Human Rights

Liraz Madmony, a 23 year old student from Sderot Israel addressed the UN Human Rights Commission.

Are human rights for some, but not others?

The constant assault on Sderot has destroyed our ability to lead a normal life. The warning before each attack gives us only 15 seconds to run for shelter. Fifteen seconds that will decide, life or death.

Mr. President, who will protect our right to life? My family does not have a bomb shelter, so we run to the most protected room, which is the shower.

There is one attack I will never forget. We heard the siren at seven in the morning. We ran to the shower. The rockets fell next to my house. My little brother, who was 14, went to see if anyone needed help. He found a man whose legs were blown off, and a woman blown to pieces.

My youngest brother is six. The rockets have been falling for eight years. He knows no other reality.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the Human Rights Commission is that member states which have of the most horrendous human rights violations are allowed to sit on it. When thousands of people are being massacred in Congo and the only state being censured is Israel, there is clearly a problem. When people are imprisoned in China so their organs can be harvested and the only state being censured is Israel, there is clearly a problem. When Kim Il Jong of North Korea can blatantly allow his civilian population to starve and the only state being censured is Israel, there is clearly a problem. When the people of Burma await world reaction for their freedom and the only state being censured is Israel, there is clearly a problem.

Like Liraz asks, are there human rights for some but not others?

I Don't Trust Them

I don't trust the Evangelical movement and their motives for embracing Israel. Some Jews argue we need to accept their help because they are staunch backers of Israel. Maybe I'm too harsh or cynical but I cannot help feeling going this route will end in disaster for Israel. Throughout history, we've seen those who offered welcome to Jews eventually turn against them.

History tells of the forced conversions of Jews in Spain. It tells of the mass expulsions from Europe. It tells us of Poland welcoming those expelled Jews. It even tells us hat happened after the welcome mat was withdrawn. My families history is entwined with one experience: Tulchin. Jews and Poles fought against the Cossacks in that town. Jewish defenders numbered 2,000 and Polish defenders numbered 600. The Cossacks convinced the Poles to give up the Jews and Rabbi Aaron agreed, warning that not to do so, Catholics would turn on Jews as well. After the Jews gave their weapons to the Poles, the Cossacks entered the town. They were given the choice of baptism or death. The thousand Jews who remained steadfast and rejected baptism were tortured and then murdered.

Time after time, Christians have called on easing hatred of Jews. This was done in order to try to attract Jews to Christianity. One of the most famous and vile of these was the leader of the Reformation Movement, Martin Luther.

He stated at the beginning:

The Jews are blood-relations of our Lord; if it were proper to boast of flesh and blood, the Jews belong more to Christ than we. I beg, therefore, my dear Papist, if you become tired of abusing me as a heretic, that you begin to revile me as a Jew.

This was not an acceptance of Jews but merely a means of trying to court Jews to convert. When those conversions failed to appear, Luther turned on the Jews and gave the world some of the most vile anti-Semitism. Some of his one-liners:

What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly and I myself was unaware of it will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. (remainder omitted)

Mohammad also tried to woe Jews to convert to Islam and when they held steadfast, the curses rained upon them and the attacks began.

It has been barely two hundred years since Jews were freed from the ghettos of Europe. Even this was not a move intended to give Jews greater freedom but a way to speed up assimilation. We all know the atrocious horror of the Shoah. The words of Martin Luther were echoed by Hitler and are now echoed by Iran's leader. Just replace the word Jew with Zionists or Israel, the message of hate is still the same.

Today, Jews are facing another wave of anti-Semitism. Even in the US, synagogues in large cities have to have heavy security. Noted scholars openly state that the Jewish lobby has undue influence on US foreign policy. These same scholars ignore the vast lobbies of others. Since the financial melt-down, there have been more and more claims that Jewish financiers are to blame.

