Two months ago the Israeli government announced that it would be launching a campaign against the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the smear industry of supportive rightist NGOs and journalists swung into action with a volley of attacks on the group.
The timing of this move was no coincidence. HRW was the latest, if perhaps most prominent group, to produce a report detailing serious and disturbing human rights violations that took place during Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza (HRW also reported, with equal condemnation, on Hamas violations). At the time, I blogged here of my sadness that Israel and some of its friends had chosen the low and easy road in responding to such serious allegations, and I suggested,"surely supporting Israel cannot be about undermining efforts to advance human rights around the world," describing that as "fundamentally un-Jewish."
New information has now come to light regarding a particular hobby pursued by HRW's Senior Military Analyst Marc Garlasco. He collects Nazi-era Wehrmacht memorabilia (specifically flak badges), and has published a 450-page book on the subject. The information on Garlasco comes from part of that smear industry -- a right wing Israeli group NGO Monitor -- but it does raise, what for me at least, are real questions that need to be answered.
The Likud-America blogosphere is going Glenn Beck on this story, and some on the left have joined in, albeit more respectfully.
Let me as usual wear my bias on my sleeve -- as a Jew and one with a Holocaust family background, any person's passion for this memorabilia is more than weird, it makes me deeply uncomfortable. Looking at the cover of Garlasco's book at the Iron Cross website it is marketed on has been a quick path to appetite loss today. I am not, I repeat not, calling Marc Garlasco a Nazi-sympathizer or worse. That is an extremely serious accusation, one that would be devastating to someone innocent of that charge, and it is one that others have made.
What I am saying is that this does not sit easy with me and cannot be ignored. Yes, I know -- people collect all kinds of things, Garlasco collects World War II memorabilia from other armies, has not hidden his hobby, and this need not imply anything related to the veracity or otherwise of his analysis and reporting for HRW. And still, it doesn't pass my smell test. So I think the onus is on Mr. Garlasco and Human Rights Watch to clarify further. HRW has put out a statement explaining the background to Garlasco's hobby, his expressions of support for Germany's defeat in the war, and describing the accusations of Nazi sympathies as "absurd." That's okay so far, but in this case, not enough.
If this is to be put behind us, I think we need to hear more from Garlasco in his own words. If that is done and in a robust manner, I would expect Israel and friends to, at the very least, respond in the same way as they have greeted actual former real fascists who have recanted and set the record straight. I still feel queasy at the reception that Israel gave to then Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, in 2003, just after he declaratively turned a page on Mussolini, who he previously described as "the greatest statesman of the 20th Century." The guy was head of the succession to the neo-Fascist Alleanza Nazionale for heavens' sake -- I am not so forgiving.
Let's be clear, there is no evidence to suggest that Garlasco is anything like a Fini. Indeed, a sincere response by Garlasco passing that smell test would merit at least an apology to him and HRW from those who have jumped to making the Nazi-sympathizer accusation.
And of course that's the point that must still not be lost here. There is a concerted, determined, and even transparent effort to create distractions, to distort, and to avoid the subject when it comes to Israel's behavior regarding the Palestinian territories.
In that respect, the smear industry is being somewhat hoisted by its petard. Even in a case like this which merits investigation, the smear industry has richly earned the skepticism and distrust with which it should be treated. They do not come to this with clean hands. They keep crying wolf and even this supposed wolf, which smells bad, still needs to be proven or rebutted.
Institutionally, there is every reason to have confidence in the professionalism and seriousness of Human Rights Watch under the leadership of Ken Roth. Garlasco did not investigate exclusively on Israel, far from it. He has reported on civilian deaths in Afghanistan, torture, detainee abuse and wars conduct in Iraq, violations by Russia and Georgia, and more (in fact, when Garlasco has indulged in op-editry in his own name, not as HRW, he seems to have exclusively focused on attacking the British government on the issue of cluster munitions -- hardly an anti-Israel obsession or bias there). All those reports are no doubt vetted by HRW's program and legal departments and leadership.
Is HRW's work on Iraq, Afghanistan, and cluster bombs now discredited? Of course not, and the right governmental response, from any government, is to fully investigate serious allegations -- as the US is, for instance, now doing on torture, but the Russians and Georgians are still refusing to undertake. And that is what's still so disturbing on the Israel front -- its ongoing refusal to meaningfully address the documented accusations of IDF violations of laws of war and their impact on the civilian population in Gaza -- and thereby to avoid their repetition.
There are several organizations in addition to HRW that have documented such concerns -- the UN's investigation into attacks on its facilities, Amnesty International's report, and most recently the report of Israeli human rights NGO B'tselem, focusing on civilian casualties.
In responding to B'tselem, the IDF claimed that it had conducted its own inquiry and reached different conclusions, or to quote the IDF spokesperson, the report has been "verified by the Research Department of the IDF Intelligence Branch." We checked ourselves and we're okay ... Oh, dear!
The report of the UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission into the Gaza war, led by South African Justice Richard Goldstone, is due imminently, and my main hope there is that the smear industry can maintain a sufficient modicum of dignity to treat Justice Goldstone with the respect that he has earned as a remarkable and inspirational figure in contemporary Jewish life.
Israel and its supposed friends are indulging in a dangerous and highly self-defeating twofer. By responding and continuing to conduct itself in this way, Israel is undermining both its image and its own future security. The best answer, as it has been since the days immediately following the Gaza operation, is not to shoot the messenger but rather to render these reports unnecessary by adhering to B'tselem's call to create an independent committee of inquiry in Israel.
the most atrocious Government in the 20th Century - the NAZIs.
In the same way that Law enforcement must study criminal behavior in depth.
The fact that this trivial accusation is all the the RW can come up with to besmirch HRW smacks of desperation.
