Human rights in Palestine

The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has caused worldwide divisions on the argument as to which side is right and which side is wrong. Most of the Western world and international media are obviously very sympathetic to the Israeli cause. The only global media that I have come across which expresses sympathy for the Palestinian cause is Al Jazeera.

I have therefore read very few articles and written arguments that have tried to give a balanced view of this conflict. A very insightful and powerful communication that has not received much attention is the recent resignation letter of Craig Mokhiber, the erstwhile director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights.  He writes: “I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it.”

He equates the current “successive waves of murder and persecution against the Palestinians” to previous genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, the Yazidi and the Rohingya.

Mokhiber calls the death of thousands of Palestinian civilians as a textbook case of genocide. The most interesting part of his letter to me was when he outlined ten essential points for a UN-based position. He precedes his ten points statement with a rhetorical question:  “For what would we work if we were true to our rhetorical admonitions about human rights and equality for all, accountability for perpetrators, redress for victims, protection of the vulnerable and empowerment for rights-holders, all under the rule of law?”

He also says that any discussion on the struggle between the Palestinians and the Israelis must be able to see beyond propagandistic smokescreens that distort the vision of justice, the courage to abandon fear and the will to truly take up the banner of human rights and peace.

Here are his ten essential points:

1. Legitimate action: It is time to abandon the two-state solution and base the UN position on internal human rights and international law.

2. This conflict is not just over land or religion or between two warring parties.  The reality is