Tailoring Human Rights

At the beginning of this year, the U.S. joined the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which was established three years ago. However, there are no optimistic indications of a just American attitude. Frankly, Americans always harp on human rights and ask others to maintain them, but they themselves are not so keen on them. They use human rights as a bargaining chip to pressure some countries or regimes to make concessions on issues that have nothing to do with human rights, or to make them accept situations or deeds they have always rejected.

The UNHRC discussed Richard Goldstone’s report on the massacres Israel committed in Gaza at the end of 2008 that lasted for three weeks. Then, Michael Posner, American Deputy Secretary of State, refused Arab demands and suggestions to refer the report to the Security Council. It is worth mentioning that the report also accused Hamas (the Palestinian resistance movement) of shelling Israeli cities and civilians.

And if only this were everything! The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State slammed the report and said it was “extremely disgraceful.” That is because, according to Posner’s point of view, the report placed Israel and Hamas on equal “ethical” footing. Israel, a democratic country that has the right to defend itself, and Hamas, which responded to the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza by intimidating civilians of Israeli southern cities!

As such, Washington steps forward once more to protect Israel from being held responsible for the horrible crimes it committed against innocent Gazans. Israel targeted children with its rockets, bulldozed farms and bombarded buildings. Israel left nearly half the cities of Gaza Strip in ruins after three weeks of unceasing aggressions, displacing 20 percent of Gazans, who were sheltered only by devastated streets!

This would also explain why President Obama remained silent on this matter, even though he was president-elect at the time. Although he was the herald of an attitude diametrically dissimilar to the immoral one of his predecessor, Bush, he never said a word. On the contrary, he managed to cleverly evade the calls of journalists with a clear bias. Obama claimed that the U.S. has only one president in office, namely George W. Bush, and that he had no right to comment before being inaugurated!

Indeed, it is the customary American bias towards Israel. Even with successive American presidents of different status and complexions, Washington will go on protecting and pampering Israel.

But would any demands of Posner gloss over this brazen American bias towards Israel? Certainly not. The American senior official knows well that Netanyahu’s cabinet regards its savage practices against the Palestinians as a sacred duty. However, he called upon it to adopt what he dubbed a suitable national review, in addition to implementing accountability mechanisms to investigate and follow up on the “credible claims” of Goldstone’s report! Does Posner expect Netanyahu’s cabinet to justly execute these judicial reviews and investigations? Does he hope that Israel will pursue these “important” measures of trust building to support the search for eternal justice and peace?

Israelis do not care to build this trust or to search for eternal justice and peace. This was demonstrated by their objection to Netanyahu’s suggestion to temporarily stop the settling activities.

That is why I believe that such an American attitude impels us to reconsider our sweeping optimism, stirred by Obama’s words in Cairo. We should all do this before we are shocked by any future attitude of Obama’s administration!