By Hagai El-Ad
There is no factual basis for listing Israel alongside countries like Zimbabwe or Venezuela, but that is not thanks to the government’s efforts – which have fully pushed legislation against human rights NGOs; if the government actually had its way, then the recent condemnation of Israel by UN High Commissioner Navi Pillay would have been quite accurate.
The Foreign Ministry was quick to characterize as “absurd” the recent statement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who grouped Israel together with the likes of Belarus, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and other countries in the dubious club of those that restrict the activities of civil society organizations. Israel, the only democratic country included on the list, was named as a result of a bill to restrict foreign-government funding to “political organizations” introduced last November. While the bill was approved by the Ministerial Committee on Legislation and supported by Prime Minister Netanyahu, he ultimately froze the bill, likely due to international pressure as well as the fact that the Attorney General warned it would not hold up in the High Court of Justice.
The truth is that the Foreign Ministry is right: Israel, inside the Green Line, does not have legal restrictions similar to those that exist in dictatorships, impeding on the activities of civil society organizations. The legal reality regarding the work of NGOs in Israel is still different. But if the legislative efforts initiated and led by Netanyahu, Lieberman and MKs Elkin, Kirschenbaum and Akunis had succeeded – well, in that case the High Commissioner’s statement may very well have been fairly accurate.
The Foreign Ministry should thus blame no one but the Israeli government itself, and especially the Foreign Minister. What Lieberman is now doing by criticizing Pillay is in fact trying to celebrate as an achievement the failure of his own party’s explicit legislative efforts to suppress the work of human rights organizations in Israel . After all, since the establishment of the current coalition government back in 2009, both Likud and Israel Beitenu competed with each other on leading the legislation drive against the activities of NGOs they wished to silence.
Some of the legislative initiatives that the government has been trying to promote – laws that if passed would have made Israel more like the countries that the Foreign Ministry now cries out against comparing Israel with, include: Manipulative taxation schemes targeting organizations that happen to be the ones criticizing government policies; preventing foreign funding from groups that the government wishes muted; requiring certain non-partisan, civil society organizations, to report to the Registrar of Political Parties (!); draconian restrictions (indeed, suspiciously similar to legislation in Ethiopia) on the permitted level of foreign governmental funding; not to mention the attempts to promote a politicized parliamentary inquiry committees against the activities of Israeli human rights organizations; the attempts to amend the Income Tax Law and to meddle with Israel’s Law of Associations, and much more.
This coalition government has invested a huge legislative effort in all of the above initiatives in recent years, an effort that if successful, would have bought Israel an unfortunate place of honor amongst the oppressive dictatorships that the High Commissioner condemned. But Israel not reaching that dubious place had nothing to do with the government, for it has initiated and supported these very efforts. In fact, it was the steadfast work of the very civil society organizations that the government targeted, as well as international condemnation and pressure, that revealed the truth behind these undemocratic legislative attempts and fought tirelessly against them.
Indeed, the word “absurd” is quite well-suited to describe all this. But not quite as the Foreign Ministry intended.
The author is the executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). This op-ed was originally published in Hebrew at Ha’okets.org
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caden
There are a myriad number of foreign governments with deep pockets who are interested in hurting Israel. Nobody was restricting activities of anybody in Israel. Just funding by hostile countries. And none of that even passed. I suggest the author spend a few months in Zimbabwe or North Korea if Israel is so oppressive.
Piotr Berman
Venezuela is a democratic country on the list, and if not “perfect”, neither is Israel.
caden
The UN was a decent idea in 1946. Now its just a theater of the absurd. Basically the mafia commission crossed with the circus.
max
I’d say that given what we know about NGOs in Russia, Ms. Navi Pillay’s statement not only shows the quality of her organization’s research (the ‘law’ isn’t a law) but also the strong political dimension of the UNHRC.
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It’s important to always remember:
- over 48% of UNHRC country-specific condemnations are towards Israel.
- the review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel is a permanent feature of every council session.
- the special rapporteur on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is its only expert mandate with no year of expiry
- the mandate is to “investigate human rights violations by Israel only, not by Palestinians”.
. No wonder that with such a record even their possibly just condemnations are ignored.
Practically all Western democracies, and the UN’s Secretary General have condemned the UNHRC cynical politicization of HR topics, but Hagai would still use it to present his point…
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On the positive side, Hagai reminds us that in Israel the democratic balance is well and working. Thanks for this reminder!
