Blog PostsHumbug and Hogwash: Human Rights Watch Expels “racist and enemy of human rights” Richard Falk
By Jim Kavanagh at Dec 29, 2012 |
|
I just learned that my former colleague and longtime friend, Richard Falk, has been pushed out of Human Rights Watch (HRW). Here's how it went down, as I understand it: Kenneth Roth of HRW received a letter from Hillel Neuer, the Executive Director of an organization called UN Watch, dated December 17 th, attacking Richard as a "racist and enemy of human rights," and, of course, an anti-Semite1 (since -- surprise! -- UN Watch is an offshoot of the neocon American Jewish Committee and part of the uber-Zionist watchdog network). Roth and HRW then turned to Richard, and, without telling him about this letter, asked him to resign because his UN position as Special Rapporteur2 conflicts with an HRW policy that members (of its "regional support committees"?) should not have any official position with an intergovernmental agency like the UN. Apparently, HRW had forgotten about this policy during the four years since 2008, when Richard was appointed, but just happened to remember it within 24 hours of receiving the UN Watch letter. Good and trusting person that he is, Richard agreed to comply with this newly-unearthed policy. Only when a commenter on his blog3 asked him about it, did Richard realize that there was "more to the issue" than what he had been told:
Ms. Açelya Dano?lu
December 18, 2012 at 3:34 am #
Dear Professor Dr. Falk,
I heard that the Human Rights Watch removed you from their board of directors! Is it true? Your name is no longer listed on the website: http://www.hrw.org/cities/santa_barbara/committee
Did you resign because of the pressures from the UN Watch NGO which accused you of "antisemitism"? Did the board remove you? I do not understand.
In peace,Açelya
REPLY
Richard Falk
December 18, 2012 at 7:30 am #
I was asked to resign, but supposedly because of my connection with the UN, which is contrary to HRW policy. Perhaps, there is more to the issue than what I have been told.
Look at the time stamps here. Remember that the UN Watch letter is dated December 17. That's some fast customer service!
Having learned that there was "more to the issue" than he had been led to believe, Richard, as I understand it, then went back Roth, et. al., for clarification. Was HRW asking him to resign because of the newly discovered a policy conflict, or because they were accepting and endorsing the UN Watch complaint? If not the latter, then would HRW make a statement supportive of him, and give him some assurance that he would be welcomed back once his mandate at the U.N. expired? Of course, no such statement of support or respect was forthcoming from HRW. UN Watch has no doubt about what happened, and why: "'You're Fired': Richard Falk Expelled from Human Rights Watch."
And neither should we. Everybody knows what HRW was responding to. Ardent Zionists, who are increasingly isolated in the world, are desperate to shut up and shut off anyone -- especially anyone in the US, especially an impeccably articulate American Jewish intellectual -- who dares provide a voice for the rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people. Richard Falik's is precisely the kind of calm, reasonable voice of critique that is most threatening to the Israeli colonial (and the American imperial) project. HRW's act is a capitulation to UN Watch and all that it stands for. The weasly vision of Roth, et. al., rooting around in the HRW by-laws for something to tell Richard that would make it seem as if they were doing something other than capitulating to UN Watch should be called what it is: a flimsy, pathetic excuse. Let them at least have the courage to own what they've actually done, and say: "Yes, Richard, despite how well we know you and the work you've done with us, and throughout the world, for decades, we take seriously the charge that you are a "racist and enemy of human rights,' and, for that reason, we are asking you to leave.." Let HRW, and Richard Falk, be judged on that.
There is no question who will be found wanting. That anyone would pay any heed to people who would characterize Richard Falk in this way is ludicrous, and -- to those who are less inclined than Richard to a sense of calm and patience -- infuriating. It's especially so for HRW, an organization which claims to be independent and progressive. Anyone who knows Richard -- and there are just too many whom he has taught and touched for this to go down any other way -- knows that it is he who should be proud, and HRW which should be ashamed. It is their credibility, which voices like Richard Falk's gave them, that has been undermined. It's their loss, not his.
We have all watched HRW's struggle to be fair. On balance, I think they've done good work and I've been a supporter. Given their donor base and their ties to the US elite, they are under enormous pressure. Nonetheless, given what is now the ever-more-blatant willingness of the US and Israel to do anything they want with impunity, American-based human-rights organizations like HRW are going to find it increasingly difficult to maintain their credibility unless they are willing to clearly and unequivocally denounce the outrageously illegal activities of the countries their donors are prone to identify with. They know that, until and unless they call for American and Israeli politicians in the dock at the ICC, their denunciations of African and Third World dictators will ring increasingly hollow. If they cannot stand up for a man who's been one of the outstanding voices of peace and human rights of our age, in the face of ludicrous charges from reactionary neocons who spend their lives promoting war, then there is little chance they will do anything other than avoid the hard judgments that are likely to be necessary in the face of the future actions by the world's worst aggressors.
