Thoughts about human rights

When I started hosting Human Rights Network at Care2 2004 I was very hopeful. I have always loved UN and the first thing I posted as a host was an effort to create discussion about the UN Declaration of Human Rights. I posted each article, and sat down to wait for responses. I thought every member of HRN was just as enthusiastic about human rights as I was, and I was expecting to be informed and educated about how the human rights are being violated all over the world, what can be done about it, what good is already being done - and no-one was interested in having the discussion.

During the following 4 years I tried to engage the members in different issues, but it just didn't work. If people wanted to talk, they would talk about
a) their own personal problems, or the problems their cousins, friends, family members had.
b) USA
c) their own personal pet peeves, like Tibet or Israel-Palestine. ESPECIALLY Israel-Palestine
d) animal rights

People just are not interested in human rights in general. What happens in Rwanda or Sudan is rather uninteresting. What happens in Israel, how ever small it is, is very interesting and people are ready to walk over corpses to scream at Israel. I have never understood this mentality.

The so-called Pro-Palestinians don't care one bit about Palestinians.

They are not the least interested on whether the aid from "Ships to Gaza" ever got to Palestine. The main interest is whether the ships got to Gaza. They could just as well send empty ships with the intention to break the blockade. It would cost less, and if Israel sank the ships they could invent hundreds of names of people on board who were "brutally murdered by Israeli pirates" or something. Frankly, they could sink the ship themselves, if it doesn't reach Gaza and THEN scream about the hundreds of INNOCENT CIVILIANS BRUTALLY MURDERED BY THE EVIL EUROPEAN COLONIAL POWER. That way they would reach the exact goal they want to reach.

It is tragicomic to watch how these so-called Pro-Palestinians make criminals of European politicians and peace prize winners, who don't even understand what is happening...
If two entities are at war with each other, it is the international law of wartime that counts.
According to this law, it is fully legal for Israel to put Gaza under blockade and stop every ship on its way to Gaza to go through the cargo. If they find nothing suspect and IF THEY ARE NOT RESISTED IN THIS, they must let the ship pass. If the ships won't stop and let the Israelis in for the inspection, if the Israelis are attacked in any way on the ship or from the ship, (yes, water cannons count), if they are obstructed, disturbed, hindered, stopped or refused to check the cargo in any way, the people on ship has turned from "civilian aid workers" to "unlawful combatants", and they may be detained by Israel and prosecuted under Israeli laws. Oops...

I posted "2010 crimes against humanity watch list"
Israel-Palestine doesn't even get to the list. You see, how ever black the so-called pro-Palestinians paint the situation, the situation is much worse in many other places here on earth. 2009 one Swedish idiot said Gaza war was "the genocide of the year". It's not even a genocide. At the same time, in Darfur millions of people have lost their homes, hundreds of thousands have been killed, people are being raped, mamed and tortured right and left, no-one is safe... but that about 1500 Palestinians were killed IN A WAR, that's much, much worse.

Really - the main factor of genocide is "aim to exterminate a group of people".
Now, Israel is one of the strongest military powers in the world. The so-called pro-Palestinians claim that Israel is ruthless, hateful, cruel and inhumane, only after to humiliate and kill Palestinians. Why haven't they done it already? If their goal would be to kill all Palestinians on earth, why don't they? What are they waiting for?
They could have done it in the 60's and 70's and no-one would have cared one bit.
They could do it now, and then have the country revolt against their leaders and leave the leaders to Hague to be condemned for crimes against humanity and genocide of the Palestinian people. That would leave the rest of Israel free from the "Palestinian problem".
They haven't done this, and there are no signs of that they would even consider this.

Apartheid, yes, inhumane treatment of people, yes, illegal actions, violating the international laws, failure to acceptably provide proper living conditions, food, water, shelter, protection, and so on and so forth - yes. Quite enough to prosecute Israel's leaders for crimes against humanity. But genocide? No.
Was what happened on Mavi Marmara a massacre? No. A massacre is "the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder." At Mavi Marmara 10 men, who were involved in armed fighting, died. (Yes, armed - knives, slingshots and iron pipes count as arms. You can kill a person with those things.) Not "indiscriminate" killing of "unarmed people".
Was it an act of piracy? No. Piracy is "illegal violence at sea". Israel's violence was legal.
One can discuss if it was proportionate, but we know the Israeli soldiers had a reason to fear for their lives, so self-defense is a credible explanation.

One thing is sure - as we cannot accept Israel's investigation, because Israel is involved in the incident, we cannot accept the "eye witness reports" either, as they too were involved in the incident, and I'm sure one can find enough evidence of their negative attitude towards Israel. They would interpret anything they see to be negative for Israel, and, frankly, after having discussed with dozens if not hundreds of the so-called Pro-Palestinians, I haven't so far met more than one or two who actually CAN have a DISCUSSION - I'm sure they would lie, exaggerate the bad things, not mention the good things, cheat and deceive as much as they can, just to make Israel look bad. We have already seen this happen - "piracy", "massacre", "illegal attack", "innocent civilians", "unarmed aid workers" and what not.

Nevertheless, the Swedish newspapers had the Ships to Gaza as front page news FOR A WEEK.
During the same week following things happened:
They found a mass grave in Mexico
Six Turkish soldiers are killed in a rocket attack by assumably Kurdish rebels
A Christian bishop is murdered in his own garden by his driver in Turkey.
Gunmen storm a hospital in Pakistan and kill 5
At least 12 are killed and 25 injured in Cumbria shootings.
18 people were executed in Libya
15 die in a minibus accident in the Philippines
14 people die when a house collapses in Bangladesh. A couple of days later 109 people dies in a fire, at least 50 are injured.
3 people are killed and 6 wounded when a WWII bomb explodes in Germany
Hundreds of people are killed in a heatwave in South Asia.
A national peace conference opens in Kabul and is attacked by rockets, shootings and a suicide bomber.
At least 20 are killed and 60 injured in fighting between government forces and islamist militants in Somalia.
Third phase of MARS-500 project started.
Dozens die in landslides and flooding in china
163 people die from lead poisoning in Nigeria

Not one of these news was considered more important or interesting than bickering about Ships to Gaza. Of course it's more important to hear how a Swedish religion professor whines about how he lost his suitcase in the incident.

And then people tell me that *I* have weird values :-D