Palestinian
The imported Russian devil
Jack
Max,
Wow the pro-israeli western states and their lackey in place have condemned this organ. Says alot.
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The facts are still there, there are violations by Israel probably more than any other state because compared to other states, there is a time when the same western states and their lackey in place impose economic sanctions or other penalties, so of course you are seeing condemnation of Israel every year because they never follow the law and earlier resolutions. Many resolutions go back to 1967 war for example. If there were sanctions/penalties, Israel would have respected the law and thus wouldnt be a topic for UN at all. Its like a criminal saying a police is biased because they want to catch him for the continued crimes he commit.
max
Jack, your comments and the ignorance they exhibit are always refreshing
But maybe you do collect knowledge? The UNHRC was established in 2006.
I’d also like to thank you for letting us know that in your opinion Israel’s record is worse than that of Sudan, Syria, and Myanmar.
Jack
Max,
Your input didnt make much sense. If you want a civilized debate go ahead.
If you had read my message, Syria, Sudan, Myanmar have all been economic sanctioned and even condemned compared to Israel.
Cortez
I think part of it has to do with the fact the Israel also has a long history with human rights violations and has ideology uniquely premised on the exclusion of other religious/ethnic groups(despite their enduring presence). Most of it not all of its neighbors, despite having what I see to be worse human rights violations than Israel, either are big on forcing everyone to conform (and convert) and/or they also have big tent nationalities (I.e. Lebanese and Egyptian people are made up off different religions and ethnic groups). This has little to do with Judaism and everything to do with Ashkenazi and zionism. The UN has seen how destructive racial discrimination is in Germany, South Africa and Liberia and has concluded that it only leads to destruction and pain. In addition, the UN cares about indigenous groups too because they seem to get the worst of it and it’s no different in Israel or Jordan for that matter when one thinks about the Bedouins. Not that everyone else isn’t indigenous but those who remain agricultural and live different lifestyles get the worst discrimination. And the refugee situation just makes it worse because Israel never attempted to welcome them back the natives and now it’s the biggest refugee crisis in the Middle East.
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I don’t think the UN would care so much if there wasn’t a refugee crisis or if Israel decide to accept all Palestinins as Jewish people or to put the under the Zonist umbrella or tried to give them equal rights(or sneakily giving them less rights while proclaiming that all people are equal or Jews). It would be like any group in the middle east that treats minorities like shit which has its own host of problems but is much different then wholesale racial supperiority. If Israel was just a country of mizrahim and Muslims (which would essentially just be Arab Jews and Arab Muslims) it would be a joke different story.
caden
Cortez, you keep talking about the UN like its a worthy institution with
s ome sort of moral authority. It’s neither, its a sad joke. And has been for some time
Cortez
@caden
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But it is a worthy institution at least in the humans rights and humanitarian area. Obviously it’s not perfect but many of the people there care about the livelihood and future of people in the opt and Israel. A lot of the treaty language and focuses against religious, racial and ethnic discrimination and unnecessary wars came out the experience from World war II. So yes it does have moral authority to the extent that it’s kept consistent with pursuit against bad government policies which lead to hate, war and generally bad outcomes.
max
Cortez – I wonder what info you have in front of you to justify your statements.
Israel isn’t on top (that is, negative score) of any ranking for Human Rights abuse; in fact, it’s ranked better than some EU countries. On some lists, it is the only ME country designated as _free_ (Russian and China are not).
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The vast majority of people live in countries with worse HR abuses, the vast majority of countries rank worse than Israel for HR abuses.
Simple, verifiable facts.
Jack
Caden,
UN have the authority of this world with UNSC. Of course you are going to discredit UN since they condemn Israel for crimes.
Abigail
Are Caden and Max here because of the Israeli propaganda machine which decided to have Israeli nonsense put on sites like this? You two, take a lot at other websites like the ones from Physicians for Human Rights, Rabbis for Human Rights, B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, HaMoked. It is in Hebrew and in English. And then do some massive overhaul of your history knowledge instead of the corny old playing the victim (you omitted the A-word: Anti-semitism and the H-word: the Holocaust: did they teach you to do that? Must be paying a lot. But really, you basically try to distract people from the topic at hand: not clever.)