Israel Matzav

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

B'Tselem sharing award with terrorists

Noah Pollak reports that the Israeli 'human rights' group B'Tselem is sharing a 'human rights' award from a Danish foundation with the 'Palestinian' terror supporters at al-Haq.

The award will be presented in Copenhagen a few days from now, but only Jessica Montell, the head of B’Tselem, will be on hand to receive it. The head of Al Haq, Shawan Jabarin, cannot fly to Europe, or in fact anywhere — because he is banned from travel by both Israel and Jordan owing to his extensive involvement with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an infamous Palestinian terrorist group.

Remarkably, Montell will accept the award, and so proud is she to be sharing a prize with a terrorist that B’Tselem sent out a press release announcing it.

Al Haq, for its part, barely pretends to be interested in human rights. It advances spurious war crimes allegations against the Jewish state, promotes the worst kinds of anti-Israel (and anti-Semitic) activism, such as the Russell Tribunal and the Durban Conference, is deeply involved in the BDS and lawfare movements, and seeks the indictment of Israeli officials in European courts — goals, of course, often shared by Montell and B’Tselem.

Here's Noah's key paragraph.

The willingness of Montell to share an award with a terrorist is but a small window into the perverse world of the “human rights” community in Israel. The Palestinian groups specialize not in promoting peace and tolerance, but in attacking the legitimacy of Zionism and tarnishing Israel’s image in the world. Greatly enamored of international prosecutions of Israelis, I cannot recall a single instance in which one of the groups recommended the same treatment for a Palestinian. Tellingly, none of them takes a prominent stand against Palestinian terrorism or defends the human rights of Israelis not to be victims of attacks — and in the case of Al Haq, terrorism is in fact endorsed as legitimate “resistance.”

Read the whole thing.

Evelyn Gordon adds:

First, this particular moral rot isn’t confined to a few NGOs; it pervades the entire system of what is fondly called “international law” – which is why no self-respecting democracy should grant international law any credence.

Consider, for instance, a recent statement by one Awn Shawkat al-Khasawneh: “The expulsion of Hamas from Jordan in 1999 was a political and legal error. I will tell you openly, when the expulsion took place, I opposed it.” Khasawneh is Jordan’s new prime minister, and if that were all he was, the statement wouldn’t be shocking. But he also spent more than a decade as one of the 15 judges on the International Court of Justice, including three years as the court’s vice president, and before his first nine-year term expired in 2009, he was reelected to a second.

In short, the world’s highest court included a judge who sees nothing wrong with blowing up buses, pizzerias and Passover seders (at least as long as the slain women, children and senior citizens are Israelis), and therefore thinks it was wrong to have expelled the perpetrator of these atrocities. While almost every democracy worldwide has declared Hamas a banned terrorist organization, the distinguished judge thinks Hamas’ expulsion by his own country was an “error.”

Again, read the whole thing.

B'Tselem is pushing for Jabarin to be allowed to travel to Copenhagen to receive the award.

Labels: al-Haq, B'Tselem, human rights NGO's

Thursday, February 17, 2011

'Human Rights Watch' appoints PFLP terrorist to its Middle East advisory board

Just when you thought that 'Human Rights Watch' could not possibly sink any lower... they appointed a terrorist to their Middle East advisory board.

Signaling the continuing decline of the organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has appointed Shawan Jabarin, an alleged senior activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization, to its Middle East Advisory Board. This appointment, as first reported in the Daily Beast, is further evidence of the moral collapse and corruption in HRW, says Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, a research institution that tracks NGOs.

"This appointment ends any façade that Human Rights Watch is a moral 'watchdog' organization," says Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. "Mr. Jabarin has ties to the PFLP terror group, which specialized in aircraft hijackings and carries out suicide bombings and political assassinations. He also heads an organization, Al Haq, which is among the leaders of delegitimization campaigns targeting Israel. This appointment is a slap in the face from HRW Executive Director Ken Roth and Chairman James Hoge to terror victims, Israelis, Jews, and others who seek to uphold universal human rights."

With this appointment, HRW blatantly disregards decisions by the Israeli Supreme Court and other countries that have affirmed Jabarin's terror links. Jordan also has denied him exit visas because of his alleged ties to the PFLP.

As reported by NGO Monitor, the Israeli Supreme Court in June 2007 referred to Jabarin as a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," a human rights worker by day and a terrorist by night. In 2008, the Supreme Court upheld a visa denial because of his terror connections.

"By appointing Jabarin, HRW has contemptuously dismissed the widely respected Israeli Supreme Court" Steinberg adds. "The assault on the courts is a key component of the strategy of demonizing Israel, as developed at the NGO Forum of the 2001 Durban Conference. HRW played a central role in Durban, and this is another step in the organization's implementation of this strategy."