My friend Yaron London posed a challenge.
Commenting on the US administration's pressure to promote human rights in the region, he wrote: "The prison and the courts, the olive groves and the army. He responded to the challenge and wrote a list about it."
Not hard to imagine. The UN cannot rule decently and reliably on the value issues of democracy and human rights. Its composition is clearly undemocratic: a quasi-parliamentary organization of "one state, one vote", most of which lack a real parliament, based on "one person, one vote". Most international organizations - political, professional and legal - are involved in the UN or tend to accept its rulings as defining "international law". In the "Human Rights Council", representatives of disgusting regimes and conciliatory states, with a sickening obsession, focus on defaming Israel. The international organizations that claim to promote human rights are in any case working with their eyes closed against Israel, in the service of the autocratic majority and barbaric elements, while neglecting the commitment to these rights.
Human rights organizations, headed in the previous generation by impressive and fair personalities, such as Ruth Gavison ("Civil Rights Association" 1999-1996) and Robert Bernstein (founder of Human Rights Watch who headed it from 1998-1978), were very helpful in their time. Since then they have undergone a hostile takeover of purists, radicals and sometimes anti-Israel, whose value world is often flattened to protect pigmented "victims" from the inherent wickedness of "privileged" whites. In 2009 Bernstein himself revealed in HRW such value distortions. Had the organizations not degenerated into this, open, democratic and human rights-sensitive societies could have built a decent external control, in their imperfect pursuit of reconciling their existence and security with the restraints required of their values. In the absence of balance and reliability - their contribution is marginal.
A fair examination of some of Israel's serious failures in these areas shows that the organizations London points out have not played an important role in identifying or treating them properly: awareness of the Kfar Qassem massacre, shame and condemnation of the time, apology at the highest level and determination not to do so Of international organizations, human rights organizations or international pressures. To this end, Israel did not need the hypocritical cry of arrogant Arab MKs of martyrs, the whips of Arafat and Assad. Following the "Line 300 affair" - including the dismissal of the organization's leaders, the blocking of their way to senior appointments and the exposure of distortions in its investigations that led to the appointment of the Landau Commission - did not occur due to outside pressure.
At these and other critical intersections, Israeli democracy has operated through public opinion, the legal system, the media, the Knesset and the executive branch, within the framework of balances and brakes.
All this has not prevented, and according to human experience, can not prevent, serious deviations from the behavior required of a multicultural society.
But they have proved that they can be located, learn their lessons, punish the culprits and establish means of control and restraint that condemn the wrong nature, warn of their dangers and make it difficult for them to return.
Had there been fair international organizations, and more human rights organizations not controlled by radicals, these could have mobilized their credibility and helped with the warning.
General Schwarzkopf was asked in the first Gulf War how he would conduct the war without French participation, and replied: "A war without France is likened to deer hunting without an accordion."
The same can be said of London's question about the protection of human rights in Israel without the international organizations and human rights organizations, in their current characteristics.
