“Israel has become so demonized” in human rights organizations, says Danielle Haas, former senior editor at Human Rights Watch (HRW), that there’s “no space to see Israelis as victims, or to absorb nuance or voices that challenge their orthodoxies. In a conceptual universe where Israel is an occupier-colonizer-apartheid state, it is a priori the aggressor, …
Continue reading “Confronting the Anti-Israel Narrative-Industrial Complex”
After the United Nations released a 23-page report this week detailing gang rapes and genital mutilation of Israeli women and girls during the Hamas-led slaughter of October 7, the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women and girls said she’s not convinced that any rapes took place. No one should be surprised, for at least two reasons. First, the special rapporteur, Reem Alsalem, …
Continue reading “The UN Needs To Restore Its Credibility With Israel”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week signaled a partial reversal of his coalition’s plan that would threaten the nation’s democratic character by letting the Knesset override judicial decisions, calling the effort a “mistake.” The signal was a heartening one to the plan’s opponents at home, and to nervous audiences abroad who fear Netanyahu and …
Continue reading “Israel’s Critics Sidestep Bigger Threats Elsewhere”
President Joe Biden’s state dinner for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist who is cracking down on opposition leaders, journalists and minorities, points up the compromises presidents make as they balance America’s security needs with its desire to promote freedom and democracy around the world. Biden seeks closer U.S. ties with India, which recently became the …
Continue reading “Joe Biden keeps snubbing Netanyahu – here’s why”
To a devoted Zionist, Israel’s response to Russia’s slaughter in Ukraine is an agonizing sight. That’s because the siege of Ukraine presents a particularly challenging clash between Israel’s strategic and moral interests. On the one hand, Israel is heavily dependent on Russia as it confronts the radical regime in Iran and its terrorist proxies in …
“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could … cross the Alps into Switzerland,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at a Washington rally this week to protest vaccine mandates. “You could hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did.” Kennedy’s suggestion that people suffer more from vaccine mandates than the victims of Adolf Hitler’s reign is particularly …
Continue reading “The problem with Holocaust trivialization”
The West faces a key test of its commitment to human rights as the Taliban cements its rigid rule in Kabul. At the moment, Western nations and the global financial institutions over which they hold considerable sway are demanding that the Taliban respect human rights as a condition of receiving the economic aid that Afghanistan …
Continue reading “The West Faces A Big Human Rights Test With The Taliban”