Amnesty International on Gaza: Are They Joking?
Human rights groups complain that Hamas-ruled Gaza "is at its worst since Israel occupied the territory in 1967." David Bogner sees multiple ironies.
When I first read the BBC headline “Gaza’s humanitarian situation is at its worst since Israel occupied the territory in 1967, say UK-based human rights and development groups,” I thought for a moment it was some sort of Purim prank.
You see, Purim is about far more than the ancient Persian Jewish community’s delivery from annihilation. It is the story of the ironic reversal of fortune of the story’s chief antagonist, Haman, whose demise is brought about by his own evil machinations. As a result, ironic wordplay, practical jokes and chaste double-entendres are all part and parcel of the Purim season.
So reading a BBC headline that essentially said ‘the last time things were this bleak for the Palestinians of Gaza was before the Israeli occupation,’ you can forgive me for thinking someone had played a prank on a BBC copy editor.
I checked to see which NGOs had voiced such an uncharacteristically kind statement and was even more surprised to see ‘Amnesty International, Save the Children, Cafod, Care International and Christian Aid’ listed… none of whom have been particularly complimentary to Israel of late.
So why would they be pointing out that life was better for Palestinians under Israeli occupation than under Hamas rule?
Finally, of course, I figured out that the real irony was that they weren’t trying to be kind.
The report being cited by the BBC turned out to be a scatter-gun collection of the usual PA cue-cards demonizing Israel; ‘humanitarian disaster’, ‘ illegal blockade’, ‘collective punishment’, and so on.
What was entirely absent from the report was any direct reference to what mysterious reason might have prompted Israel to allegedly act so badly.
In fact the only hint that there might be something substantive behind Israel’s actions (besides being plain mean-spirited) was the vague admission that “Israel has the right and obligation to protect its citizens” – without any direct mention of what Israel might need to protect her citizens from!
But the BBC is nothing if not even-handed. To counterbalance each stanza of the NGO report’s quoted accusations, the author offered the weak refrain “Israel says the measures are designed to stamp out frequent rocket fire by Palestinian militants”, as if the thousands of rockets that have been fired from Gaza were some sort of unconfirmed rumor.
I decided to go over to Amnesty International’s site to look at the report itself, but to my disappointment nearly all of the juiciest accusations had been quoted by the BBC. However, looking over their home page I noticed a banner reading “Safe Schools: Every Girl’s Right”. When I clicked on it I was taken to an AI article about how girls around the world are routinely teased, harassed and attacked in, and enroute to/from school.
That sense of Purim irony resurfaced as I wondered to myself whether Amnesty International would consider the Kassams and Katyusha rockets that are fired at Israeli school children on an hourly bass to be ‘attacks’ or simply harassment.
Sadly, by Thursday night, the irony of condemning Israel’s acts of self-protection while pontificating about the need for safe schools, became apparent. A Jerusalem seminary was targeted by a Palestinian terrorist who sprayed a library full of teenage students with automatic gunfire, killing 8 and wounding many others.
Perhaps most ironic, Amnesty International and its fellow NGOs didn’t feel the need to report on the celebrations taking place in Gaza following news reports of the terror attack in Jerusalem.
I suppose that as long as the Palestinians have something positive to take their minds off the occupation, then everyone’s happy. Well almost.
David Bogner, formerly of Fairfield, CT, lives in the West Bank city of Efrat. Since moving to Israel in 2003, David has worked in marketing in Israel’s defense industry. David blogs at Treppenwitz .
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5 Comments
1. Elder of Ziyon:David, you missed one of the more Purim-like parts of the report, where they blame Israel for poor grades Gazan children are getting in UNRWA-run schools. 90% are flunking math, and it must be because of – no joke – Israeli restrictions on electricity!
I fisked this report in a recent posting.
Mar 9, 2008 - 4:01 am 2. tanstaafl:Amnesty International, Save the Children, Cafod, Care International and Christian Aid…
All groups and people sitting on their collective backsides, issuing ideological proclamations, risking nothing, personally. Self-righteous cowards, essentially, probably thinking their own mealy mouthed protests and vapid writings give them some kind of humanitarian creds.
What all those people in those organizations need is some neighbors to the west and north continuously lobbing rockets and missiles into their backyards, intent on wiping them from the face of the Earth.
Or some people blowing themselves up in their shopping malls, university cafeterias, restaurants, day care centers and seminaries, taking out their friends and co-workers on a first come, first served basis. Indiscriminately slaughtering them.
Neighbors whose hatred is so white hot, who are so fanatical and driven, that even if and when their own wives and children are inadvertently killed in retaliatory attacks, it is seen as another feather in their caps for sympathy in the international press corps and among “human rights” group(ies).
Neighbors who are most intensely affronted not when their own children are killed but when one of their own putative “leaders” (Sheikh Yassin, Imad Mugniyah) is successfully exterminated.
It has been that way for Israel, on and off, for the duration, 60 years.
Somebody at Amnesty International should read the Hamas Charter for a little reality check.
So called rights groups and the international press are culpable in giving Hamas and Hezbollah “sympathetic” coverage that helps keep the radical agenda alive.
Mar 9, 2008 - 5:23 am 3. tanstaafl:What do Amnesty et al. and the BBC have to say about Iran’s proxy war on Israel, through supplying and training Hamas (not to mention Hezbollah) ?
here
and
here
Mar 9, 2008 - 7:56 am 4. ForNow:Egyptian slums nearby to Gaza seem worse off than Gaza. Wonder on whom Amnesty International will blame that.
“Travel Brings Surprises to Gazans,”
Diaa Hadid, AP via WTOP, Feb. 1, 2008,
http://www.wtopnews.com/?sid=1337448
“After excursions to Egypt across a border breached by Hamas militants, some Palestinians pepper their local Arabic dialect with Egyptian expressions while others say they are shocked by the poverty there.”
It was also in the Washington Post but no longer appears at their Website.
Mar 9, 2008 - 4:06 pm 5. MysticSaint:a badly expressed wrong opinion.
Mar 10, 2008 - 12:55 am