Sunday Posts

President Trump wants to withdraw from the UN Convention of Human Rights. Theresa May in Britain is promising to sweep aside Human Rights legislation. The governments in France, Germany and elsewhere in Europe are coming under pressure every day to suspend Human Rights obligations and deal with terrorism with a firmer hand. Saudi Arabia, which regularly chops off hands and heads, and cane and imprison women for the crime of being raped, made it to the UN Council for Human Rights. Israel, which has a habit of bombing at random to teach Palestinians a lesson, is seen as a model state by many, despite the very logic of Israel being founded as a protection against state terrorism. And, all this is happening with middle classes, including those from Minority and Immigrant communities, cheering on. This is a great paradox, but reasons are not difficult to understand. The idea of Human Rights became a central element of Post-War order because of the horrific experience of the Second Wor...

No country in the world can dare to behave like Israel, not even North Korea. When we lampoon Iran for violations of International Law, we talk about Israel's ability to go and strike within the sovereign Iranian territory at the same time. When we condemn human rights abuses by Burma, we gloss over the fact that Israelis can literally bulldoze homes and people, and also anyone, like Rachel Corrie, who comes in between . We invade countries to stop them from using weapons of mass destruction, but turn a blind eye when Israel uses deadly chemicals on, of all places, UN offices. We are just embarrassed when Israel copies our passports, steals our identities and go across the national borders to carry out political assassinations . We put sanctions against Iran for developing nuclear centrifuges, but keep mum about the Israeli weapons. If the usual standards were applied, Israel would be world's biggest and most consistent state sponsor of terrorism, the largest arms smuggler, the...