Love of the Land: Human Rights Watch: Their Master’s Voice

Human Rights Watch: Their Master’s Voice

Benjamin Kerstein
The New Ledger
04 May '10

Having just returned from being locked for almost an hour in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Center mall while a surprisingly large robot fired three 12-gauge shotgun shells into a suspicious package, which was then disposed of by a man in a Kevlar body suit, I was not, I confess, in a mood to indulge those who make light of Israel’s security concerns. Shortly after, my feelings were compounded by reading Benjamin Birnbaum’s excellent piece in The New Republic on the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch and its treatment of Israel. It is doubtful that a better, or more important, piece of classic muckraking journalism will be published in the coming months.

The piece takes as its impetus the recent controversy between the organization’s staffers and some of its board members, in particular, its founder Robert Bernstein, who recently published a New York Times op-ed denouncing the organization’s attitude toward Israel. Its real value, however, is its exposure of the personalities behind the organization; the faces behind the impersonal reports and press releases that constitute the public face of HRW.

Perhaps the most fascinating and disturbing of these is Sarah Leah Whitson, who runs the section charged with assessing Israel’s human rights record, along with that of other countries in the Middle East and North Africa. As far as one can tell, Whitson does not seem to posses any expert credentials in the field of human rights or the laws of war; her bio at the HRW website states only that she received degrees at Berkeley and Harvard Law School, with no indication of her particular field of study. What is certain is that she is a former corporate lawyer and professional activist who has apparently been a lifelong partisan of the Arab cause. Shockingly, and despite her sensitive position, which one imagines would require at least the pretense of impartiality, Whitson seems to make no secret of her sympathies. “As I stepped into her office,” Birnbaum writes, “I noticed that a poster for Paradise Now, a movie that attempts to humanize Palestinian suicide bombers, hangs on her door and that two photos of bereaved Gazans hang on her wall.” Birnbaum them questions her about specific accusations of bias on the part of HRW.

“For people who apply for jobs to be the researcher in Israel-Palestine, it’s probably going to be someone who’s done work on Israel-Palestine with a human rights background,” she explained. “And guess what? People who do work with a human rights background on Israel-Palestine tend to find that there are a lot of Israeli abuses. And they tend to become human rights activists on the issue.”

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Human Rights Watch: Their Master’s Voice

Love of the Land: Signs of Change at Human Rights Watch

Signs of Change at Human Rights Watch

Frayda Leibtag
OpEdNews.com
18 February '10

Changes at Human Rights Watch regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict are a good beginning, but the organization must do more to restore its reputation as a moral leader.

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Human Rights Watch (HRW) made many media headlines this year -- but not for its human rights work. Revelations regarding an HRW fundraising trip in Saudi Arabia and HRW senior military analyst Marc Garlasco's obsessive collection of Nazi memorabilia caused many to question the moral standing of HRW. Although HRW officials publicly rebuff any accusations of wrongdoing, recent events at HRW suggest that the organization is heeding calls for reform.


During HRW's 2010 World Report press conference in Tel Aviv, Program Director Iain Levine focused on Israel's potential as a moral advocate on the issue of banning "blood diamonds" mined under abusive conditions in Zimbabwe. He also noted Israel's "positive movement" toward investigating Gaza war operations, especially as compared to Hamas' lack of initiative. While Levine repeated allegations about the "increasingly disastrous blockade of Gaza" and IDF misuse of white phosphorous, he also mentioned Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, brutal internal repression by Hamas under the cover of war, and the endemic lack of accountability for torture in the Palestinian Authority.

