civilian casualties.”

Are "right-wing fanatics" at issue here? Isn't the issue that HRW's analysis consistently appears anti-Israel? Or maybe the issue is that over the summer, a Human Rights Watch director was heavily criticized for pandering to the Saudis on Israel in an attempt to fundraise? Or maybe the issue is recent reports HRW deputy director Joe Stork put his name to a statement that read "we should comprehend the achievement of the Munich action [in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed at the 1972 Olympics]…It has provided an important boost in morale among Palestinians in the camps"?

Of course, none of this background made it into the Times' report. If HRW's credibility is damaged here it's because Garlasco's hobby is just one of many recent revelations suggesting the organization has an unjustifiable anti-Israel bias. And this is not just the opinion of critics, it's something that the organization's founder an at least one current board member have expressed concern about. But hey, it's the New York Times — all the news we see fit to print and all that.

If you're interested David Bernstein at Volokh has more on Garlasco.

09/15 10:57 AMShare