Human Rights Watch Head Refused to Label Iranian Calls to Destroy Israel as Incitement to Genocide

December 8, 2012 7:12 pm 2 comments

The Executive Director, Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth. Photo: Kai Mork.

At least one organization does not take Iran’s threats to wipe Israel off the map, coupled with the continued progress of its nuclear program and the terrorism of its surrogates, at face value.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Kenneth Roth, the executive director of George Soros-funded Human Rights Watch (HRC), wrote in an internal email, “Many of [Iran’s] statements are certainly reprehensible, but they are not incitement to genocide. No one has acted on them.”

Roth’s claim that Iran has not acted comes despite the fact that, according to the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, Iran’s work on the deep underground nuclear site of Fordo is nearly complete. The site now has the full nuclear capacity of 2,784 centrifuges.

Meanwhile, Iran-funded groups continue to terrorize Israel. Hamas recently prompted the war in Gaza by launching an onslaught of rockets—namely, Iranian-developed Fajr-5’s—at the Jewish state. Additionally, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently boasted that his group has the capability to hit Israeli targets “from Kiryat Shmona—and let the Israelis listen carefully—from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat,” representing Israel’s northernmost and southernmost points.

HRC’s Roth said, however, that Iran’s statements are not “incitement,” but rather “advocacy.” The distinction, according to Roth, is that with advocacy there is “time to dissuade—to rebut speech with speech—whereas in the case of incitement, the action being urged is so imminently connected to the speech in question that there is no time to dissuade.”

Roth’s position is controversial even within HRC itself, with Vice Chairman Sid Sheinberg writing in another internal email revealed by the Journal, “Sitting still while Iran claims a ‘justification to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel’… is a position unworthy of our great organization.”

2 Comments

  • You can genocide a people..you cannot genocide a State.

    If there were a hundred Jewish nations -each with its own agenda and politics..We very possibly could have one or more of those nations as an enemy…just as there are a multitude of Moslem and Christian nations.
    However in His wisdom he chose for there to be just one Jewish nation.

  • Lawrence Kulak

    Thanks, but I don’t have to read the entire article because a picture tells a thousand worlds. One look at Mr. Roth’s sick twisted countenance and you see the whole truth. This man’s look is brimming with hatred and if he is the head of the Human Rights Watch it is about as laughable as Iran being on the Human Rights committee of the UN. Frankly, I’ve seen very few uglier looking people than Mr. Roth, and if he is Jewish his ugliness is all the more understandable. One good thing about this hypocrisy is that it prevents HRW from credibly bashing Israel for defending itself against Hamas. And everybody knows what Iran is regardless of what this idiot says.

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