ZGram - 11/8/2004 - "Joh Domingo: Down with Human Rights!"

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ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

November 8, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

I have a marvelously articulate friend somewhere in New Zealand to 
whom I turn for relief whenever I think that I will choke on oily 
platitudes like "Human Rights" - that ever-ready, odious cliché with 
which to clobber common sense and fairness. 

Here's how my intellectual buddy deals with one of those 
insufferable, pompous asses that plague intelligent discourse - 
including, sad to say, Revisionism.  I can think of one right now 
whose baying has irked me for years!

Before I say more, let's let my literary soul mate speak:

[START]

Down with Human Rights by Joh Domingo

I do believe that David (last name deleted) is being exposed, not 
that it was intended, as a monomaniacal nagger. All we have to do, he 
avers, is to loudly protest the violations of the Human Rights of the 
Palestinians, to bring down the Zionist edifice - and he believes 
nobody can disagree with that. Naturally such arguments belong in 
"Primary school": that if one disagrees with a proposition, one 
agrees with its opposite.

  It goes a little farther than that; Dave has aggressively confronted 
many people, always arguing along the same lines. He seems utterly 
convinced that he on to something; and that nobody can "debunk" his 
arguments. It explains his reaction to my original essay, which 
hardly dwells on the Palestine issue at all, but attempts a more 
universal discourse about the ethics of Human-Rights activism. Dave 
distills it down to "talking points" that are more or less focused 
around his monomania. Dave wants to pick a fight, and in his 
frustrated way, anyone will do. He comes close to being the classic 
definition of a belligerent antagonist.

  If Dave has deigned to read this far, he should be aware that it is 
likely that this exchange is going to be published, and that it is in 
his interest to pay attention, and respond accordingly. I believe 
that his proposition is full of it, and intend to expose its 
feeble-mindedness. He should also be placed on notice, that I am not 
American, nor "Western", nor am I not a liberal, big "L", or little 
"l", and, don't intend to confine myself to his paradigm, of what 
constitutes "interesting discourse".

  Dave is naturally alarmed at my assertions that human rights 
activists are dupes of the Elite, since human rights activism forms 
the core of his strategy. It is a sincere tactic, he believes, 
because everyone knows that violating human rights is wrong, and 
should be condemned at every opportunity. Ethnic Cleansing is wrong, 
broad daylight Ethnic Cleansing is wrong. Let us not forget, also, 
that ethnic cleansing is wrong. Did I mention that Ethnic cleansing 
is wrong? We have to let people know that Ethnic Cleansing is wrong, 
and what is happening to the Palestinian people is Ethnic Cleansing.

  Let us not misconstrue what Dave repeats ad-nauseam; Zionism is 
virulent Racism, and what is happening to the Palestinians is the 
result of a virulent racist mindset that sees them as being 
sub-human. Friends of Palestine should mobilize to expose the nature 
of the Jewish State, and confront Zionist apologists consistently 
with this argument, since they have absolutely no argument to counter 
it. As proof, Dave states that he is yet to lose a debate with a 
Zionist using this argument. He is perplexed that ostensible 
anti-Zionists do not push it more fervently.

  I really am not familiar with the Israel/Palestine discourse in the 
United States, but I have engaged in extensive debate with American 
Zionists, and have used this argument regularly. In my mind I have 
"won every debate"; but the result was the absolute opposite to what 
Dave implies would be the case. In almost every instance, it was I 
that was deemed to have violated the basic human right of the Jewish 
people. In this case, the right to be free of an anti-Semitism that 
particularizes Jewish depredations against others, in the face of the 
obvious depredations of a multitude of Muslims and Muslim States. 
Quite the Human Rights champions, these Zionist, it is clear that 
they have no compunction about defining what constitutes "Human 
Rights Abuses" and what justifies "Human Rights Abuses".

  <http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?boardID=21321&discussionID=160736>http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?boardID=21321&discussionID=160736

  <http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?boardID=21321&discussionID=297058>http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?boardID=21321&discussionID=297058

  <http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?boardID=21321&discussionID=158242>http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?boardID=21321&discussionID=158242

  Please note: In the last thread Davidhoward, a supposed "human 
rights activist", agrees with my position, but in a matter of a few 
threads, turns on me as a "rabid anti-Semite" who ignores the "human 
rights violations" of Arabs and "Fundamentalist Muslims".

  <http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?boardID=21321&discussionID=217921>http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?boardID=21321&discussionID=217921

  I bring this up because it is basic to the aggression that Dave 
brings to the subject, and is the hallmark of his belligerence 
towards a number of people that have repeatedly declared their 
allegiance to the Palestinian struggle. I find it hard to imagine 
that they all have not experienced similar episodes of "debate" with 
Zionists, which underpins Dave"s "strategy". A less myopic person 
would assume it to be the norm, rather than the exception for true 
friends of Palestine. It is also instructive, that while it is 
conceivable that a number of recipients to my essay would disagree, 
at least in part, with my thesis; none have seen fit to challenge its 
broader argument, except for Dave that is. "Human rights" is more 
than a definition by human rights activists and it is those that 
enforce it who define it. It is the enforcers that determine what 
constitutes a situation that would entail a valid intervention.

