Human Rights Leader Equates Zionism with White Supremacy

Impartial guardian of human rights? The head of a prominent human rights watchdog has exposed his alliance with anti-Israel elements. 

The executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), one of the world’s leading human rights organizations, has posted a tweet linking to an article written by a Palestinian writer that equates Zionism with White Supremacy, calling them “birds of a feather.”

HRW director Kenneth Roth on Sunday posted a link to the article, written by Nada Elia, a Palestinian activist with the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement.

“White supremacy and Zionism are two of a kind, with both modelled on ethnic exclusion,” Elia wrote, referencing the recent rallies by white supremacists in the US. “Therefore, if one opposes exclusion, and the desire for a racially or religiously ‘pure’ nation, one must oppose Zionism.”

In his tweet of the article, Roth wrote: “Many rights activists condemn Israeli abuse & anti-Semitism. Some white supremacists embrace Israel & anti-Semitism.”

In her article, Elia wrote that white supremacists and Zionists were “natural allies” who “represent a desire to establish and maintain a homogeneous society that posits itself as superior, more advanced, more civilized than the ‘others’ who are, unfortunately, within its midst, a ‘demographic threat’ to be contained through border walls and stricter immigration law. American fascism, then, is holding up a mirror to Zionism.”

Blatantly Hostile Anti-Israel Organization

Responding to the outrage, the World Jewish Congress stated: “As opposed to American white supremacy, which calls for a purely white ethnic nation state, Zionism is a movement of Jewish self-determination in its historic homeland. Jews of all skin colors from around the world live in Israel and its Arab citizens enjoy equal rights. There is currently an Arab sitting on the Israeli Supreme Court and a Druze politician in the cabinet.”

“Such an equation of the two movements meets the criteria to be considered anti-Semitic, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism issued last year, which states in a clause that “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” could be considered anti-Semitic,” the WJC added.

HRW has previously been entangled with anti-Israel bias and activism. For example, it published a series of reports that were highly critical of Israel, especially after wars or periods of heightened violence by Palestinian terrorists. In one instance, it accused Israel of committing war crimes while fighting against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014. Israel harshly rejected the findings of that report.

Israeli Foreign Affairs spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon has called HRW a “blatantly hostile anti-Israeli organization whose reports have the sole purpose of harming Israel with no consideration whatsoever for the truth or reality.”

By: United with Israel Staff