International Human Rights Day

--From Mazim Qimseyeh

Today is the International Human rights day that celebrates the passage of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.  It is a remarkable document initially drafted by a Jewish
Frenchman (a universal humanist and non-Zionist) right after the atrocities of WWII.  The
document should constitute the real road map to peace (instead of the fake "road
map" that Bush is pushing and that in 2218 words does not even mention "Human
Rights" and "International Law").

I took the time to note very briefly Israel's violations of just about every article of
the declaration.  For further documentation of these violations, readers can google for
data from Israeli and International human rights organizations and International agencies
(e.g. Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem, Association for Civil Rights in Israel,
Physicians for human Rights, UN Human Rights Commission etc).  My brief notes are in
brackets below the articles of the Universal Declaration.

Please note that many countries including the US and Israel adopted this document yet many
violate it (to varying degrees).  The reason we highlight Israel is because it gets
billions of dollars of our tax money (the largest recipient of US foreign aid).  Note also
that Congress passed a law to prohibit aid to countries that persistently violate human
rights and yet thanks to the Israeli-apologist lobby, we are not enforcing US law.  We can
do it by education, action etc.  Lighting a candle is better than cursing the dark. And
silence is complicity.

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
http://justicewheels.org
http://qumsiyeh.org
----------------------------------------
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
December 10, 1948

[Mazin Qumsiyeh comments in Brackets on Israel's violations]

PREAMBLE

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all
members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have
outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall
enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as
the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort,
to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the
rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in
fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal
rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better
standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United
Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and
fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance
for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every
individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall
strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by
progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective
recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among
the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Article 1.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with
reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

[Israel does not recognize this.  Instead Zionism (here meaning Political Zionism, see
note at end on my use of this term) is built on the foundations of exceptional rights
(presumed available to members of one religion).  Zionism claims that Jews are chosen,
have suffered exceptionally, and that they are chosen to go live in Palestine, take land
from native people and treat them as subhuman. Of the 10 million Palestinians in the world
today, 7 million are refugees and displaced people and millions suffer as tenth class
citizens or as non-citizens under illegal Israeli occupation in the West Bank (including
East Jerusalem and Gaza strip.]

Article 2.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without
distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other
opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no
distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international
status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent,
trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

[Zionism from its inception declared its interest in promoting exceptionalism.  Israel is
unique among the nations in not being a country of its citizens but of “Jewish people
everywhere”.  No other country defines itself as a country for members of a particular
religion (including converts) regardless of where they live.  No other country has
supranational entities that have authority superceding state authority and native people
rights.  For example, the JNF is not a state agency but it has on its own website the
amazing statement that “The Jewish National Fund is the custodian of the land of Israel on
behalf of its owners Jewish people everywhere.”  91% of the land (most taken from the 530
Palestinian towns and villages depopulated between 1947-1949) is not privately owned but
turned over from the custodian of “absentee property” to the JNF (Jewish Agency before)
for lease by Jews.  More recently some of this land was turned over for “management” by
the Israel Lands authority.  I am very familiar with the latter group’s “work” with the
Israeli government in reclassifying Palestinian lands (including near my own village) to
“Green areas” (or taking over areas classified as military Zones) and then reclassifying
them as “residential” and then building Jewish only settlements/colonies on them.]

Article 3.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

[Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed in the past few decades.  In
trying to terrorize all the natives into leaving between December 1947-1950 over 35
massacres of civilians were committed. Terrorism was actually initiated in Palestine not
by Palestinians but by Zionist underground forces in the 1920 and 1930s.  These forces
actually set the stage for International terrorism by being the first to use letter bombs,
the first to detonate bombs on civilian buses, the first to bomb markets, etc.]

Article 4.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be
prohibited in all their forms.

[Israel forced Palestinian political prisoners to do hard labor in its prisons for many
years only discontinuing the process relatively recently. But on e could also talk of
economic slavery as Palestinian means of livelihood was slowly eroded with land
confiscation and economic strangulations forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to
work over decades for substandard wages to build Jewish colonies and settlements and to
work to service their Zionist masters.]

Article 5.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment.