  I may have missed just how Dave envisions the ultimate outcome of 
his strategy, but it is clear that regardless, someone would have to 
enforce the resulting consensus that would ensue from the massive 
outcry arising from publicizing Israeli "Human Rights Violations". 
Presumably, it would be America that would enforce the Human Rights 
of the Palestinians, or possibly, the United Nations that would 
enforce it. It should cause us to shudder - the prospect of 
Interventionist forces protecting Palestinian rights. It would 
probably be as nauseating as Interventionist Forces protecting Iraqi 
Human Rights.

  But Dave chooses to ignore the main thrust of my thesis, that Human 
Rights doctrine is an exercise in propaganda, used to justify 
intervention. Dave intends it to be "genuine" and to be embodied in 
the fight for Justice. However, he neglects to inform just how the 
goal of "justice" is to be accomplished without enforcement of the 
principles of "genuine" Human Rights. In his quest to find something 
to "counter" his argument, to protest against the use of his tax 
dollars to finance the racist violence against the Palestinians, Dave 
chooses to ignore every reality, including his right to become a tax 
resister. Surely it is an obligation to resist paying tax, if some of 
it is to be used to finance Racist slaughter? What can they do, 
except to imprison him? Boy, wouldn"t THAT show us up for the effete 
charlatans that we obviously are?

  Dave takes great comfort in his observation that I have found little 
to disagree with him on. But I don't agree with him at all; I don't 
even believe we are on the same side. We might agree that it is wrong 
if Palestinians are ethnically cleansed from their own land, but it 
unclear why he believes it is wrong, except that it is a violation of 
their "Human Rights". If Ethnic Cleansing is wrong, by that 
yardstick, then the separation of the sexes in Islam is wrong, hijab 
is wrong, and Muslims are nothing but Human Rights abusers, as the 
Zionists insist. Then, the prohibition on Women driving in Saudi 
Arabia, FGM, and any social system apart from Democratic liberalism 
is wrong, because it violates the same statute that makes Ethnic 
Cleansing wrong, and it is a Western Liberal statute, imposed on a 
world tormented by the insidious evil of Western Liberalism.

  Liberte, egalite and fraternite is the rallying cry of Western 
Liberalism, but in the real world, egalite and fraternite get left at 
home, and in the colonies, they take any Liberte they choose. It is 
dumb to ignore history, but it is insanity to ignore experience. Just 
as it behooved colonized people to slit the throats of the 
"civilizing" colonizers, non-Western people are well advised to shoot 
Human Rights Activists, for the doctrine of "Human Rights" is nothing 
but a neo-Liberal construct to justify its interventions. These 
interventions kill more people than any holocaust they are supposed 
to prevent. Dave should clarify just what intervention he seeks, 
because an American military intervention in Palestine is bound to 
kill Palestinians in huge numbers, a prospect his lack of experience 
causes him to be blind to.

  But perhaps Dave feels that the desperate circumstance of the 
Palestinian people justifies a response from Americans, and, that 
Americans are incapable of understanding what is happening to the 
Palestinian people outside the doctrine of Human Rights. He fails to 
recognize that it is the doctrine of Human Rights that legitimates 
Israel's behavior, when measured by a bigoted audience against the 
behavior of Israel's enemies, as so amply demonstrated by Gentile 
responses to my critique of Israel's Human Rights abuses on the 
beliefnet forum. To American audiences, Human Rights abuses can only 
be measured using the "saints" and "savages" test. Human Rights 
abuses by a "civilized" society can never be equivalent to the Human 
Rights abuses of a "savage" society. In the former it is an 
"aberration", never a defect; in the latter it is an intrinsic 
attribute. The slaughter of 120 civilians during one week in Gaza can 
never be the equivalent to the abuses of the social system in Saudi 
Arabia, in their minds. Saudi Arabia will always be equivalent to a 
Prussian Dictatorship, not Israel, whatever Israel does.

  Dave attempts to dismiss me as being rather "boring" and hardly 
worth debating with. But, it is he that brought this fight to me, not 
I that brought it to him. He alludes to "censorship", by myself, of 
his opinion on the togethernet group without substantiation. While I 
have no compunction about deleting idiotic posts, Dave has never been 
censored by myself, or anyone else for that matter, and has helped 
himself to a generous amount of our patience, before unsubscribing 
himself in a pique after the deletion of one of his umpteenth 
repetitive posts. It seems Dave loves repeating himself, as if we are 
indolent morons. We had refused to charge into battle with him, 
believing that his strategy, to say the least, needed work. He may 
feel that my arguments are not worth reading, let alone worth 
responding to, but it is for the record, and for the record; I will 
allow him the last word, if he chooses.

  JohD