Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, October 3.
1) Which ones are the moderates again?
Hamas: 'Resistance' against Israel is only option left for Palestinians via memeorandum Hamas leader Khaled Meshal told an international conference in Iran on Saturday that "resistance" was the only option left for the Palestinians. Meshal was addressing the "5th International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada" in Iran’s capital Tehran.
Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki (from MEMRI) The settlement should be based upon the borders of June 4, 1967. When we say that the settlement should be based upon these borders, President [Abbas] understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go. If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end.
2) Mahmoud's excellent passive aggressive negotiating tactics
Land without peace: Why Abbas went to the UN - Charles Krauthammer This is not ancient history. All three peace talks occurred over the past decade. And every one completely contradicts the current mindless narrative of Israeli “intransigence” as the obstacle to peace. Settlements? Every settlement remaining within the new Palestine would be destroyed and emptied, precisely as happened in Gaza. So why did the Palestinians say no? Because saying yes would have required them to sign a final peace agreement that accepted a Jewish state on what they consider the Muslim patrimony.
And the Palestinians can count on the short memories of the peace processors.
3) But names WILL hurt me
Why do human rights groups ignore Palestinians’ war of words? by Robert Bernstein Human rights groups, which could be highlighting the crimes of Arab dictatorships against Israel and each other, have instead chosen to focus primarily on Israel. They continually discount the extraordinary steps Israel takes to protect civilians on both sides — steps approved by military experts, such as using pamphlets, phone calls and even noise bombs to scare people away from a location before a bombing — while whitewashing Hamas’s desire to eliminate a whole country as just bluster and meaningless words. One would think that, of all organizations in the world, human rights groups would particularly believe that words matter. Words inform intent and influence action. Words and actions need to be taken seriously, especially when they are sponsored by governments. The real obstacle to long-term peace is the endless and overwhelming words of hate and incitement to genocide effectively spread to Arabs and Palestinians. One example is the textbooks given to millions of children in Saudi Arabia, distributed in the Arab world and beyond, that label Jews “monkeys and pigs.” This continues to foment discord, radicalism and violence.
Why doesn't Arab reform ever include acceptance of Jews?
Labels: Abbas Zaki, Abu Mazen, Hamas, Human Rights Watch, Khaled Meshaal, Middle East Media Sampler, Robert Bernstein, Soccer Dad
The battle that the 'human rights' groups ought to be leading
Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch (when it didn't need scare quotes) rips the group he founded and other 'human rights' organizations for
backing a 'Palestinian state.'
Most shockingly, human rights groups have become the unwitting accomplices of the United Nations as almost every mainstream human rights group has ignored hate speech and incitement to genocide, not only against Israel but against all Jews. The call to genocide has been accompanied by a sophisticated arms buildup along Israel’s Lebanon border over the past five years, defying Security Council Resolution 1701, which called in 2006 for an end to hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. Even after the 2009 war in Gaza, particularly since the Arab Spring has opened up the Sinai, thousands more rockets continue to pour into Gaza, circumventing the Israeli blockade.
Human Rights Watch, which I founded 33 years ago, continues to attack many of Israel’s defensive measures during war, yet it says nothing about hate speech and incitement to genocide. To cite just one example, the speaker of the Hamas parliament, Ahmad Bahr, called in April 2007 for the murder of Jews, “down to the very last one.” Imagine what leading human rights groups would say if this same speech and incitement were coming from Israel, aimed at the Palestinians.
Human rights groups, which could be highlighting the crimes of Arab dictatorships against Israel and each other, have instead chosen to focus primarily on Israel. They continually discount the extraordinary steps Israel takes to protect civilians on both sides — steps approved by military experts, such as using pamphlets, phone calls and even noise bombs to scare people away from a location before a bombing — while whitewashing Hamas’s desire to eliminate a whole country as just bluster and meaningless words. One would think that, of all organizations in the world, human rights groups would particularly believe that words matter. Words inform intent and influence action. Words and actions need to be taken seriously, especially when they are sponsored by governments.
The real obstacle to long-term peace is the endless and overwhelming words of hate and incitement to genocide effectively spread to Arabs and Palestinians. One example is the textbooks given to millions of children in Saudi Arabia, distributed in the Arab world and beyond, that label Jews “monkeys and pigs.” This continues to foment discord, radicalism and violence.
The absence of criticism by the United Nations and human rights groups is more than just a lack of judgment and fairness. It is proof that the Arab Spring has yet to thaw the old thinking that has stymied progress toward peace for far too long. There will be no peace between Israel and the Arabs while hatred and incitement to genocide continue. Sixty years of spewing hate won’t be undone in a day. Human rights groups should be leading this battle — not ignoring it.
Indeed.
Unfortunately, one of the things the
Red-Green alliance has done is to hijack human rights for its own purposes. Oppressed people everywhere are suffering as a result.