Soon after the press conference, HRW announced that James F. Hoge Jr. will replace Jane Olson as the chair of HRW's board. Hoge's many landmark essays as the longtime editor of Foreign Affairs include "Tiananmen Papers," about the Chinese leadership's decision to crush the 1989 protests. Could the appointment of Hoge signify a shift in HRW's obsessive attention on the Middle East? Perhaps, under Hoge, HRW will devote more of its resources to substantively addressing severe human rights abuses in China and other countries with chronic human rights issues.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Signs of Change at Human Rights Watch

Israel Matzav: The real issue in the Garlasco case

The real issue in the Garlasco case

The real issue in the Garlasco case is not that one Human Rights Watch investigator collects Nazi memorabilia. It's that Garlasco shows that Human Rights Watch hires investigators who have questionable credentials and then assigns them to investigate where their pre-conceived notions will interfere with whatever objectivity they might otherwise have. The lesson that needs to be learned by HRW - and by all of the international NGO's - from the Garlasco incident is that hiring processes must be transparent, qualifications must be demonstrable and that the investigators should recuse themselves from - or being removed from - any investigation where their biases might get in the way.

NGO Monitor explains.

Beyond Garlasco’s activities and statements surrounding his Nazi memorabilia collection, this investigation should examine the HRW employment process, and the credibility of the numerous reports and related activities in which he played a central role. In particular, this detailed and external review should examine the veracity of reports on Israel which Garlasco co-authored and presented at press conferences, and which included repeated condemnations using terms such as "war crimes", "violation of international law", etc. These allegations promoted the campaign to isolate Israel internationally, including the formation of the Goldstone mission. [1]

For a number of years, NGO Monitor has identified numerous claims in Garlasco's reports and statements on Israel that were false, inaccurate, distorted, and biased. Since 2003, when Garlasco joined HRW, the title and role of "military expert", and the credibility given to his allegations, were justified on the basis of his seven years in the US defense establishment, in which he claims to have fulfilled numerous positions.

NGO Monitor has not found any independent sources to support Garlasco’s claim to the type of expertise and knowledge of weapons and technology that are invoked in the various reports he has co-authored at HRW. Indeed, the available biographical information on Garlasco's career prior to employment at HRW is consistent with the view that his expertise is far below the level required for the claims made in his HRW reports. This highlights the need to examine the process and decision making which led to Garlasco’s employment at HRW.

...

Analysis of HRW's credibility and moral standing should also examine the roles of clearly biased individuals in the Middle East division, such as Joe Stork and Sarah Leah Whitson – both of whom were active in anti-Israel activities. Whitson led HRW fundraising efforts in Saudi Arabia, emphasizing allegations of Israeli war crimes (including Garalasco’s false claims on white phosphorous), and attacked critics (“pro-Israel pressure groups”).

NGO Monitor’s President, Prof Gerald Steinberg said “Garlasco’s statements in various chat forums and other platforms dealing with Nazi memorabilia explain the anti-Israel bias that is reflected in his reports, as shown in NGO Monitor’s systematic analyses. Evidence of this bias and its implications must also be included in this investigation of HRW's Middle East activities and Garlasco’s role in this area.

HRW’s reliance on Garlasco’s supposed ‘expertise’ raises enormous questions over the credibility of their activities. It reflects an organization that has consistently placed ideology above professionalism and universal human rights values.”

For a group like HRW to be taken seriously by all parties, its investigators must be beyond reproach. There can be no hints that they might be biased. Otherwise, one party or the other will not accept their conclusions. Can you imagine me being an unbiased investigator of Operation Cast Lead? Of course not. If I ever worked for one of these organizations and they put me in charge of investigating Gaza, they'd blow their credibility. Of course, I could investigate Sri Lanka or Georgia if I had the basic competence to do so.

HRW is guilty of trying to pre-determined the outcome of any investigation of Israel. Fair-minded people all over the world should reject their efforts to do that.

Israel Matzav: The real issue in the Garlasco case

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

Israel Matzav: More from Helena Cobban on Marc Garlasco

More from Helena Cobban on Marc Garlasco

Helena Cobban, a member of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa advisory committee, has more to say about Nazi memorabilia collector Human Rights Watch's chief 'military analyst' (and I put that term in scare quotes because I question his credentials, as Cobban herself did earlier) Marc Garlasco. Cobban still hasn't seriously considered the possibility that Garlasco's Nazi fetish shows that he is incapable of carrying out an unbiased inquiry of Israel's actions, but she's becoming increasingly annoyed with HRW's circling the wagons.

