The Garlasco-Wehrmacht thing gets creepy
I've been holding back on the Nazi memorabilia revelations sweeping the right blogosphere about Marc Gerlasco, the military analyst at Human Rights Watch, and an author of a report accusing Israel of excessive use of white phosphorous in Gaza.
Unsettling, yes, not my taste, G-d, yes, but not necessarily indicative. Gerlasco is a military historian, and his grandfather served in the Wehrmacht.
The Guardian quotes him as saying in his introduction to a massive photo-book in which he compiles his collection (he ain't exactly been hiding this) as saying:
The war was horrible and cruel, Germany lost and for that we should be thankful.
But now, Noah Pollak at Commentary* has uncovered a comment Gerlasco left on a fellow collector's page on a memorabilia website in 2004 (when Garlasco was at the Pentagon, serving as a chief of targeting during the Iraq War). It's about an SS uniform. (The pictures have either been removed, or are visible, perhaps, only to the site's subscribers.)
That is so cool! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!
Marc
Here's what the displayer replies:
Great feedback mein Freund!
Thank you!
Gott mit uns!
R. Mooyman
Let me put this succinctly: Ewwwww.
HRW says this is an attempt to deflect attention from its critical reports of Israel, and claims that Garlasco also collects American World War II memorabilia. The eagerness with which Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the lead man on bashing human rights groups, leapt into the fray suggests there is something to this.
But really: Thrilled-to-be-chilled exchanges with folks who quote the Wehrmacht's belt-buckle inscription back atcha?
As Omri Ceren, the Mere Rhetoric blogger who uncovered Gerlasco's hobby through terrific reporting, put it:
He should never have been tasked with producing reports about the Middle East if for no other reason than there's something moving him other than level-headed analysis. It's not straightforward and its not vulgar, but it's obviously doing work.
*UPDATE: I've been told NGO Monitor was first to track Garlasco's comment.
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Garlasco is a major symptom of a powerful organization that has gone wrong, and where the cover-ups amplify the failures (remember the Saudi fund-raiser?). For a detailed analysis, see the “hot on the net” (as distinct from “ot-off-the press) insiders draft of the 100-page NGO Monitor report:
“Experts or Ideologues: Systematic Analysis of Human Rights Watch’s Focus on Israel—2001-2009”
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/experts_or_ideologues_systematic_analysis_of_human_rights_watch
NGO Monitor’s detailed report examines HRW’s activities related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and particularly on Israel—including analysis of key HRW staff members, five case studies of HRW campaigns, and quantitative analysis comparing HRW publications in the Middle East, covering the period from 2002 to 2009.
A Nazi-memorabilia hobby sure is a strange one for a professional human-rights activist to have. Are there any senior staffers at PETA who moonlight as collectors of fur coats and leg-hold traps? Garlasco must know how odd this looks because he maintains aphotography website that contains pictures of many diverse things—but no tip-off that one of his favorite photography subjects is . . . Nazi medals.
http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com/2009/09/latest-human-rights-watch-bombshell.html#links
I guess it depends on the report. The Red Cross was unable to find evidence of illegal use of White Phosphorus, for example.
Israeli Foreign Ministry Smears Human Rights Watch Analyst
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/09/14/israeli-foreign-ministry-smears-human-rights-watch-analyst/
“The victim of this smear has written an explanation of his behavior that should be read by anyone who wishes to be fair”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-garlasco/human-rights-watch-invest_b_284075.html
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David
09/10/09 07:15 PM
Mr. Gerlasco himself is certainly creepy, but two questions about Human Rights Watch’s report on Gaza must be answered:
1. was Gerlasco the only author?—NO
2. are the report results confirmed by other sources?—YES
The Gerlasco affair is otherwise just an interesting sideshow.