[Israel engaged in massive inhumane treatment of Palestinians and collective punishment of
civilian populations for decades.  See palestineremembered.com. See human rights reports
on humiliation, degrading treatments, and punishments of Palestinians on the internet
(search "Israeli human rights violations"). For torture issues and its history
in Israel, see the Public Committee against Torture in Israel http://stoptorture.org.il Fo
r other relevant issue examples by video, see http://hub.witness.org/en/seeit/browse?keywo
rd=palestine&kinds= ]

Article 6.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

[After ethnically cleansing most Palestinians in what became Israel in 1949, Israel
occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 and for 40 years refuses to recognize these
residents as "persons before the law." Jewish settlers in the West Bank
(including Jerusalem) are subject to common Israeli law where as Palestinian Christians
and Muslims are subject to another set of Israeli laws that deny them basic rights. Gaza,
still Israeli occupied per International law, is treated as an "enemy entity"
and is basically a large open air prison.]

Article 7.

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal
protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in
violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

[Israel clearly violates that with regards to Christian and Muslim Palestinians under its
jurisdiction.  See above and search for Israeli discrimination against Palestinians.]

Article 8.

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts
violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

[Israeli Knesset laws were passed that forbids Palestinians from suing Israeli armed
forces or the Israeli state for damages including loss of life, home and property. Blanket
immunity is given to acts committed by Israelis.  Many Zionists wanted for murder and
terrorism became Israeli prime ministers and other leaders (e.g. Shamir, Begin).]

Article 9.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

[Most Palestinians live in exile or in internal displacement.  Over 10% of Palestinian men
in the West Bank and Gaza have spent time in Israeli jails.  Today 11,000 Palestinian
Christians and Muslims are held in Israeli jails, many in administrative detentions
without charges.  Most for simply rejecting the illegal occupation of their land, hundreds
perhaps thousands for non-violent resistance (BTW even violent resistance to illegal
occupation is actually supported and encouraged by international law). See http://www.ifam
ericansknew.org/stats/prisoners.html]

Article 10.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and
impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal
charge against him.

[Obviously violated by Israel.  There are no impartial tribunals.  Palestinians are
judged, when and if they are, by Zionist Jews who are raised to think that Palestinians
are Arabs who do not belong in this "land of Israel." Also Israel engaged in
hundreds of extra-judicial executions just in the past few years alone, and thousands more
before.]

Article 11.

(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until
proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees
necessary for his defense.

[See above.  This has been violated regularly and as a matter of law. From arrest and
torture for months without trials to extrajudicial execution, Israel is violating this
article.  See reports over the past 20 years by Btselem as examples.]

(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission
which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time
when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was
applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

[Palestinians living on their land for hundreds of years were considered guilty of living
on Jewish lands supposedly owned by Jews 2000 years before.  They were punished by being
removed and prevented from returning.  Their lands confiscated and turned over to the
"Jewish Agency" to use to settle European and other Jews.]

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or
correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to
the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

[Need we mention the hundreds of ways in which Israel and Zionists in general violate
this?  Israeli soldiers regularly ransacking thousands of Palestinian homes without cause
let alone warrants.  Israel has no laws to prevent warrantless wiretapping, spying, or
violating privacy of any Palestinian (such laws do exist for Israelis).  To the contrary
laws exist that encourage and promote such violations (see Israeli laws bundled under the
rubric of "security").]

Article 13.

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each
state.

[Palestinians even from Bethlehem cannot visit or pray in Arab East Jerusalem, a mere 7
miles distance.  They cannot even travel freely from any one of the 10 remaining
Palestinian Ghettos (Bantustans) to the other ghettos.]

(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his
country.

[Israel's basic laws deny Palestinian refugees the right to return to their lands and
confiscates land without compensation (so called “absentee property law”). So far 2/3rds
of the native Palestinians are refugees and displaced people (all simply for being of the
wrong religion).  This is a continuing process since just in the past 6 years alone 35,000
more Palestinians were made homeless by home demolitions and land confiscations.]

Article 14.

(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from
persecution.

[Israel routinely rejects asylum for persecuted people (unless they are Jewish).  We are
not even talking about the obvious persecuted Palestinians.  Even when Zionists led the
efforts to demonize the government in Sudan for Darfur, Israel deported Darfur refugees
who managed to sneak into its borders from Egypt.]

(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from
non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United
Nations.

Article 15.

(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change
his nationality.

[Palestinians were expelled from their lands and those who tried to sneak back in where
shot in the hundreds.  All were denied the nationality and remained as refugees without
nationality. For example, 350,000 Palestinian refugees are in Lebanon without nationality
because Israel refuses to give them their inalienable right to return to their homes and
lands.]