It is complete garbage highly misleading for Garlasco to suggest that his obsessively pursuit of the "hobby" of collecting-- and lovingly displaying with almost pornographic attention to detail-- various swastika-adorned military memorabilia from the Nazi era in any way makes him a better investigator of current military events.

He claims that, "I've never hidden my hobby." But when I spoke with Iain Levine, who's the head of all HRW's programs and thus Garlasco's supervisor's supervisor, he said he had no inkling that Garlasco had such a hobby "until Tuesday morning."

Garlasco writes,

I deeply regret causing pain and offense with a handful of juvenile and tasteless postings I made on two websites that study Second World War artifacts (including American, British, German, Japanese and Russian items).

The websites in question are titled German Combat Awards and Wehrmacht-awards. From a quick scan through them they don't, actually, seem to cover many non-German items at all.

Also, one of those allegedly "juvenile" postings was presumably this one, made in 2005: "The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!” Garlasco was 34 or 35 years old at the time. He'd been working for HRW for two years by then. It was only four years ago.

Hard to make a claim of "youthful indiscretion", based on such facts. ... I would like to have the opportunity to discuss these issues with Garlasco, in person. I asked Levine if I could have access to him. Hasn't happened yet.

I'd like to make a few last points here:

1. I do not claim to know what Garlasco's attitude is toward the Nazi-era military memorabilia that he so obsessively collects. He clearly seems to have a collector's zeal, or obsession, and to spend a lot of time pursuing this hobby. 7,734 posts on Wehrmacht Awards since March 2004, and compiling a 450-page guide to one small sub-branch of Nazi-era badges are not the signs of a casual collector. The comment shown above, made on Wehrmacht Awards in 2005, indicates some open-ness, at the very least, to the idea that one could entertain and express fondness for specifically SS memorabilia.

Also, using 'Flak88' seems like a signal of possible pro-Hitler proclivities to others in that part of the collecting world, who would be quite aware that '88' is their insiders' code for Heil Hitler.

To my mind, this does not prove that Garlasco's a "Nazi sympathizer", or an anti-Semite. But his participation on these sites-- including interactions there with people who clearly do seem to be Nazi sympathizers-- is extremely disturbing in itself.

Marc Garlasco, an anti-Semite? I would say that fair-minded people might consider that conclusion. Will Helena Cobban? Will Human Rights Watch consider the possibility that Garlasco, together with the previous incidents involving Whitson and Stork so taints their work in this region that they ought to bow out or at least start over again with new personnel who don't come to the job with preconceived notions of right and wrong?

Israel Matzav: More from Helena Cobban on Marc Garlasco

Love of the Land: HRW's Iron Cross Up

HRW's Iron Cross Up

Media Backspin/Honest Reporting
13 September 09

Human Rights Watch's Garlasco situation is taking a turn towards the absurd. Now,Harry's Place exposes what appears to be HRW sock puppetry on blogs critical of their colleague:

I would like to know if staffers at Human Rights Watch created a fake ‘activist’ with a Middle Eastern sounding name to forward its statements, to support arguments made by HRW officials, and to smear critics. I can’t tell you any more than this: but I think that someone at Human Rights Watch ought to investigate.

Were Human Rights Watch to be found to have engaged in such immoral and unethical behaviour, it would call into question their suitability as a monitor of global human rights abuses. The type of sockpuppetry that I suspect may have taken place at Human Rights Watch amounts to the propagation of a fiction.

Not everyone associated with HRW is amused with Garlasco's Nazi memorabilia collection, which Garlasco defends. Collecting World War 2 medals and uniforms isn't illegal, but Helena Cobban is notanbly rankled. The journalist, who is associated with HRW, writes:

But to have him doing work on human rights in the daytime, while carrying on with this intensively pursued hobby in the evening? That is bizarre, and disturbing.

Even more so when you realize that a lot of the work he has done has involved dealing with Israeli officials and citizens, and analyzing the IDF's operations . . . .

