When will they have the balls to take a real stand on human rights?
Image by ISM Palestine on Flickr.com
If you read the headlines in the last couple of days, the narrative is clear. You would be informed that Hamas carried out a ‘completely unprovoked attack’. Western journalists will also ask you to stand with Israel. Because Human Rights abuses like the ones Hamas carries out are unacceptable.
Well, I agree about the Human Rights abuses. What I do not agree about is how Western journalists and politicians try to frame this as ‘unprovoked’. Because it was not. The narrative can only be upheld through collective amnesia in the West.
All those media reports conveniently forget some facts. Like the fact that Human Rights abuses have been rampant in Gaza for decades. Israeli settlers occupied Palestinian land illegally by brute force the whole time. Israel routinely forces Palestinians to drink polluted water. Israeli snipers have killed Palestinian women and children for years. This happened out in the open, by the way. The Israeli human rights abuses are very well documented. Even by western Human Rights Organizations.
As usual, because Israel is the biggest ally in the Middle East, no one cared. Let’s not even talk about the Israeli bombing campaigns in Syria.
This attack has been a long time coming.
The Real Threat to a Rule-Based Order Is the Hypocrisy of the West
If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be funny how blatant the hypocrisy is in the West. Especially, when it comes to human rights and the so-called rule-based order. Day after day, western journalists are busy documenting human rights abuses. Always in countries that are far away, and just happen to be our perceived enemies. We don’t need censorship by the government. In fact, our hypocritical Western journalists censor themselves. You will never find a Western news outlet that has any balls when it comes to Human Rights. They never confront the West and its allies about their human rights abuses.
It is exactly this hypocrisy that makes the fight for Human Rights impossible. Honestly, why is it okay to kill Palestinian mothers and children? Yet it is not okay to do the same to Israeli ones? Why should Hamas even care? They know as well as we do, that the West does not care about human rights.
The record of Western Crimes is long.
- Genocides in Yemen with Western funding
- Torturing journalists,
- Killing refugees
- Illegal occupations of oil fields in Syria
You can always count on Western journalists to leave out these bits of context. They need to. Otherwise, it is impossible to uphold their bullshit narrative of caring for human rights.
Dictators around the world just use the Western playbook to justify their villainy. Somehow, western journalists never hold any Western countries to the same standard as they do to Russia, China, or anyone else, really.
Western outrage about Human Rights abuses is just for show. You know it, I know it, Putin knows it, Xi and the leaders of Hamas know it.
If Western Journalists Will Not Call for Universal Human Rights, Others Need to Step Up
The response of Israel is as expected. First, they bomb hospitals and schools. Then they deny access to water to all civilians in Gaza. They may even use it to justify the genocide they have been lusting for so long time. The 2-state solution died long ago together with Western integrity.
From the looks of it, a ground invasion is in the cards.
Israel can be sure to not receive critical questions from any Western journalists. They will be busy celebrating their collective amnesia. And they will again peddle us their false narrative of the West and its allies as a force for good. I stopped buying it a long time ago. I hope that the hypocrisy becomes so hard to bear, that it becomes impossible to buy for others, as well.
There is only one way to stop this madness. We need to get behind human rights unequivocally. Globally. Without any loopholes for Western allies. Only then can we have the peaceful world order we wish for. The document bears the name of the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights‘ for a Reason.
We need the balls to call out the West and, in this case, Israel, on their Human Rights abuses. Western journalists do not have the balls to do it. So it is up to countless voices like ours to do the job.
