There was a time when the very phrase "human rights" represented, for a great number of world leaders, an insidious "western," not to say "Zionist," plot to undermine their titanic efforts to build utopia. Some of these leaders were communists, a few were Ba'athists, many more were populists and revolutionaries of one stripe or another, to be found reigning over countries from central America to southern Africa to north-east Asia.
There were important differences between all these colonels and generals and Secretary-Generals. What united them, though, was a contempt for those societies whose political arrangements encourage their citizens to look the state in the eye without fear, rather than nervously gazing up from a respectful distance. Indeed, the use of fear as a political tool by the state is what best distinguishes "closed" societies from -- flaws and all -- "open" ones.
These days, the rulers of closed societies have to think more creatively. Since talk of "human rights" has become too common to be rejected wholesale, they are obliged to co-opt and twist its language and concepts. The sorriest example of where such sophistry can lead is the UN Human Rights Council, whose membership roster includes Cuba and Russia, as well as three Arab states who have recently distinguished themselves by employing varying degrees of deadly violence against opposition movements: most egregiously, Libya, elected less than a year before the Gadhafi regime embarked on its current rampage, along with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis, along with fellow Council member Qatar, have sent troops into Bahrain to quell the protests there. Anyone who stands up in Jeddah and declares the Saudi intervention in Bahrain to be an "occupation" is unlikely to see daylight again for a while. Ghastly as that is for the people who live there, that fact serves as a useful reminder to those of us living in open, liberal societies that the nature of human rights, for all the antics at the UN Human Rights Council, has not changed.
It is with the individual person, and not a nation, or a social class, or a religious faith, that human rights begins. If an individual is denied the political conditions to think, speak, write and act freely, then everything else in the human rights universe -- be it the right to food, or the right to live free from foreign occupation -- is rendered meaningless.
That conviction was what guided western human rights organizations during the Cold War. Arguably, it's needed even more now, as regimes such as Ivory Coast and Yemen engage in target practice against their own people in much the same way that East Germany's Stasi and Romania's Securitate did, while long-established offenders, like the Kim dynasty in North Korea and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, seem as entrenched as ever.
It was a conviction that was manifestly clear in this congressional testimony from 1988, in which the human rights NGO Helsinki Watch criticized the Reagan Administration for having too "narrow a view of democracy," and for missing opportunities to promote the kinds of associations and institutions that free-thinking people create, namely, "an independent judiciary, a free press, functioning trade unions, opposition political parties."
Contrast that with the much-criticized 2009 report on Libya penned by Sarah Leah Whitson, a leading official with Helsinki Watch's successor, Human Rights Watch. Whitson identified the foundation run by Colonel Gadhafi's son, Seif al Islam, amusingly described by her as a "quasi-governmental organization," as the principal channel for reform in Libya. If one was being charitable, that conclusion could be described as misjudged, as Whitson herself recently admitted. Authentic change, as the dissidents of the Cold War period knew only too well, emanates from civil society.
That a significant segment of the human rights community has lost sight of the original purpose of human rights advocacy can be explained, at least in part, by the resurgence of "anti-imperialist" rhetoric in the years since the 9/11 atrocities. No less than John Dugard, a UN Human Rights rapporteur, declared that the three regimes most inimical to human rights were "colonialism, foreign occupation and apartheid." One can just imagine Mugabe and Gadhafi nodding eagerly in agreement.
There is, however, a new organization on the human rights map that might just be capable of resetting the moral compass. Advancing Human Rights, which announced its formation last month, is explicit that its focus will be, in the spirit of Helsinki Watch, upon "authoritarian countries without free speech or corrective mechanisms."
The Helsinki Watch connection is not a coincidence. The founder of Advancing Human Rights is Robert Bernstein, who for many years was the moving force behind Helsinki Watch and then Human Rights Watch. Bernstein very publicly broke with that organization in 2009, objecting to the disproportionate attention paid by Human Rights Watch's Middle East division to Israel, at the expense of research and reporting of the wider region. The current upheavals in the Arab countries are a tragic confirmation of the moral error he identified.
Because Bernstein's dispute with Human Rights Watch was triggered by the matter of Israel, there will doubtless be a chorus of critics who will accuse him of hijacking the human rights agenda to promote Israel's cause. Hyperbole like that, sadly, goes with the territory. What matters is the wider mission: aiding those struggling to convert closed societies into open ones. I can think of few causes more noble.
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Similarly, Human Rights Watch is too busy fund-raising in Saudi Arabia, to police the Saudi's treatment of women and minorities.
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/focus_hrw_raises_funds_in_saudi_arabia_by_demonizing_israel
What a waste.
It appears the Arab masses agree with me, despite being raised on a steady diet of Israel hate and anti-semitism (when Laura Logan was assaulted on Tahrir Square they chanted "Jew, Jew"), the Arab masses have demanded not more attention to the Palestinians, but freedom for themselves. Imagine how much earlier this would have come if the world human right community wasn't busy condemning Israel but was instead doing its job of policing real human rights offenders. You and Saltzy may still be obsessed with Israel, but the rest of the middle east has moved on.