Now, as y'all no doubt know, I'm on the Middle East advisory committee of Human Rights Watch. And I've been very disturbed indeed by the attacks the young, aggressively rightwing Israeli organization NGO Monitor has launched against the work HRW has done on the IDF's combat behavior.

But right now, I'm looking at this page on NGO Monitor's website, and agreeing with much of what they have there on this topic.

At the CST blog, Mark Gardner best articulates why Garlasco's hobby remains problematic for HRW:

But, if Garlasco wants to immunise his daughter (and all our children) from Nazism, then fetishising Nazi medals for public consumption is a stupid way of going about it. You do not fight Nazism by helping to promote the marketplace for Nazi medals and trinkets and accoutrements. You do not fight Nazism by presenting its soldiers as brave, handsome, fresh faced youths – and you most certainly do not fight Nazism by normalising the wearing of Nazi-themed sweatshirts as Marc Garlasco does in this picture:

Does he wear this sweatshirt in front of his daughters? Does he wish more people would walk about wearing such items? Does he – or his HRW colleagues – think that it is appropriate for a man with his role to do so? Does he wear it when he meets Israeli Army officials?

Worst of all, however, is not Garlasco’s behaviour in all of this. Worst of all, is the reaction of Human Rights Watch. None of the concerns that I have outlined above seem to matter to HRW. Their defence is all embracing, and their condemnation of his critics lacks the remotest empathy with why Jews, or any other people, might express concern at Garlasco’s behaviour in view of his role as one their leading (anti) Israel experts.

Instead of engaging with the issues, HRW resort to the public equivalent of giving Jews the finger.

Read Gardner's

Love of the Land: HRW's Iron Cross Up

Israel Matzav: Human Rights Watch tries to duck

Human Rights Watch tries to duck

Human Rights Watch has issued a response to the discovery that Marc Garlasco, their chief military researcher for Israel, is a collector of Nazi memorabilia. The response tries to avoid the issue by claiming that Garlasco collects war memorabilia generally.

HRW emphatically denied that Garlasco was a Nazi sympathizer because he "collected German [as well as American] military memorabilia."

HRW said the "accusation is demonstrably false and fits into a campaign to deflect attention from Human Rights Watch's rigorous and detailed reporting on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by the Israeli government."

Garlasco, HRW said in a statement, "has never held or expressed Nazi or anti-Semitic views."

According to the statement Garlasco's grandfather was conscripted into the German army during the war and served as a radar operator on an anti-aircraft battery.

"He never joined the Nazi Party, and later became a dedicated pacifist," the statement said, adding that his Garlasco's great-uncle was an American B-17 crewman, who survived many attacks by German anti-aircraft gunners.

"Garlasco own family's experience on both sides of the Second World War has led him to collect military items related to both sides, including American 8th Air Force memorabilia and German Air Force medals and other objects [not from the Nazi Party or the SS]," the statement said.

HRW said Garlasco was the author of a monograph on the history of German Air Force and Army anti-aircraft medals and a contributor to Web sites that promote serious historical research into WWII.

"To imply that Garlasco's collection is evidence of Nazi sympathies is not only absurd but an attempt to deflect attention from his deeply felt efforts to uphold the laws of war and minimize civilian suffering in wartime," the statement read. "These falsehoods are an affront to Garlasco and thousands of other serious military historians."

Read All at :

Israel Matzav: Human Rights Watch tries to duck

Israel Matzav: HRW researcher Marc Garlasco: Nazi fetishist or ‘serious military historian’?

HRW researcher Marc Garlasco: Nazi fetishist or ‘serious military historian’?

You decide:

More here.
Israel Matzav: HRW researcher Marc Garlasco: Nazi fetishist or ‘serious military historian’?

Israel Matzav: HRW's Israel investigator a Nazi-obsessed collector?

HRW's Israel investigator a Nazi-obsessed collector?

Omri Ceren reports on the curious case of Marc Garlasco, Human Rights Watch's Israel investigator who seems to have a fettish for Nazi memorabilia.

