New York, June 16 – To ensure the proper response to the kidnapping by Palestinians of three Israeli teenagers last week, Human Rights Watch has hired a team of crickets, which will chirp at regular intervals to highlight the lack of condemnation emanating from the organization.
HRW is among the quickest to denounce alleged Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, often parroting Palestinian activists’ accusations without thorough investigation. To avoid the impression that the organization’s one-sidedness stems from incompetence or negligence, HRW specifically engaged a troupe of the musical insects to stress that it had a consistent approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that the anti-Israel bias is not haphazard.
“It would be unprofessional of us to waffle on where we stand vis-à-vis Israel and Palestine,” said the organization’s executive director Kenneth Roth. “We made a strategic decision long ago that when it comes to those two entities, we must always consider a given case through the same lens: how can it be interpreted to depict Israel as immoral and unworthy of continued existence?” The crickets, he said, had experience filling the silence on other issues, notably the persecution of Christians in Palestinian areas, of homosexuals throughout the Muslim Middle East, and of antisemitism in Europe.
“Chirp,” said the crickets.
A reporter asked whether Human Rights Watch would comment on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction of the PLO, which encouraged its constituents via its Facebook page to disrupt IDF actions to find and free the hostages.
“Chirp,” said the crickets.
Another correspondent inquired as to the organization’s treatment of rising anti-Jewish rhetoric in Western Europe, which has led to a series of violent acts against Jews in France and Belgium.
“Chirp,” said the crickets.
Roth also announced that the organization was also looking into the possibility of launching a Blood Libel division.
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