Steven Friedman, Business Day
IT IS hard to convince
many in the Middle East that liberal democracy can work for them when the
headlines from Israel and Palestine signal that liberalism now insists that all
people should enjoy equal rights — unless they are Palestinian.
The Israeli state’s
treatment of Palestinians has been a blind spot for liberals here and abroad
for years. Liberals, who believe in the right of all to vote in free elections,
did not protest when the winners of Palestinian elections were rewarded with Israeli
and US sanctions and military action, a signal that Palestinians can elect who
they like as long as the Israelis like them too.
Liberalism believes in the right of all to own property. But liberals do not seem to mind an Israeli state in which 93% of the land is available to only one ethnic group. Liberalism believes in freedom of movement and choice. But the liberal mainstream has no problem with a state that requires Palestinians to stand in line for hours if they want to move around their own city and restricts who they can marry. Liberalism believes states should not discriminate on grounds of race or religions — but liberals hurl abuse at anyone who advocates a common democracy for Israelis and Palestinians.
Because the values
liberals want to spread around the world do not seem to apply in Palestine,
they risk being seen in much of the Middle East as a cultural bias, not a
recipe for freedom.
The double standard has
been particularly clear these past few days. Israeli violations of liberal principles
have been obvious, whatever your view on whether there should be a state for
one ethnic group.
The present violence was
sparked when three Israeli teenagers living in the Palestinian territories
Israel occupies were murdered. The Israeli government blamed the Islamist
movement, Hamas (the winner of the election it refused to recognise), and
launched punitive action not only against it but the people of Gaza. It has
killed scores of Palestinians, including children, and demolished houses.
Palestinians have retaliated but thus far there has not been a single Israeli
casualty.
Liberalism believes in
the rule of law. This means that civilised states, when their citizens are
murdered, arrest the perpetrators and try them in court. The Israeli government
has, without producing any evidence that Hamas was responsible, punished it
anyway. Its claims are particularly open to question because it has a motive
for blaming Hamas. Having insisted that it could not conclude a peace agreement
with Hamas’s rival, Fatah, because a deal would not bind Hamas, it recently
refused to negotiate any longer with Fatah because it had signed a unity
agreement with Hamas (and so presumably could now bind it!). This obvious ploy
to avoid peace talks irritated even the Americans; the Israeli government,
which relies on US aid, needed a diversion. Blaming Hamas for the killings
provided it. Yet mainstream liberals have not challenged the Israelis to
produce evidence of their claims: they seem to have no problem with the
principle that a person or organisation is guilty of a crime if the head of
government says they are.
The rule of law — and
basic fairness — also means that only people who committed a crime should be
punished. And yet the Israeli government seems entitled to kill or wound scores
of Palestinians who are not accused of anything. The mob’s murder of the
Palestinian youth has been condemned but apparently liberal opinion believes
that it is acceptable to kill innocent people as long as the killers are
wearing an Israeli military uniform.
These latest incidents
confirm that you don’t need to be radical or Islamist to see Israeli actions as
gross human rights abuses. Basic liberal principles are violated by the Israeli
state every day.
So why this blind spot?
Because most liberals are more influenced by the culture of which they are a
part than they would care to admit — and the culture sees Palestinians as
terrorists, not serial victims of human rights abuse. The depth of the
prejudice is illustrated by the US media’s coverage of the events.
To name but two examples,
a CNN interviewer claimed that Palestinians "want to die" because
they "live in a culture of martyrdom". An ABC News broadcast told
viewers that a devastated Palestinian neighbourhood shown on screen was an Israeli
area attacked by Palestinians (it apologised, but the image of the victims as
perpetrators surely remained in many viewers’ minds). The effect, of course, is
to portray Israelis as victims whose lives are threatened despite the fact that
not a single one has suffered harm from present Palestinian retaliation to
Israeli violence. In a climate this biased, it is no wonder that liberals cross
Palestinians off the list of human beings entitled to rights.