Evangelicals proclaim their love of Israel and are, on the surface, staunch supporters of Israel. But what is their motivation? Is it love of HaShem's Creation? Or is it the believe that by having all Jews in Israel, their messiah will come again? And what happens if their messiah doesn't show up at the proscribed time? Will their thoughts turn, as been the case many, many times through history, to destroying Jews? I know Ann Coulter is the extreme but when spouted that Christians are "perfected Jews", it was largely held that this is standard believe. We see some Christian groups calling themselves Jews for Jesus and trying by deception to convert Jews to Christianity.

History does have a nasty way of repeating itself. Each time Jews or their cause is welcomed, they are later turned on. It took a couple of hundred years for Poland to reverse its welcome mat. It took around a decade for Luther to stop praising Jews and to start vilifying them. What will happen to Evangelical support for Israel in the future? We only have history to go by and I don't trust their motives.

It's a Cultural Thing

When Michael Vick was arrested for dog-fighting, Whoopi Goldberg made a comment about dog-fighting being a cultural thing. She was castigated for seemingly trying to defend the vileness and cruelty inherent in dog-fighting. She said that cock-fighting is culturally acceptable in places like Puerto Rico and dog-fighting is wide-spread in the Southern states of the US(hey Whoopi, dog-fighting exists in the Northern states as well).




Recently, 9 men in Clinton Mississippi were arrested for having cock-fights. The above picture is one of the poor animals that died as a result of cruelty and for the profit of the men who ran the fights. These men and others across the country who run cock fights and dog fights are rightly condemned for the cruelty they choose to employ.

Whoopi's statements about Michael Vick being a cultural thing is not an isolated incident. It has become politically incorrect to judge other cultures. Women in Saudi Arabia have many restrictions against them. They are treated as second-class citizens by the modesty police and in courts of law. The symbol of their second-class status is the veil they must wear. They do not have the freedom to choose to wear the veil. It must be worn.

Women in Jordan, Gaza, the West Bank, and increasingly in Europe are murdered in so-called "honor killings". In Arab Islamic countries, those murderers face little more than a slap on the wrist. It is a culturally acceptable defense in those countries that women can be murdered for daring to date someone the family doesn't approve of, for becoming pregnant, etc. Do we, in Western countries, dare condemn those murders? We must!!!

We must also condemn the use of terrorism committed by the Taliban, Al Queda, Hamas, Hexb'allah, Islamic Jihad, the terrorists factions of Fatah, and so many other groups. We must condemn in no uncertain terms the bombings of embassies when false outrage is stoked against political cartoons about Mohammed.



You remember that picture at the start of the Second Intifada. We must condemn those who can literally tear living human beings apart with their bare hands. Instead of trying to seek justification for such brutality, it must and should be condemned.

Where does such hate come from? Some try to justify the hatred because of actions by the Israeli government. I do believe it is a cultural thing. From Iran to it's barbaric stonings of women and it's hanging of teenagers, to Saudi Arabia with it's 100 lashings to a rape victim: the barbarity is a cultural thing. The barbarity is interweaved with Sharia law. Because of "cultural sensitivity", we are not to criticize those aspects of Islam which in some countries are barbaric. There will be barbarity like this until there is widespread condemnation of the text books used by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

This multiculturalism and "cultural sensitivity" is making a mockery of the laws of justice in Europe:

In the UK, Islamic Sharia law courts, where the laws of evidence are more lenient, now operate as an alternative to the legitimate courts of the British government, according to The Telegraph, undoubtedly encouraged by the climate fostered by idealists such as the ruling Labour Party, which had insisted for many years that their country is “multicultural.” In Germany, the judge of a German court cited the Koran in rejecting a Moroccan woman’s petition for an accelerated divorce due to domestic violence and death threats from her husband, according to the International Herald Tribune. While mainstream Muslim leaders, to their credit, swiftly condemned the ruling, the apparent alacrity with which the judge subordinated German legal principles to the Koran illustrates the paralysis of justice which could result from permitting cultural accommodation to become too ingrained. In France, philosopher Jean-Francois Revel has commented that the institutional reluctance to teach French to immigrant children in French schools has stunted the upward mobility of these immigrants, causing resentment which sometimes boils over into the youth riots we have witnessed in recent years. Homosexuals, in particular, comprise one group which has much to fear from the growing Islamization of Europe. In the Netherlands, attacks on gays have increased in recent years, mostly perpetrated by Moroccan youths, according to Radio Netherlands. In Iran, Sharia law calls for the execution of homosexuals. It may be ridiculous now to think that something like that could happen in western Europe, but such changes do not occur suddenly, and we only notice too late when things have gone too far, just as a frog submerged in a pot of cold water does not jump out of the pot if the water is brought gradually to a boil.