"These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere."
"“Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighbourhoods into battlefields."
"Hamas and Hezbollah, .... use their own people as human shields,"
If Iran intended to "murder Jews everywhere", there would not be 30,000 Jews living in Iran with no intention or desire to move.
The Winograd inquiry into the 2006 Lebanon War reported:
"...it was a war of our own initiative and waged in a defined territory"
Israel also chose to make War on a civilian populace in Gaza (where the population density is 3,880.9 persons per square kilometre) during a period when even their own Terrorism Information Center confirmed that rocket attacks had ceased due to aa Hamas-enforced truce.
During that monstrous affair, there were numerous well documented instances of the IDF using children as Human Shields like this one:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-soldiers-convicted-of-using-11-year-old-as-human-shield-in-gaza-1.316867
Bernstein asserts that HRW "sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights."
Now this is patently absurd. Democracy is not so easily defined and even so-called open democracies are often serial human rights offenders. His agenda is clear.
Information that 27 percent of Palestinian child detainees are forced to sign confessions written in Hebrew.
Information that 58 percent of Palestinian child detainees are being held inside Israel, in contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention;
Information indicating that as many as 43 percent of child detainees are not adequately separated from adult prisoners;
Evidence that 55 percent of Palestinian child detainees complain of inadequate food, water or shelter;
Information suggesting that most Palestinian child detainees do not receive family visits during the first three months of their detention, and no Palestinian child detainees are permitted to maintain telephone communication with their families;
Evidence that Palestinian child detainees receive inadequate education services inside prison, and in some cases, no education at all; and
Evidence that children held in the Al Jalame Interrogation and Detention Centre near Haifa, are routinely subjected to serious mistreatment, including position abuse, sleep depravation and solitary confinement.
BTW-- How many hours can Israel hold arrestees before they must be charged or freed? In the US it's 72 hours.
In fact, the UN Human Rights Council is worse than ineffective; it has become a tool in the hands of those interested in hijacking the human rights discourse, deflecting it in order to cover their own abuses. Like many "United" Nations committees, this "council" is beyond contempt, as are those individuals who collaborate with its deflection purposes; they are acomplices in the crimes this "council" helps cover.
But just to make sure I understand: your point in defense of the UN "Human Rights" Council is that the "United" Nations Security Council has now decided to somewhat limit the ability of Moamer Gadhafi to butcher his own people? After the man ruled Libya as absolute despot for 41 years, hanged anyone who dared oppose his abuses, sponsored every terrorist group imaginable and, in recognition of the fact, was awarded a membership on said UN "Human Rights" Council? Well, you will forgive me, “salzman”, for viewing the UN “license” you refer to as just another sign that this organization is nothing but a political tool devoid of any moral legitimacy, to be used and abused by whoever is the day’s most able string-puller.
2. Last time I looked, Saudi Arabia and Israel were NOT "allys", or even allies. They are enemies with no diplomatic relationships and in fact are legally in a state of war. Your statement is plain disinformation.
3. I don’t know who “many of our business” are. I have no business in common with you.
How many hours may Israel detain arrestees, before she must either file charges or release them?
In the US it's 72 hours.
so we should tow AJC line an organization whose whole basis is to feed sugar coated candies to the unsuspecting folks? until the article from Max Blumenthal arrived right here at HP which gave away AJC prime sponsor agenda? the truth is this 'hyperbole' isn't going anywhere...
He and they were unable to resolve their differences as HRW increasingly observed Israeli abuses of human rights.
He disassociated himself from HRW in a hugely acrimonious and very public fall out.
He has now decided to form another body called "Advancing Human Rights".
Good.
Terrific.
Wonderful.
Unless that organisation has built into its constitution that it cannot look at Israel, what is he going to do when it, inescapably, criticises Israel?
Is he going to form another organisation, and then another, and then another?
Bernstein denounced HRW in 2009. I'm pretty sure HRW had been criticizing Israel for a while before then. Another Andrews lie.
There is no doubt that his dissociation from HRW was as a direct result of his falling with them over their criticisms of Israel.
Please either learn to read accurately, or learn when the epithet "lie" is appropriate, or both, and stop being abusive. Thank you.
When a kid is punished for throwing sand, while another kid beats up a third and no one cares, I think the first kid has a right to complain.
"sand" = "F15s, F16s, tanks, combat helicopters, heavy artillery, every facility that any modern army might wish for",
"beats up" = "what - exactly"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2011
I'm pretty Sure I know what Israel would do, if the Palestinians had move 5,000,000 criminals into "settlements" on THEIR land and allowed them to run rampant.
Head up! ALL the other people in the world deserve the SAME treatment that you'd want for yourself. All three Abrahamic religions say that.
I wonder what Americans would have done facing a similar situation as Palestinians
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=84&Itemid=183