Article 16.

(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or
religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights
as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

[Israeli Knesset passed a unique law that prevents Israeli citizens who marry Palestinians
from living together in what they consider Israel (including East Jerusalem). But even
Israeli citizens who marry non-Palestinians face two standards: Israeli Jews have simple
and automatic family reunifications whereas Christians and Muslims wait years and have to
wade through much more bureaucracy.]

(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending
spouses.

(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to
protection by society and the State.

Article 17.

(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

[See above.  Suffice it to quote Moshe Dayan, famous Israeli General "Jewish villages
were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab
villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the
books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of
Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and
Kefar Yehushu'a in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not one single place built in this
country that did not have a former Arab population." See also on looting http://www.p
alestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story680.html ]

Article 18.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes
freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with
others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice,
worship and observance.

[Freedom of though was and is regularly violated by Israel.  In the occupied areas, all
manner of communications is controlled by the Israeli authorities including access to
airwaves etc. Freedom of religion is regularly prohibited by Israel.  Hundreds f mosques
and churches were demolished (among the 530 villages and towns depopulated and well after
that).  Palestinian Muslims and Christians in the West Bank (with rare exceptions) are
denied the right to go to Jerusalem to pray at their holiest sites. The Islamic Holy sites
in Jerusalem are the third holies to Islam and yet Muslims from around the world are also
denied the right to visit (even many US Muslims are denied entry at Israeli borders).
Jewish anti-Zionists or those Jews deemed supportive of Palestinian rights are also denied
entry to visit even if they are religious.]

Article 19.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom
to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

[See above.  Israeli apologists in the US frequently silenced free speech and caused
people who speak out to lose their jobs, e.g. Cynthia McKinney, Norman Finkelstein etc.]

Article 20.

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

[Peaceful assembly was routinely attacked.  During the first Intifada even clandestine
assembly by students to attend schools was busted.  Associations and non-governmental
organizations were routinely disbanded and their leadership thrown in jail.  There are
also many more recent examples. Take the weekly peaceful Bil'in demonstration that is
regularly attacked by the Israeli occupation forces with many peaceful demonstrators
injured and arrested See http://www.bilin-village.org/english/discover-bilin/ ]

Article 21.

(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or
through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will
shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal
suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

[Israel defines itself as a "Jewish" and "democratic" country.  The
problem is that there is a contradiction.  Non-Jews were thinned out by ethnic cleansing
when Israel was established.  Israeli law was then extended from the Jordan to the
Mediterranean after Israel occupied the remaining 22% of Palestine. Laws were introduced
to keep things in limbo so that Israe continues to import new Jewish immigrants and hope
to expand its Jewish majority while denying the Palestinians their basic rights.  When
Palestinian birth rate and failure of Israel's policies of economic strangulation to cause
massive additional Palestinian decrease in population, Israel and its allies pushed for a
two state solution (really a state and Palestinian Ghettos called "state").  But
this talk has now dragged on for 17 years and in the meantime Israel continues to violate
the provisions of this article.]

Article 22.

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to
realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with
the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights
indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

[Palestinians ethnically cleansed and those in the West Bank and Gaza obviously have no
such right. The Palestinian minority within the Green line (those who managed to stay and
eventually get Israeli citizenship) suffer discrimination in social and health services. 
See Association for Civil Rights in Israel http://www.acri.org.il and Israel Legal
resource center http://www.stopisraeliapartheid.org ]

Article 23.

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable
conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

[Israel confiscated and destroyed most Palestinian ways of making a living.  The few jobs
that remains are inaccessible to Palestinians because of drastic movement restrictions,
checkpoints etc.]

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

[When Palestinians were allowed to work for Israelis for example in settlement
constructions, their employers were exempt from complying Israeli minimum wage laws and
other worker protection laws]

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for
himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if
necessary, by other means of social protection.

[see above]

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his
interests.

[Israel busted Palestinian trade unions on numerous occasions in the past six decades]

Article 24.

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working
hours and periodic holidays with pay.

[Palestinians can't even get a day of peace from Israeli incursions, extrajudicial
assassinations, land confiscations, settlement expansions etc...]

Article 25.

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being
of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and
necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment,
sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances
beyond his control.

[ Per Capita income for Jewish Israelis $19,000, Israeli Arabs $6000 and Palestinians
under Israeli occupation