Human Rights

INTRODUCTION

Few concepts have greater reach in the twenty-first century than human rights. Not surprisingly, Palestinians are at the forefront of claiming they are victims of human rights abuses at the hands of Israel. The situation is alleged to be so pervasive and so grave that the United Nations devotes hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the cause of Palestinian human rights, and over a billion dollars a year to support Palestinian "refugees". Human rights organizations similarly devote untold resources and attention to this issue. Barely a day goes by when the Palestinians themselves or a human rights organization does not accuse Israel of violations.¹

To fully understand the unique grasp of "Israel/Palestine" on the human rights imagination would require elaborate analyses of twentieth century history, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the development of international law, the emergence of non-governmental organizations, and many other topics. Only some of these are touched upon in the review below. But few concepts have been abused by Palestinians and their supporters the way that human rights have. This abuse—which above all takes the form of continual ritualized obsession and condemnation—demonstrates the nature of human rights in the twenty-first century. Human rights is not a defense of individual agency, need, or dignity, rather it has become a multibillion dollar industry and a global secular religion, which seeks to overturn the Westphalian order of sovereign nation-states.² Moreover, it is a secular religion in which the place of the Palestinians is deliberately sacralized, over and against that of Jews and Israel, as a function of post-colonial guilt and updated pagan, Christian, and post-Christian antisemitism.

HUMAN RIGHTS IN MODERN HISTORY

Human rights is a broad and nebulous concept. It purports to define, on the one hand, the "rights" of individuals as human beings, while on the other, to delineate the responsibilities of states towards individuals. There is an unfortunate tendency to regard human rights as something timeless, agreed upon, and unitary or integrated, an accepted body of beliefs, laws, and mechanisms.³ Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, human rights encompasses a vast assortment of concepts and instruments, some quite ancient such as treaties and national law, and others of more modern vintage, including international law, international customary law, declarations, and specific human rights instruments.

This diversity and unevenness has, among other things, given rise to growing international rule by the unelected; by activists in control of transnational organizations and with ready access to media platforms, and by lawyers, anxious to fill every space and control every behavior. In doing so, countless opportunities have been created, sometimes deliberately, for Palestinians to attack Israel.

The history of human rights reaches far into the past. From a practical standpoint it includes the Magna Carta and the right of habeas corpus and the Bill of Rights passed by Parliament in 1689 that limited the power of the king and the church. Special note should also be made of late eighteenth century documents that encapsulate somewhat contrasting visions, the American Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. The former expresses rights and law as a function of national sovereignty and limitations on government. The latter expresses a similar vision but also leaves open the possibility of rights being limited by laws and by "abuses of freedom". Note should also be made of the abolition of slavery by the West, an intellectual and social upheaval that dates precisely from 1833 to 1865.

The document that both encapsulates the modern notion of human rights and acts as a starting point for its current legal, indeed, theological, tradition, is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,⁴ adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its third session on 10 December 1948. As a document—built by Europeans and Americans—on the barely cold ashes of World War II, the declaration was designed as a keystone of the post-war international order.

Its preamble describes "the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the...