Is HRW Investigator Garlasco An Avid Collector of Nazi Paraphernalia?

Marc Garlasco’s 430-page book on Nazi paraphernalia

Human Rights Watch investigator Marc Garlasco accuses Rick Ayers of “Hiding in Plain Sight“, but it is Garlasco who is apparently hiding in plain sight. While he has been treated with credibility by outfits like the New York Times, his apparent passion for Nazi paraphernalia has gone unnoticed and uncommented on — despite the fact that it can be easily traced on the Internet. (The bottom right side of the Huffington Post url link above contains an example of Garlasco’s hobby — penning books on Third Reich memorabilia — hiding in plain sight.)

Mere Rhetoric blog today lifts the veil on Garlasco’s unusual extra-curricular activities:

There are two Marc Garlascos on the Internet. One is a top human rights investigator who, having joined Human Rights Watch after several years with the Pentagon, has become known for his shrill attacks on Israel. The other is a Marc Garlasco who’s obsessed with the color and pageantry of Nazism, has published a detailed 430 page book on Nazi war paraphernalia, and participates in forums for Nazi souvenir collectors.

Both Marc Garlascos were born on September 4, 1970. Both have Ernst as their middle name. Both live in New York, NY. Both have a maternal grandfather who fought for the Nazis. I’ve put links and screenshots on all this after the jump, and you can click through for full-sized versions. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that both Marc Garlascos are the same person.

Bloggers and activists concerned about Israel have been baffled and frustrated by the first Garlasco almost since he joined HRW. On his public photography site he posts gratuitous Palestinian and Lebanese death porn in between galleries of cute Western-looking kids playing soccer (no link – keeping his kids out of it). He provides a seemingly never-ending stream of interviews to all kinds of outlets, where he spins tales about ostensible Israeli atrocities. The only problem is that many of these tales – per Soccer Dad and IsraPundit and Elder of Ziyon and NGO Monitor and CAMERA and LGF – are biased and inaccurate. That doesn’t stop Garlasco from putting them into the kind of HRW reports that make their way into international anti-Israel condemnations and academic anti-Israel dissertations.

Then there’s the second Marc Garlasco, who I caught wind of from Elder of Ziyon. Elder had just finished tearing apart another one of HRW Garlasco’s anti-Israel reports when he found the Amazon profile of collector Garlasco. This Garlasco’s Amazon book reviews show a nearly obsessive knowledge of Nazi-era Luftwaffe Flak and Army Flak. A little more searching revealed that he’s written a gigantic book on the subject that retails for over $100. He regularly participates in forums about Nazi medals under the handle Flak 88, where he posts galleries of his prizes and admires what others have managed to collect. On those forums he uses the email [email protected], which points to a family genealogy site he set up in 2002.

The anti-Israel backgrounds of other Human Rights Watch employees including Joe Stork, Lucy Mair and Nadi Barhoum have been noted before, but this blows them all away.

Update: A timely report on HRW staffers (“Experts or Ideologues”) just came in from NGO-Monitor.

Additional blog postings about Garlasco’s affinity for Nazi material: Instapundit, NRO’s The Corner, Commentary Magazine, The Volokh Conspiracy, Israel Matzav and Solomonia.