Labels: human rights, Human Rights Watch, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Robert Bernstein, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)
Don't help 'Human Rights Watch' win a Webby
Received via email:
HRW's machine is harvesting votes for its three candidates. I voted for the others and added this comment. If we can get 100 or more similar votes for the others, with some comments, HRW will go down. The registration takes a couple of minutes, and voting takes two more (there are 3 categories
http://webby.aol.com/category_groups/online-film-and-video/categories/news-and-politics-series (the young turks is ahead)
http://webby.aol.com/category_groups/online-film-and-video/categories/news-and-politics-individual-episode (HRW is ahead; vote China)
http://webby.aol.com/category_groups/online-film-and-video/categories/documentary-series (above the law is a close second)
Labels: Human Rights Watch, Robert Bernstein, Sarah Leah Whitson
Robert Bernstein's new baby
Some of you may recall that a few months ago
Robert Bernstein attacked Human Rights Watch - an organization that he founded - for going off course in the Middle East.
A lot of people thought that was the end of Bernstein and that he'd never be heard from again. But at 88, Bernstein has the energy of a much younger man. He's starting a
new human rights organization that will do it his way.
In late February, Bernstein launched Advancing Human Rights, a new organization meant to act as a corrective, one that hopes to return human rights to what Bernstein thinks are its forgotten fundamental principles. Among its board members are Yelena Bonner, the Soviet dissident and wife of Andrei Sakharov, and Irwin Cotler, the former Canadian minister of justice.
Natan Sharansky, the onetime jailed refusenik and human rights activist who is now chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, is an old friend of Bernstein’s. When Bernstein was head of Random House, he published Sharansky’s memoir, “Fear No Evil.” And the two share the assessment that human rights organizations have gone astray.
“It’s not every day when someone at the age of 88 realizes that the child he brought up has betrayed him, and decides to raise a new child,” Sharansky said.
The stated mandate of the new group is broader than Bernstein’s initial complaint, though it stems from it. AHR will be focused on the struggles of dissidents in closed, autocratic societies, like those in the Middle East and China. Bernstein wants the group to more closely promote those rights enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — specifically women’s rights and free speech — as opposed to the Geneva Convention and the other laws of warfare, which he thinks should be outside the purview of a human rights organization.
But underneath this new mandate, the clear motivating factor for Bernstein’s new initiative is his concern for Israel. It rises to the surface as soon as he is asked about the point of starting yet another human rights organization: Israel, as a democratic, open society, should not be under constant investigation by human rights groups, he said. The country and the way it wages war need to be better explained and defended.
Read the whole thing. Note that in this post, I don't have to talk about human rights in scare quotes.
Labels: human rights, Irwin Cotler, Natan Sharansky, Robert Bernstein, Yelena Bonner
Human Rights Watch founder Robert Bernstein
Human Rights Watch founder Robert Bernstein gave an awesome speech in Omaha, Nebraska last week about how the organization he founded has gone totally off course in the Middle East. You can find the speech
here.
Labels: Human Rights Watch, Robert Bernstein
Irony alert: Red Cross founder was a Christian Zionist
It took from 1949 to 2006 for Israel's Magen David Adom to be
admitted to the International Red Cross, and then it was only admitted on condition that the red star of David be put in a crystal as is shown at the top of this post. Ironically, it turns out, that the founder of the International Red Cross, Henri Dunant, was a
Christian Zionist (for those without access to the Wall Street Journal, you can also find the full article
here). Would Henri Dunant be welcomed in the Red Cross today? Tomas Sandell, the founder of the European Coalition for Israel (another ECI?) doesn't believe Dunant would be welcomed.
What a paradox that Dunant's Red Cross would later develop cozy relationships with Israel's enemies. The Red Cross has hosted Hamas activists at their base in Jerusalem instead of clearly distancing itself from their murderous policies. Not until 2006 did Israel's Magen David Adom (Red Star of David) enjoy full membership, and that was only after the U.S. threatened to pull out of the world organization. Even now, Israeli rescue teams abroad would still need the host country's permission to wear the Red Star of David.
The Red Cross is thus dangerously close to those non-governmental organizations with little public accountability that wage a "soft war" against Israel. Nowhere is this battle to delegitimize the Jewish state more present than in Geneva, the city where Dunant founded the Red Cross.
At Geneva's United Nations Human Rights Council, Israel is being singled out for criticism by the world's worst human-rights violators, such as Sudan, Iran and Libya. These regimes are applauded and supported not only by dubious NGOs funded by Arab countries, but also by Western NGOs with seemingly impeccable reputations. One of these groups is the World Council of Churches, a bit further up the road from the U.N., which blames Israel alone for the conflict while playing down Palestinian terrorism. The organization founded as a reaction to the silence of the Protestant churches during the Holocaust seems to consider attacking the Jewish state one of its foremost moral obligation.
The story of Henri Dunant's Red Cross is not much different from that of another important humanitarian group—Human Rights Watch. Earlier this year Robert Bernstein criticized the organization he helped found for its biased criticism of Israel, saying HRW had lost "critical perspective" on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The organization spends a disproportional amount of its resources denouncing the Middle East's only true democracy. At the same time it neglects to highlight the human-rights violations and aggression of Israel's enemies, which would more properly correspond with its intended mission of prying open closed societies.
Perhaps the international class of humanitarians should pause for a moment and reflect on how they ever got to this Israel obsession. It's time to return to the values of people like Henri Dunant and Robert Bernstein.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Henri Dunant, Human Rights Watch, real humanitarians, Red Cross, Robert Bernstein
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, October 3. 