There are two Marc Garlascos on the Internet. One is a top human rights investigator who, having joined Human Rights Watch after several years with the Pentagon, has become known for his shrill attacks on Israel. The other is a Marc Garlasco who's obsessed with the color and pageantry of Nazism, has published a detailed 430 page book on Nazi war paraphernalia, and participates in forums for Nazi souvenir collectors.

Both Marc Garlascos were born on September 4, 1970. Both have Ernst as their middle name. Both live in New York, NY. Both have a maternal grandfather who fought for the Nazis. I've put links and screenshots on all this after the jump, and you can click through for full-sized versions. It's hard to escape the conclusion that both Marc Garlascos are the same person.

Bloggers and activists concerned about Israel have been baffled and frustrated by the first Garlasco almost since he joined HRW. On his public photography site he posts gratuitous Palestinian and Lebanese death porn in between galleries of cute Western-looking kids playing soccer (no link - keeping his kids out of it). He provides a seemingly never-ending stream of interviews to all kinds of outlets, where he spins tales about ostensible Israeli atrocities. The only problem is that many of these tales - per Soccer Dad and IsraPundit and Elder of Ziyon and NGO Monitor and CAMERA and LGF - are biased and inaccurate. That doesn't stop Garlasco from putting them into the kind of HRW reports that make their way into international anti-Israel condemnations and academic anti-Israel dissertations.

Israel Matzav: HRW's Israel investigator a Nazi-obsessed collector?

Love of the Land: The Latest Human Rights Watch Bombshell

The Latest Human Rights Watch Bombshell

Noah Pollak

Contentions/Commentary

08 September 09

I’m a believer in the truth of O’Sullivan’s First Law, formulated some years ago by the former editor of National Review, John O’Sullivan:

All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing. I cite as supporting evidence the ACLU, the Ford Foundation, and the Episcopal Church. The reason is, of course, that people who staff such bodies tend to be the sort who don’t like private profit, business, making money, the current organization of society, and, by extension, the Western world.

The law holds true for human-rights organizations as well, many of which over time have become staffed and led by people far more impassioned about condemning democratic societies than repressive or despotic ones. Human Rights Watch has earned the attention it has been receiving lately because it is the leader in this trend. And nowhere in the organization is O’Sullivan’s Law more apparent than in HRW’s Middle East staffers. They are fetishists, people who have an obsession with a certain country (Israel) and with a certain cause (condemning Western militaries). How many reports has HRW issued about Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s successful three-week offensive to neutralize Hamas’s rocket war against Israeli civilians? I’ve lost count, although I have heard that HRW’s forthcoming report—perhaps the fourth or fifth on Cast Lead—will document a few instances in which Palestinian homes were vandalized by IDF soldiers. Graffiti spray-painted on a wall during a war is a pressing human-rights issue in the Middle East? Is vandalism even a human-rights issue? Only if you’re an Israel-obsessive.

So we get to Marc Garlasco, HRW’s “senior military analyst” and a frequent critic of Israel. Garlasco, as disclosed by Omri at Mere Rhetoric, has an interesting avocation: he writes about and collects Nazi paraphernalia. He has contributed almost 8,000 posts to a Nazi web forum called Wehrmacht Awards under the handle “Flak88,” with his collection of swastikas and Nazi medals all lovingly photographed and posted online. Garlasco’s Nazi hobby is actually quite ambitious: he wrote a 400-page book on Nazi military awards, and his car’s license plate is personalized—it reads “Flak88.”

A Nazi-memorabilia hobby sure is a strange one for a professional human-rights activist to have. Are there any senior staffers at PETA who moonlight as collectors of fur coats and leg-hold traps? Garlasco must know how odd this looks because he maintains aphotography website that contains pictures of many diverse things—but no tip-off that one of his favorite photography subjects is . . . Nazi medals.

The more we learn about Human Rights Watch, the more the mask slips. There is Sarah Leah Whitson, the intifada-era activist for Palestine and apologist for terrorism; Joe Stork, the radical leftist and anti-Zionist; and now Garlasco, the Nazi-memorabilia collector.

Love of the Land: The Latest Human Rights Watch Bombshell