Compare and contrast the following reports from the UN Human Rights Council. Let’s look at one paragraph of recommendations for Israel (that don’t include the Palestinians, as most of them do). Please note the tone. It’s very important.
Among the other recommendations made were for Israel to implement the recommendations by the Committee against Torture; to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture; to investigate allegations of violence and killings by the police and also to ensure that the State fully respect international human rights standards; to consider ratifying the Convention on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; to cease all excavations around the Al Aqsa Mosque; to ensure access to religious sites and to respect religious freedom; to suspend the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law; to ensure that Bedouin populations had access to basic public services; to counter discrimination against minorities; and to implement the recommendations of the Or Commission of 2003 as regards discrimination against minorities.
Note that the direction to cease “excavations” around Al Aqsa Mosque gives ownership of the Temple Mount to Muslims, completely ignoring what the Waqf has done to destroy Jewish artifacts from the Mount.
Now let’s look at the recommendations made to the UAE. And let’s note the tone of the report.
A number of recommendations made concerned the rights of migrant workers. These included: to strengthen labour laws and improve working and living conditions for migrant workers; to ensure that the new labour law be extended to cover all groups, including domestic employees and farm workers; to study the possibility of assigning a law to deal specifically with domestic workers aimed at protecting them from abuse by their employers; to take further steps to improve the situation for migrant workers and domestic staff; and to guarantee access to civil, criminal and labour courts for all migrant workers.
All right, all right. I’m cherry-picking, my detractors will say. So let’s grab another paragraph. Let’s take the first paragraph of recommendations for both nations and see what those are like. Israel:
A number of delegations also posed specific recommendations. These included: To end the occupation of all Palestinian and Arab Territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan; to respect the rights of the Palestinian to self-determination and the establishment of their independent State with Jerusalem as its capital; to fully implement the advisory opinion of the ICJ and dismantle the separation wall; to end all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in particular in and around Jerusalem; to immediately cease its military operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and to lift the closure it imposed on the Gaza strip; to reopen the passage to and from the Gaza Strip; to fully respect its human rights obligations in the country, including in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; to halt operations of destruction of houses in East Jerusalem; and for the international community to do its utmost to resolve the crisis in the Middle East.
UAE:
A number of delegations also posed specific recommendations. These included: To pursue efforts to amend the press law; to take measures to limit restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of the press; to continue efforts in respect of the rights of assembly; to ensure that the decree issued by His Highness Shaykh al-Maktoum that no journalist shall receive a prison sentence was secured through the enactment of a modernized press and publications law; to continue its recent move of opening up websites with a view to bringing the regulation of Internet use in accordance with international law; to uphold the freedom of expression of NGOs by amending the laws limiting it and repealing punitive and administrative sanctions in that regard; and that the recently proposed amendment to the Press and Publication Law be revised to reflect article 19 of the ICCPR.
Interesting, isn’t it, the difference in “recommendations” for the two countries? One set are insistent demands; the other are truly recommendations. But, you say, I’m still cherry-picking. No way the contrast can be that great.
Yes, it can. The UAE:
Additional recommendations included: To continue strengthening the rights of women and further advancement and development of women’s rights within the international dimension; to further consider how far modifications to the national laws on citizenship could be introduced so that female citizens married to non-citizens could pass on their nationality to their children in the same way as male citizens married to non-citizens; to implement article 2(a) of CEDAW by prohibiting discrimination between men and women in its national Constitution to ensure the practical realization of the principle of gender equality; to put in place effective institutional support for victims of domestic violence; to sanction marital rape through legislation; to promote national legislation to protect the rights of children; and to consider legislative changes in order to repeal the punishment of flogging.
That’s right. Pretty please, UAE, won’t you consider stopping the practice of flogging and allowing men to beat and rape the women in your country? And by the way, Israel: Pay attention, beeyotch:
Another group of recommendations included: To ensure that human rights defenders were able to carry out their work effectively; to establish an independent national commission in accordance with the Paris Principles; to ratify all international human rights treaties; to respond favourably for request for visits to all Special Procedures; to extend standing invitation to the Special Procedures; to cease imprisoning conscientious objectors and to consider granting the right to conscientious objections to serve instead with a civilian body independent of the military; to establish a separate Juvenile Justice system to try Palestinian children; to remove restrictions that prevent Palestinian children from accessing basic services including schools and health care; and to accede to the ICC Rome Statute.
Holy crap! How did a “to consider” get in there?
Israel is given a list of demands. The UAE is given a list of suggestions. The UAE cheats and beats migrant workers, harasses rights workers, allows women few rights, has no real suffrage, no democracy, and no political recourse to replacing corrupt rulers. Israel is a parliamentary democracy with regular elections, Arabs in the Knesset, and a court system for the redress of problems.
By all means, UNHRC, use your harshest language for the lone democracy in the region. It will ensure that Israel ignores your reports completely.
I have met UNHRC workers.
They are decent people.
However, they are infected with a type of anti-Semitism that they cannot even recognize.
It goes like this.
Here are some facts about ways that the lives of people in Gaza could be better and are not and that Israel imposed. Therefore, what are we, UNHRC workers supposed to do? Keep silent just because Israel is Jewish?
It is a type of argumentation that does not resonate in other conflicts. Basically, the “logic” sounds logical only because of the world’s history of anti-Semitism. The UNHRC workers are arguing that that history cannot stop them from righting wrongs.
What they ignore is the fact that that very logic causes them:
a) to apply double-standards to Israel, lest they “keep silent just because Israel is Jewish.”
b) ignore much worse (and less justifiable and defense-related) actions by other countries because the UNHRC doesn’t need to prove in those cases that they will not be kept silent.
To see point (b), just imagine how much sense it would make for them to say “what do you expect me to do? Keep silent just to prove I am not anti-Arab.” It just doesn’t make any sense. So they don’t need to “not keep silent” when the Arabs behave inhumanely. They can keep silent. And do.