Why Not Criticize Hamas's Rights Violations?

[oberliner]

In their response to my claim that the anti-Zionist left downplays abuses by Hamas, Mondoweiss's Adam Horowitz and Scott Roth declare that, “the struggle to reform Palestinian society is an issue for the Palestinian people to decide for themselves…we don’t see it as our place to dictate to Palestinians what their society should look like.” Hmm. Where have I heard language like that before? Oh yes, from the American Jewish establishment, which declares endlessly that Israeli policy “is an issue for the Israeli people to decide for themselves… we don’t see it as our place to dictate to Israelis what their society should look like.”

Horowitz and Roth think there’s a difference, that it’s okay to focus on Israeli abuses of Palestinians but not Palestinian abuses of Palestinians for several reasons. First, “because of our personal relationship with Israel as Jews.” But even it’s okay for Jews to say they feel a special burden to oppose abuses committed by a Jewish state, many of Mondoweiss’s contributors are not Jewish. What’s their excuse?

Horowitz and Roth’s second answer is that it’s okay to focus on Israel’s misdeeds, and not Hamas’s, because America doesn’t give the latter money. “If the U.S. government were funding Hamas,” they write, “We’d feel differently.” But why should leftists only vigorously criticize governments and movements that the United States funds. Should the left have been silent about apartheid South Africa in the 1980s because it wasn’t receiving U.S. aid? Would Horowitz and Roth tell people from countries that don’t give Israel economic, political or military assistance that they should therefore not be concerned about its behavior in the West Bank? Yes, we have a special responsibility for overseas behavior in which our governments are directly implicated. But Human Rights Watch doesn’t limit its focus to countries that receive U.S. aid; it views human rights as universal. By admitting that they’re more interested in human rights violations when Israel commits them than when Hamas does, Horowitz and Roth are implying that they don’t really see human rights as universal. What matters for them is less the oppression itself than nature of the entity doing the oppressing. As I wrote, there’s a long and unhappy tradition of this on the left, a long and unhappy tradition of ignoring human rights abuse unless it can be linked to America or capitalism or the West. It’s a history that Mondoweiss is continuing to this day.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/13/why-not-criticize-hamas-s-rights-violations.html

[shira]

1. No surprise as to what the anti-Israel hordes are all about.

At least Mondoweiss had the guts to admit this isn't about any concern for Palestinian human rights.

A little honesty from otherwise pathological liars.

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It's good to see Beinart finally figuring this shit out.

[oberliner]

2. He makes some excellent points

Seems to hit a nerve with some, while others choose to ignore.