Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

The term “human rights activist” has been widely in vogue recently
in the Palestinian context.

Activists claim to be humanist in general, or acting on
behalf of Palestinians in particular. However, their very own actions will
often demonstrate the opposite.

The following questions will aid in determining who is “for
real.”

As a person concerned with human rights, have you ever spoken
out against the genocide and atrocities committed by Arab Sudanese against the Darfur
and South Sudanese?

Have you spoken out against the grave human rights
violations by Islamists in Northern Mali? The genocide in Rwanda? The mass
rapes and massacres in Eastern Congo?

No? Well, perhaps you are only concerned about human rights
violations when the victims are Muslim?

Have you spoken out against the Russian massacre of 30,000
Chechens? The Alawite massacre of tens of thousands of Sunni Syrians? The
amputations and decapitations in Saudi Arabia?

No? Well, perhaps you are solely concerned about Palestinians?

Have you said anything about the slaughter of 3,000
Palestinians by Christian Phalangists in Sabra and Shatila? About the Jordanian
massacre of more than 3,000 Palestinians during Black September? The ethnic
cleansing of some 400,000 Palestinians from Kuwait after the first Iraq war? The
ongoing murder of Palestinians by the Syrian regime in Yarmouk and elsewhere in
Syria? The extreme hardship and displacement of tens of thousands of
Palestinians in Syria?

Have you?

When Netanyahu recently offered to resettle Palestinians
from Syria to the West Bank, and Abbas refused, did you speak out against this inhumane
refusal? Did you call out on Abbas to save the lives of thousands of
Palestinians and drop his insistence on using them for his political goals?

Did you?

Recently, Netanyahu decided to build in E-1, a two-mile
stretch that connects the Jerusalem suburb of Ma’ale Adumim to the rest of
Jerusalem. The housing will be available indiscriminately to all Israeli
citizens—Arab, Jew, Christian and Muslim—irrespective of color or creed. The
area will not be closed off uniquely to Jews, as Abbas wants.

The construction will provide jobs to thousands of Palestinians,
and include a road connecting the northern and southern West Bank, a road that
has never existed, a road that will facilitate Palestinian movement.

Netanyahu’s announcement was described by many “human rights
activists” as a crime against humanity, an apartheid racist action, and as a grave
human rights violation. Did you rebuke these “activists” for sacrificing
Palestinian welfare yet again on the altar of Israel bashing?

If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes,’ then in
front of you stands a true human rights activist.

If the answers are ‘no,’ then this humanist is merely
involved in the rejection of the Jews’ right to self-determination, which may
lead to events such as the ones brilliantly depicted in Jonathan Bloomfield’s
award-winning thriller, “Palestine.”