He ducks, he dives, he evades and then he ends on a note of delusional pomposity. Yes, it’s Marc Garlasco, who concedes that he wrote a “handful” (actually, it was more than 7,000) of “juvenile” posts on a couple of online militaria forums, but wants us to remember that “because of the intense suffering during the Second World War and the genocidal campaign against the Jewish people, I spend my days doing what I can to ensure that such horrors are never allowed to happen again.”
Right. I guess that explains the sweatshirt.
Helena Cobban - a member of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch and a trenchant critic of Israel for many years - isn’t impressed (and check out her earlier posts.) However, given that Garlasco could not be writing this kind of trash without HRW’s prior approval, it seems unlikely that Cobban’s concerns will register in the office of the organization’s boss, Ken Roth.
I don’t know about your conclusion, Ben. I think Roth gets very worried about losing donors and this won’t be the first time that HRW’s credibility with Jewish donors has gone into the dumper.
Not sure that the HRW is really worried about offending Jews?
After all, they made a play to pick up money from the Saudis before.
Had the HRW suspended Garlasco (or put him on leave) whilst they investigated the nature of his “hobby” and how it might affect his work then HRW might have got out of this mess with fewer bad marks against them, but as it is their attitude to the matter is rather dismissive and condescending, which is counterproductive from their point of view.
This may be of topic, but I wonder where is HRW and even Amnesty International when it comes to fighting antisemitic rumors, in Algeria, that Jews are “harvesting Arab children’s organs?”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804571092&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
“‘Jews harvesting Algerian kids’ organs’
Haviv Rettig Gur , THE JERUSALEM POST
The anti-Semitic blogosphere and many Arab and Muslim media outlets are aflutter in recent days over accusations of an international Jewish conspiracy to kidnap Algerian children and harvest their organs.”
Surely the spreading of malicious anti Jewish gossip meant to arouse hatred against Jews is also a human rights issue.
Notice too how the articles in the Swedish paper have now taken on a life of its own. This is not unexpected and gives the lie to those who thought that the Swedish paper’s slander was not antisemitic.
Mod:
Any organization that relies on donations to exist is somewhat sensitive to offending a substantial block of potential donors. Possibly, HRW has lost so many Jewish donors and assumes the loss is permanent, so they don’t care, but with regard to panhandling those great respecters of human rights in the Arabian Gulf, I expect HRW would point out that Saudi is attempting to act as a peace broker in the I/P. I know the Saudi peace proposal is bogus as it carries “right of return” with it, but HRW would still hold this figleaf out and some potential Jewish donors DO do have oil sheiks as business partners(Canada’s Issy Sharp comes to mind).