(JEWISH GROUP) Human Rights Watch Tweet Exposes Decades-Old Anti Israel Bias

[Behind the Aegis]

THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP!! RESPECT!

A few weeks ago, Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), tweeted about Israel. “Many rights activists condemn Israeli abuse & anti-Semitism,” wrote Roth. “Some white supremacists embrace Israel & anti-Semitism.” The tweet then included a link to an article boasting an image of Israeli and Confederate flags on the same flagpole. The article, “Birds of a Feather” by Nada Elia, equates Zionism to white supremacy, referencing Richard Spencer’s claim that both movements rely upon the “exclusion” of others.

It’s a weak argument at best. Far from a white supremacist haven, Israel’s population is 25 percent non-Jewish, including 20 percent Arab non-Jews who have equal rights to the Jewish majority. Citizens of all races live in Israel, which flies in individuals from other countries and continents with the explicit intent of absorbing them into Israeli society. The country has offered, or accepted, peace and sharing of the land with the local Arabs multiple times, before and after 1948 - all offers rejected, some with violence - and has permitted over 130,000 Palestinians to officially move into Israel from the territories under family reunification rules between 1967 and 2004. Arab non-Jews sit in non-Arab as well as Arab parties in the Knesset; they serve as justices, IDF officers, and ambassadors.

In other words, Israel is far removed from white supremacy and the movement’s bigoted exclusions. The article’s other points, claiming “similarities between fascism and Zionism” and that “Israel [is a] model for ethnic exclusion,” cleverly and maliciously allude to 1930s Germany in order to besmirch the Jewish-majority state and its supporters. Roth, a trained attorney and son to a German Jew who fled Germany in 1938, knows this. His tweeting of the article is irresponsible at best and egregious at worst. Nevertheless, aside from a mild Twitter rebuke by the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt, the tweet went unchallenged.


But those of us who have followed Roth and Human Rights Watch throughout these past years are not surprised. His animus towards Israel and its supporters is expressed regularly and assertively. Indeed, this tweet is not an anomaly. It is rather of a piece with Roth’s leadership of HRW. For the past two decades, Roth has used his organization to support Israel’s opponents. Consider his defense of Hamas’s tunnels:

Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/382213/human-rights-watch-tweet-exposes-decades-old-anti-israel-bias/