We host a debate between two former officials at the human rights organization Human Rights Watch. Omar Shakir resigned this week after more than a decade as the organization’s Israel and Palestine director, over a report on the Palestinian right of return that he says was blocked from publication for ideological reasons. “I’ve lost faith in our new leadership’s fidelity to the integrity of what we do best, which is to publish the facts that we document and consistently apply the law,” says Shakir. Yet HRW’s former executive director Kenneth Roth says the report was “utterly unpublishable” and questions the legal basis of the unpublished report’s claim that Israel’s denial of Palestinians’ right of return is a crime against humanity. “Some Palestinian refugees may have this great suffering required for it to be a crime against humanity, but a lot of them clearly don’t,” he states. Shakir calls Roth’s objections hypocritical in light of similar HRW claims about the rights of Rohingya and Chagos Island refugees. “The right of return remains this third rail even among progressive human rights institutions,” he says.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Democracy Now! | Radio Free (2026-02-06T13:43:08+00:00) Right of Return: Omar Shakir & Ken Roth Debate “Blocked” Human Rights Watch Report on Palestine. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2026/02/06/right-of-return-omar-shakir-ken-roth-debate-blocked-human-rights-watch-report-on-palestine-2/
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