If it was only one case, it would be possible to claim it was a coincidence. Even two cases are not proof. But the more that Human Rights Watch (HRW) – the most important international human rights organization – is exposed, the more it becomes clear that something there really stinks. No, this is not a gentle phrase; it is certainly not diplomatic. But it is doubtful if there is a word that better describes the can of worms being exposed there. Sarah Leah Whitson, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division, the division responsible for the astonishing reports against Israel, served on the advisory committee of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee before joining HRW and supports boycotting Israel. Her deputy is Joe Stork, who was also revealed in this newspaper as an anti-Zionist radical who opposed any recognition of Israel and as a member of a team that issued a statement supporting, or at least understanding, the massacre of athletes in Munich.

NGO Monitor, led by Prof. Gerald Steinberg, is currently releasing a detailed report on HRW that also exposes the systematic misleading, and also the deception, as well as additional members of the organization, such as Lucy Mair, Reed Brody, Darryl Li and Nadia Barhoum, the common denominator of which is radical anti-Israel activity. They are supposed to be “objective judges.” It is becoming clear that their credibility is equal to that of Al-Qaida’s reports on the Zionist movement. The major problem is their reports receive serious coverage in the respectable media in Israel and throughout the world.

Now joining the party is Mark Garlasco, HRW’s senior military analyst, who was previously in the vanguard of venomous reports against Israel.

This is the man, for example, who determined that an Israeli shell caused the deaths of an entire Palestinian family in Beit Lahiya on the Gaza coast in June 2006, and other various accusations related to the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead. Space is too short to list Garlasco’s quantity of errors. But he is against Israel so it’s OK.

It is still not clear if Garlasco is himself a Nazi. Claims to this effect deserve detailed scrutiny but it seems that one may suffice with what there is. He collects Nazi memorabilia. This is not innocent collecting. In many cases, collectors belong to a grouping with a clear ideology; sane people are not among them.

Garlasco led the American army’s targeted elimination unit in Iraq. He was also among those responsible for pursuit of Saddam Hussein. Then how did the targeted elimination man become a senior HRW official? How is it that the militarist from the Right is stuffed into the lairs of the Left? Could it be that the Nazi memorabilia fancier also fancies a movement whose ideology is the closest thing to the Nazi movement?

The answer lays in what usually joins the extreme Left and the extreme Right in the world at large: Hatred of Israel. What is even clearer is that HTW is being exposed as a dangerous organization that needs a serious shake-up. Human rights around the world deserve much more that terrorism admirers like Stork or Nazi memorabilia collectors like Garlasco.

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