This story reminds me of when I was a kid. I grew up in a place where several of our neighbors' homes had Nazi souvenirs and artefacts in them. One even had a Nazi flag.
We were living in married officers' quarters at the British army base at Sandhurst, Surrey in the early 70s. The men who collected these relics had mostly served in the post-war army, but some had picked them up themselves on the battlefields of Europe. It never would have occurred to anyone that possession of these relics might have marked them as a Nazi sympathizer.
I know someone who has an obsessive interest in armor. He owns numerous pieces of armor dating from medeival times down to modern aramide and kevlar flak jackets. He also owns military weapons and a library of books on warfare, weapons and above all, WW2. Anyone would think he was a war-monger. And yet this same person is very anti-war, demonstrated against the war in Iraq. I have seen his reaction to war news from around the world and know that he is more pained and outraged than most by the suffering of people in faraway places. I know because he`s my twin brother.
I have been to Israel Palestine 7 times since 2005 and the best analogy I can offer is:
Israel is an out of control adolescent and America an over indulgent parent!
What is needed is an International Intervention of Tough Love:
Truth telling and cutting OFF USA Money in order to save the Jewish State and change its suicidal trajectory!
"Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you. Opposition is True Friendship."-William Blake, "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" 1796
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
IF only Israel would honor those words; what a wonderful world it could be!
Eileen Fleming, Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
People who collect 19th century U.S. military items don't necessarily subscribe to and support the genocide of native Americans, either. It's an INTEREST, that's all. Hard as it may be for holocaust survivors and their descendents to realize, but WW11 was about so much more than the holocaust. Probably 70 million people were killed in WW!!, no-one is going to forget!
That Garlasco might not be a Nazi, might not condone Nazi crimes, and might criticise others is irrelevant. His criticism of Israel is colored darkly by his obsessive and disturbing interest in Nazi artifacts. If HRW wants to maintain its credibility, it should employ people without such baggage to investigate allegations against Israel.
And if that person also collected US flags and Union memorabilia and criticised the Union ?
When someone calls out abuses from everyone when they occur they have credibility - having an interest in WW2 or the Civil war does not exclude you from that. Garlasco, HRW call people to account for all abuses, just because they criticise your friends is not a reason to attack them, but maybe time to reflect whether all that could have been done to protect innocent people was done, and if not why not.
It's not to hard a question to ask, and certainly not a reason to dig in your heels and scream victimisation - especially when your target is as thorough in tackling both sides.
As for the suggestion that Garlasco is really interested in WWII and not simply Nazi relics, it is untrue. This man has posted thousands of times over many years commenting on how he "loves" certain Nazi memorabilia and on how "cool" it is. He wrote a 450 page book on Nazi memorabilia. There is no evidence that he expresses even remotely the same level of interest in Allied artifacts.
In the past I have defended the work HRW does - particularly when talking to those who support Israel. I think its mission is very important. It is for that reason that it is important that HRW repair the damage that it has done in recent months to create the impression that it is motivated by bias.
Garlasco may do fine work. But when he demonstrates an obsessive admiration for relics of those who perpetrated a genocide against the Jews, he should not be tasked with assessing the propriety of the defensive measures employed by the one Jewish state in the world. HRW has many people on staff and there are many nations that require attention. Garlasco should be tasked in a manner that his biases, whether real or apparent, are no longer an issue.
The cultural/historical naiveté encapsulated in this "debate" is startling, if your point of view happens to be from outside the officially sanctioned, euro-centric frame of view. Similarly "obsessive interests" no doubt "darkly color" a million declarations made by the children and grandchlldren of colonists, many speaking from and for their offices in any number of organizations like HRW. In these cases, we preoccupy ourselves with their validity. Anything changed?
"That Garlasco might not be a Nazi, might not condone Nazi crimes, and might criticise others is irrelevant"
How long has it been since you stopped beating your wife?
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/experts_or_ideologues_systematic_analysis_of_human_rights_watch
You claim reports like this are mere smears. I see allegations supported by lots of footnotes, all of which check out to the extent they are available on the Internet, and some of which I've blogged about myself. So instead of name-calling ("smear industry"), how come you don't seem to be able to point out any actual inaccuracies in the criticism of HRW?
Private interest as the basis for evaluating public worth should not be limited by the accidents of discovery: if you want to tell us what you think, you ought to make available your own interests. Start with logs of all the sites you visit. Then the emails you send. Then, videos you've rented. All grist for the mill of the ad hominem attack, but why not?
If "smell test" means that you have an expectation that you not be offended when exposed to the full range of difference that human beings display, then I congratulate you on being entirely within the zeitgeist. But let me say that the zeitgeist is provincial, blinkered and lacks the basic critierion for civility, which is the ability to observe the value in what others say within the bounds of public discourse, and not judging them on the basis of what they believe, or the places that inquiry takes them.
If all I knew about Garlasco was his hobby, I would think him creepy. I certainly wouldn't hire him for any job where he's got to make moral or legal judgments; although he might have done this at the Pentagon.
At some point, HRW learns about Garlasco obsession with nazi memorabilia. His activities are illegal in some European countries. And they don't do anything about it. Thank you, HRW.
Then there are surprisingly respectful blogs that bring out Garlasco's obsession. None of the major blogs call Garlasco a Nazi or a pro-Nazi sympathizer. They just state what is obvious to anyone who is not an HRW apologist: This stinks. It stinks because even though I don't know what is in Garlasco's mind, how can anyone be comfortable that his views aren't colored by his obsession. There's nothing he can say or do that would change my mind.
Thankfully, HRW and Daniel Levy have gone on the offensive and say that people who criticize Garlasco are calling him a Nazi sympathizer and that this is part of a larger plot against HRW. Let's keep this in the news as much as possible.