French League of Human Rights (FIDH) places situation in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza on the same level as Darfur
On May 25, the French League of Human Rights (FIDH) released a press statement expressing great concern “about the situation in Occupied Palestinian Territory and the Gaza Strip in particular.” Keeping in line with past approaches, FIDH focuses on condemnations of Israeli actions while barely acknowledging ongoing Palestinian violence. Echoing one of their 2006 reports on Israel, FIDH underscored that the attitude of Israel and the international community toward the Palestinian Authority “was leading to further radicalization of the Palestinian people, it was exacerbating competition between Hamas and Fatah on the one hand, and between the government and the presidency on the other hand, leading towards possible open conflict between rival factions; it was leading to the bankruptcy of the PA, postponing as a result the existence of an independent Palestinian State on the West bank and in the Gaza Strip and subsequently pushing back a final peaceful resolution in the Middle East.” In FIDH’s view, continued Palestinian violence and corruption play little to no role in the current state of affairs in the Middle East and Israel is deserving of the lion’s share of the blame.
Furthermore, FIDH accuses Israel of continuing to occupy Gaza, applying a blatant double standard to Israeli defensive responses to the continued barrage of Palestinian rockets falling on civilian targets. While “firmly condemning…the rocket firing from Palestinian armed groups,” FIDH seems to think that only Israeli reactions are a “flagrant and serious violation of international law” and constitute “war crimes.” FIDH’s politicization of international human rights law only serves to undermine the pursuit of universal human rights.
POSITION PAPER
On June 4, 2007 FIDH presented a position paper to the 5th Session of the UN Human Rights Council. Contrary to the expectations of many, including Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch, that the UNHRC would rise above the extreme politicization of its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights, UNHRC has managed only to issue condemnations against Israel. Providing serious attention to ongoing mass murder in Sudan and egregious human violations in China, Russia, Zimbabwe, and other countries seem to fall outside UNHRC’s remit.
FIDH’s position paper encourages this lack of balance by placing the atrocities in Sudan and the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories on the same level, requiring “the Council to condemn inter alia the massive human rights violations that have occurred in Darfur and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” The position paper’s “Occupied Palestinian Territories” section entirely removes the context of Israeli security concerns by ignoring continuing terror threats and rocket attacks. Additionally, the position paper labels Israel’s separation barrier as the “annexation wall” and subsequently ignoring the sharp reduction in terror attacks since the barrier’s construction.
