After Human Rights Watch blocked a report on Israel’s denial of the Palestinian right of return, its Israel-Palestine team resigned. One team member, Omar Shakir, spoke to Jacobin about why rights NGOs fail to confront the issue.
After Human Rights Watch blocked a report concluding that Israel’s denial of the Palestinian right of return constitutes a crime against humanity, two senior staff members — Omar Shakir and Milena Ansari — resigned. Together, they made up Human Rights Watch’s Israel–Palestine team. The organization says the report has merely been “paused.” In this interview, long-time Israel–Palestine director Omar Shakir explains why he considers that claim untenable — and why the right of return continues to be contentious in international human rights work today.
You recently stepped down from your position as Human Rights Watch’s Israel–Palestine director, a role you held for over a decade, after a report on the Palestinian right of return was blocked by Human Rights Watch’s leadership. Would you say this this episode damaged the organization’s credibility?
Human Rights Watch does incredible work. I’m proud of our work on Israel–Palestine. The staff is extraordinary. But yes, this does raise serious questions about the new leadership’s fidelity to our methodology: to publish the facts and to consistently apply the law. The world needs a courageous and principled Human Rights Watch. I’m speaking out because our primary duty is to the victims of human rights abuses. I’ve spent a decade attesting to the organization’s integrity; I have a duty to acknowledge when we get it wrong.
How did the report actually come about?
For about a year, we had been working on a report examining the impact of the denial of return on Palestinian…
Auteur: Omar Shakir
