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<\/a><\/p>\nOmar Shakir, the New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) director for Israel and the Palestinian territories speaks to the press in Jerusalem on Nov. 25, 2019. (Ahmad GHARABLI \/ AFP) (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Omar Shakir, the director of Human Rights Watch\u2019s Israel-Palestine team, and assistant researcher Milena Ansari tendered their resignations after they said the organization refused to publish a report concluding that Israel\u2019s denial of the \u201cright of return\u201d for Palestinian refugees amounted to a \u201ccrime against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve resigned from @hrw after 10+ yrs\u2014most as Israel\/Palestine Director\u2014after HRW\u2019s new ED pulled a finalized report on the right of return for Palestinian refugees on eve of its release & blocked for weeks its publication in a principled way,\u201d Shakir tweeted earlier in the week.<\/p>\n
He linked to an article about the resignations in Jewish Currents. Shakir, who formerly worked as a legal fellow for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has long engaged in pro-Palestinian legal advocacy, is on Jewish Currents\u2019 advisory board.<\/p>\n
In a resignation letter obtained by Jewish Currents, Shakir wrote, \u201cI have lost my faith in the integrity of how we do our work and our commitment to principled reporting on the facts and application of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Multiple former Human Rights Watch staffers panned Shakir and his critique, including Ken Roth, the group\u2019s former executive director and himself a vociferous critic of Israel. Roth\u2019s replacement, Philippe Bolopion, was named in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new @HRW director was right to suspend a report using a novel & unsupported legal theory to contend that denying the right to return to a locale is a crime against humanity,\u201d tweeted Roth, whose father was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. \u201cIt had been rushed through the review process during a leadership transition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Danielle Haas, who served as the senior editor at Human Rights Watch from 2009 to 2023, criticized Shakir sharply in a post on X.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Nourish a wolf,\u2019 Aesop said, \u2018and it will eat you.\u2019 For years, @hrw tolerated, placated, excused, and incubated @OmarSShakir as BDSer-turned-Israel\/Palestine director. Now it\u2019s their turn to get the ideological mob treatment,\u201d wrote Haas. \u201cHis old tricks used v. others, now turned v. them: petitions, division, politics. Appeasement always bites you in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shakir served as the lead researcher and author of a 2021 Human Rights Watch report that argued that Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians had crossed the threshold into apartheid. The report was widely criticized by Jewish groups at the time. In 2019, he was deported from Israel in accordance with a law that banned entry to foreigners who publicly call for boycotting the Jewish state or its settlements.<\/p>\n
NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based pro-Israel advocacy group, wrote in a post on X that the internal dispute at Human Rights Watch served as \u201ca reminder of what happens when an NGO promotes the most extreme activists to positions of influence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The episode is casting light on the issue of Palestinian refugees, who many pro-Palestinian advocates believe should be able to return to the homes and communities their families left in 1948. Such a right is widely seen as both out of step with international precedent and a tactic to undo a Jewish majority in Israel.<\/p>\n
While Human Rights Watch has long supported a right of return for Palestinian refugees, Shakir told Jewish Currents that the group is more hesitant when applying that principle in practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one topic,\u201d he said, \u201ceven at Human Rights Watch, for which there remains an unwillingness to apply the law and the facts in a principled way is the plight of refugees and their right to return to the homes that they were forced to flee.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement shared with Jewish Currents and the New York Times, Human Rights Watch stated that the report \u201craised complex and consequential issues\u201d and its publication was \u201cpaused pending further analysis and research.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our review process, we concluded that aspects of the research and the factual basis for our legal conclusions needed to be strengthened to meet Human Rights Watch\u2019s high standards,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n