Just to keep you informed of the logic of many of our friends on the Left when it comes to Nazi imagery: Plastering every protest for eight years with Bushitler imagery: Fine. A much lower concentration of Nazi imagery used by town hall protesters to attack Obama (mostly misattributed LaRouche signage): Appalling, bordering on incitement. Human Rights Watch's resident Nazi-obsessive, Marc Garlasco, sitting in judgment of Israel? Hey, let's give that guy some space to make his case on Huffington Post!
I've never hidden my hobby, because there's nothing shameful in it, however weird it might seem to those who aren't fascinated by military history. Precisely because it's so obvious that the Nazis were evil, I never realized that other people, including friends and colleagues, might wonder why I care about these things... I deeply regret causing pain and offense with a handful of juvenile and tasteless postings I made on two websites that study Second World War artifacts (including American, British, German, Japanese and Russian items). Other comments there might seem strange and even distasteful, but they reflect the enthusiasm of the collector, such as gloating about getting my hands on an American pilot's uniform.
Some other things that might have caused offense were Garlasco's gushing over an SS jacket-"That is so cool! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!"- and a picture of a beer-swilling Garlasco blithely wearing a Nazi sweatshirt at a barbecue. So, today HRW-putative arbiter of human-rights conduct the world over-is investigating the man who investigates human-rights violations for his enthusiasm for the most infamous human-rights violators of all time. It will come as a surprise to many that Human Rights Watch doesn't do its "are you a Nazi?" screening before investigators start publishing denunciations of Israel's conduct. The New York Times finds the revelations, more than anything, to be a fascinating peek into political psychologies of both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Because that's what's important:
It was a Rorschach moment in the conflict between Israel and its critics. The revelations were, depending on who is talking, either incontrovertible proof of bias or an irrelevant smear.
It is like a Rorschach test- if a Rorschach test walked into your neighborhood cook-out sporting an SS t-shirt. As odd as it may seem to the New York Times, most would say that doesn't allow for a lot of interpretation. Human Rights Watch, despite conducting an investigation, is sure that the allegations are just a "distraction from the real issue, which is the Israeli government's behavior." The New York Times quotes a professor of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem saying:
He said, however, that Human Rights Watch's credibility might have been wounded because Mr. Garlasco's hobby "has armed the right-wing fanatics" who "work day and night to demonize any individual or organization that raises questions about the military practices of Israel when they end up even with unintended civilian casualties."
Indeed, Garlasco has become just the latest in a string of good, responsible liberals (Van Jones, ACORN employees in three cities) to be unfairly "smeared" by "right-wing fanatics" who insist on pointing out the words they wrote and said in public and on tape. Hats off to Mere Rhetoric, the blog that first Googled where Human Rights Watch did not. More on the suspension and the NYT's coverage from David Bernstein, who notes HRW's recent Saudi fund raising controversy was not covered in the "paper of record" or mentioned in this story.