Honest Reporting - Nazi Fetishist Suspended by HRW

Nazi Fetishist Suspended by HRW

Human Rights Watch's weapons "expert" suspended following outcry over bizarre "hobby".

Last week we reported on the outing of Human Rights Watch's Marc Garlasco as a collector of Nazi memorabilia. To recall, Garlasco has appeared regularly in the media, touted as a military "expert". Garlasco played a prominent role in promoting the 2006 Gaza Beach Libel, which wrongly blamed Israel for a "massacre" of Palestinians. (See HonestReporting's interactive Big Lies presentation for more on this story.)

Initially, HRW used every means available to defend Garlasco, including, as revealed by Harry's Place blog, resorting to creating a fake "activist" with a Middle Eastern sounding name to post comments defending Garlasco on various blog sites.

Mark Gardner of the CST blog addresses HRW's response, which involved attacking Jewish and pro-Israel organizations rather than the very legitimate concerns arising from Garlasco's collecting of Nazi memorabilia.

Garlasco himself wrote a piece for The Huffington Post defending his bizarre "hobby". Even associates of HRW, however, such as Helena Cobban, who sits on HRW's Middle East advisory board have been suitably disturbed.

HRW has finally succumbed to pressure by suspending Garlasco (pictured here wearing a Nazi-themed sweatshirt) with pay "pending an investigation," according to HRW's associate director Caroll Bogert. "We have questions about whether we have learned everything we need to know," she said.

The New York Times, however, adds its own bias in its report:

The suspension comes at a time of heightened tension between, on one side, the new Israeli government and its allies on the right, and the other side, human rights organizations that have been critical of Israel. In recent months, the government has pledged an aggressive approach toward the groups to discredit what they argue is bias and error.

As in the case of the Gaza Beach libel, many of HRW's reports that Garlasco wrote or contributed to have been found to be academically unsound and methodologically faulty, as documented by NGO Monitor. Concern over this issue should not be dependent on one's political views. Yet the New York Times continues to muddy the waters with the implication that genuine concerns over Garlasco's professionalism as well as his extra-cirricular activities are driven solely by a right-wing agenda.

The NY Times continues by interviewing not those organizations that have expressed these concerns but a left-wing academic who states:

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."

The NY Times is a prime example of a media outlet that has supported and followed HRW's lead without question. Could this attempt to smear those organizations that have questioned HRW and Garlasco be the NY Times's way of deflecting the real question for the newspaper - its reliance and support for potentially discredited anti-Israel sources?

Honest Reporting - Nazi Fetishist Suspended by HRW