A German court quoted from the Koran and wanted to keep a Moroccan woman in a abusive marriage. These are not laws of justice. It should not be "culturally insensitive" to criticize others. Human rights abuses must be condemned. It seems that the only country that it is "politically correct" and not "culturally insensitive" to condemn is the Jewish State of Israel.



The above picture was taken at an Israel Day Parade held in New York. Whenever supporters of Israel get together, they are subjected to this. If this sign had referenced Palestinians, it would have been splashed across the news world-wide.

British academics call for the boycott of Israel on a yearly basis. Multiculturalism has led to an absurd and skewed vision of human rights.

It has sapped us in the West of being able to change the barbarity that exists across much of the world. We mustn't condemn Mugabe because European colonialists were in Africa. We mustn't criticize the Koran because it might led to riots. We mustn't draw political cartoons showing Mohammed because it is "insensitive".

How much more "cultural sensitivity" must we show? Criticism has the ability to make us change for the better. Multiculturalism is taken away the ability to bring justice to those who languish in prisons and in repressive societies because it is a "cultural thing".

Israel and Human Rights

A lot of people are focused on the supposed human rights violations Israel commits. A Google search on boycott Israel reveals a staggering 206,000 results. There is a great outcry no matter how Israel tries to protect her citizens. The latest insult comes yet again from the UN Human Rights Commission. It blames Israel for the terrorist attacks by Palestinians. They say the living conditions in Gaza are so bad, the Palestinians have no choice but to seek to murder innocent Israelis. But the thing is, those living in Gaza actually a higher standard of living than Egyptians.

Israel has wisely closed its border crossings into Gaza. And yet people claim Gazans are starving when enough flour flows in per day to provide almost a ton of flour for Gazan.

Israel is criticized if she employs military actions to stop the Kassam attacks. Israel is criticized for using check points to stop Palestinian terrorists from infiltrating. Israel is criticized for closing border crossings to all but humanitarian aid. Israel is criticized for cutting power to Gaza for periods of time.

The Palestinians are given a free pass to keep sending Kassams into Sderot. The Palestinians are given a free pass for the hatred of Jews that are taught in classrooms and children's tv shows. Nothing is said about the Palestinian Authority's supposed inability to stop terrorists groups. Instead of criticizing terrorism, it is justified.

The Palestinians have been used for generations as political pawns. Treppenwitz points to an excellent essay that was printed in The Atlantic Journal. It pinpoints how Palestinians had become pawns in order to demonize Israel. This article was written in 1961. Much has changed since then. The rhetoric against Israel borders on the insane.

Today, Sderot suffered through another 11 Kassam rockets. These rockets may be crude and homemade but they have the desired affect: to create terror and to maim and murder. Some people say that since only x number of Israelis have been killed or injured by the Kassams, they don't really count. Try telling that to the relatives of those killed or injured.

In the past, Israel has been accused of cruelty for flying jets over Gaza. What of the citizens of Sderot who are bombarded daily and only have 15 seconds to seek cover after a warning? What of the parents in Sderot in fear for their children in school? Just this past year when Sderot schools opened, they were greeted with Kassam rockets.

I guess Israeli human rights do not count. And while the focus remains on Israel, others whose situations are so much more perilous than Palestinians languish.

Darfur is a well known example. Less known are those in Congo. 5.4 million have died there and many more continue to die.

China harvests organs from political prisoners. But I suppose that can be largely ignored since China will be hosting the Olympics. Wouldn't want to impose on the hosts and all that.

It used to big news about North Koreans starving. I haven't heard much about them lately. I don't think their situation has improved much.

And the world's silence on the situation in Burma is damning.

This graphic says it all: