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The Forum > Article Comments > Arab human rights abuses uncovered in explosive report > Comments

Arab human rights abuses uncovered in explosive report : Comments

By David Singer, published 21/12/2009

An explosive report, 'Bastion of Impunity, Mirage of Reform' has been released on the state of human rights in the Arab world.

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Who can argue with David Singer's condemnation of those vicious tyrannical regimes that plague the ME? However,the attempt to include Gaza is transparently propagandist,the chaotic, oppressive situation in Gaza is a product of Israel's policies,so Hamas is Israel's creation,and the Zionists need Hamas. Unfortunately the Palestinians pay the bill,as usual.
Posted by mac, Tuesday, 22 December 2009 2:57:32 PM
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Most of the comments on this article reflect a left-liberal desire to condemn Israel, out of a bleeding-heart concern for the situation of the Palestinians.

No country is perfect, not Israel, not Australia. But preparedness to bend over backwards for the Arab cause is a bizarre travesty of the central values of "left-liberalism". When last I looked, these included pluralist democracy, tolerance of social diversity, religious toleration, equality of the sexes and strong disapproval of corruption.

Over the sixty years or so since the Arab world got independence from colonialism, it has shown spectacular fecklessness. Its political failures stem from its own actions alone; they are not the fault of colonial oppressors. A good starting read is David Pryce-Jones: The Closed Circle - an interpretation of the Arabs.

More generally, there has been a lamentable failure of Islamic "civilization" since it closed the gates of ijtihad (independent critical thinking) about 800 years ago. The Arab world's woes, cultural and religious, are self-inflicted. It is not the fault of colonial oppressors, nor indeed of a "Jewish conspiracy", that the Islamic world had no post-mediaeval Renaissance, Reformation or Enlightenment.

Nick Cohen ("What's Left? How liberals lost their way") quotes ‘Moynihan’s Law’:
* The number of complaints about a nation’s violation of human rights is in inverse proportion to its actual violation of them.*
Thus, you can find out about Guantanamo Bay but not about North Korea’s prison camps. And you can document and badmouth Israel's actions, but not those of the Bashir regime in Sudan towards political and religious dissent generally, and genocidally toward the Christian and animist south and toward Darfur.

I could mention also the disgraceful spoiling action played last week by both Sudan and Saudi Arabia at the Copenhagen Conference.

It seems to me pretty rich to accuse ISRAEL of lacking moral clarity.
Posted by Glorfindel, Tuesday, 22 December 2009 11:03:41 PM
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