I will certainly have nothing more to do with HRW unless they make some statement abjuring the UN Watch complaint, and assuring Richard Falk that he will be welcomed back once his UN appointment is over. I urge everyone to make their feelings known to HRW.
Notes
1Neuer condemns Richard for "anti-Semitic" acts and remarks about eight times in the letter, which you can find here: http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2012/12/17/human-rights-watch-should-remove-antisemitic-u-n-official-richard-falk-from-its-board/. The letter makes a mistake, that's repeated elsewhere, identifying Falk as a member of the HRW "Board." He was, in fact, a member of the Santa Barbara City Committee, a part of what HRW calls its "global network of regional support committees."
It is a fool's errand to try to respond to any of the specifics of the letter. Richard is a target because he has been a fair and persuasive advocate of justice for Palestine and the Palestinian people. Period. The rest is hogwash. And everybody knows it.
2His official title is "Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967."
3The discussion of the HRW flap is in the comment section of this post on Falk's blog: http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/responding-to-the-unspeakable-killings-at-newtown-connecticut/ . You'll also see what I mean about Richard's calm and patient voice in response to the incessant Zionist trolling that's in play.
Don't forget to pressure Democracy Now
By Emersberger, Joe at Dec 31, 2012 18:38 PM
DN! has often had HRW officials on their show and has, without any exception that I am aware of, given them a free ride.
Reply this comment
Thanks, Guys
By Kavanagh, Jim at Dec 31, 2012 00:33 AM
Happy New Year!
Reply this comment
Email to HRW
By Emersberger, Joe at Dec 30, 2012 18:42 PM
Joe
***
Dear HRW
I have learned that you asked Richard Falk to resign from your "Santa Barbara Committee". [1]
This request for Falk's resignation came immediately after HRW received a letter from the pro-Israel pressure group UN Watch.
According to Falk, you did not tell him of the letter from UN Watch, but asked for his resignation based on his job with the UN.
Presumably, the polices you cited are meant to safeguard HRW's independence from governments.
Please explain why you have therefore not asked Lloyd Axworthy to resign as chair of the HRW Americas Advisory Committee. [3]
Axworthy was, for years, a very high level member of the Canadian government and a leading proponent of the imperialist "responsibility to protect " doctrine. Perhaps, as I strongly suspect, your conflict of interest polices allow a revolving door for former high powered government and corporate officials. Need I explain why such a loophole makes a mockery of HRW's policies?
Why would Richard Falk, but not Lloyd Axworthy, diminish HRW's independence from governments?
HRW could give its conflict of interest polices real teeth, and thereby achieve real independence from government (and corporate) elites. I am certain HRW is not willing to pay the costs such policies would impose. Instead, it appears HRW will selectively enforce weak polices in response to whatever pressure group is most powerful.
Joe Emersberger
[1] Santa Barabar Committee members,
http://www.hrw.org/cities/santa_barbara/committee
For more details in the resignation see
http://www.zcommunications.org/humbug-and-hogwash-human-rights-watch-expels-racist-and-enemy-of-human-rights-richard-falk-by-jim-kavanagh
[3] Lloyd Axworthy
http://www.hrw.org/node/105587
Reply this comment
A Media Lens reader points out
By Emersberger, Joe at Dec 30, 2012 22:16 PM
Not forgetting Tom Malinowski.
Posted by Peter on December 30, 2012, 9:26 pm, in reply to ""
He is also a former 'special assistant to President Bill Clinton and senior director for foreign policy speechwriting at the National Security Council', and a former 'speechwriter for Secretaries of State Christopher and Albright and a member of the State Department's policy planning staff'. Yes, that Madeline Albright.
A fairly senior cog in the apparatus of the Clinton administration/Democrat party, then.
Which is why I wasn't too surprised to see him openly defending the bombing of Libya in March 2011, and complaining that Obama wasn't getting enough credit for having carried it out (in marked contrast to Bill Clinton's 'achievement in mobilizing . . . intervention' in the Balkans and Kosovo in the 90s, and the positive humanitarian 'difference Clinton and NATO had made', which was 'widely recognised', according to Malinowski).
One need not go over the profoundly inhumane outcomes of these 'interventions' to recognise an obvious conflict of interest in Malinowski's own appraisal of them.
As for Roth himself, in referring to the violence of Official Enemies, he regularly uses the kind of language - e.g. 'mass murder' and 'Syria's killing machine' - that I have never seen him use in regards to U.S. military violence.
Indeed, it's just unthinkable that he would ever describe Obama's drone program as 'his mass murder', and the U.S. military as 'a killing machine', even though both descriptions would be perfectly reasonable.
Reply this comment