The pollution of argument: Zionists and HRW

Posted on 15th September, 2009 by

Judge Goldstone and the pollution of argument | Comment is free | The Guardian

Antony Lerman in today’s Guardian on the ongoing smear campaign against human rights activists who criticise the state of Israel, particularly in regard to the Israeli army campaign against Gaza last winter. Among the people smeared has been Marc Garlasco, the military analyst at Human Rights Watch, who has a hobby of collecting military memorabilia from both sides in WW2, and most recently the South African judge Richard Goldstone, who is heading a UN Human Rights Council inquiry into the bombing of Gaza; Israel accuses him of anti-Israel bias even though he is Jewish and refused to accept his role unless its mandate was extended to include investigation of Palestinian groups as well as Israel.

(Garlasco has been suspended from his post pending an investigation, but HRW say he has never expressed pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic sentiments.)

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  • s.ali

    Thats ridiculous. If you go on the Israel Forum, you1l see that they have a tendancy to call any jew who doesn@t agee with them a self hating jew or and any non jew anti-semethic.

  • http://www.desertsharksblog.com Desert Shark

    I agree with s.ali, they’ve been using those excuses for decades to get at both sides of the argument to guilt trip people into shutting up or looking the other way. I’ve noticed over the last few years that a lot more people aren’t falling for those lines and will continue to say something against Israel when they have legitimate reason to do so. It won’t be long before nobody will fall for it and hold Israel to the same standard as every other nation.

  • Thersites

    ” refused to accept his role unless its mandate was extended to include investigation of Palestinian groups as well as Israel.” That seems reasonable enough. According to some reports Garlasco doesn’t have “a hobby of collecting military memorabilia from both [actually all] sides” but a hobby of collecting and wearing nazi memorabilia, which is- at best- a curious way to behave.