HRW: Iran's Statements Not Incitement To Genocide [View all]

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By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT12/08/2012 20:16Human

Right Watch leader refuses to label calls to erase Israel; compares mullah's remarks to those of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

WASHINGTON – The head of New York-based Human Rights Watch refused to label as genocidal Iranian calls to obliterate the Jewish state and compared Iran’s mullah leadership to the Shas party.

The Wall Street Journal’s David Feith, as assistant editorial features editor with the paper, obtained internal HRW emails and published last week a report, headlined “Dancing around genocide,” about alleged HRW bias against Israel and an internecine conflict within HRW’s top leadership about the group’s head, Kenneth Roth, and his failure to take Iran’s calls to destroy Israel seriously.

The Journal reported that Sid Sheinberg, HRW’s vice chairman, wrote in an email, “Sitting still while Iran claims a ‘justification to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel’ is...a position unworthy of our great organization.”

According to the newspaper, Roth wrote in one email, “Many of [Iran’s] statements are certainly reprehensible, but they are not incitement to genocide. No one has acted on them.”

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http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=295129