Israel famous gets allot of flack over its human rights record in the occupied territories. Far more so than other nations that have brutalized there own populations, the likes of Sudan and Darfur are the most famous examples but Indonesia, Burma, Russia and China all have appalling human rights records that affect as many and in cases far more people than those in the occupied territories. You just don’t get widespread action against those countries for atrocities in places like Grozny. Many people look at Israel and think it is inherent anti semitism in the western left. I have come up with a new theory and one that needs a look back at apartheid. White South Africa was the focus of huge protests and calls for change, but those protests ignored other human rights violations in Africa and anyone bringing this up was painted as a supporter of the regime. When apartheid fell general interest in human rights in Africa all but dropped of the radar other than the usual horror stories of famines.
What does Nationalist South Africa share in common with Israel that differentiates it from the likes of Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire, Mbasongos Equatorial Guinea or Mubaraks Egypt? They are essentially seen as being white and western. I think the racism is subtle but not directed at Israel or the Afrikaners, but at other world leaders. We expect white western regimes to behave themselves in a way that we would, we expect them to promote human rights, universal suffrage and equality. We don’t expect the same of non westerners, it’s not even racism as we do not have the same level of shock at Russian in Chechnya or Turks in their own and Iraqi Kurdistan.
Syria can invade Lebanon and brutalize its people, Turkey can seize parts of Cyprus and do so with only high level diplomatic hand wringing and protest from the people directly affected. No international solidarity with the victims of those campaigns.
But I don’t even think it’s not even those who protest that have the bigotry. People tend to go on protests based on TV and media images they disapprove off. If you tell someone x y or z government has killed 200 000 of its people over the past 5 years, they will shake their head and mutter about how awful it is, if you show someone TV images every night of 100 people being killed in street fighting they will become enraged and probably attend a demonstration to make it stop. But it’s not the media that have this unidentified bigotry either: I think it is the society as a whole that seems to want to see images of 'western' governments misbehaving but has no interest in non western governments behavior. People would not buy the Times if it featured human rights abuses from all corners of the globe on its cover every week. No conspiracy, no manipulation no need for a manufactured consent on this issue, people just don’t care. No saturation media coverage, no emotional sense of injustice and no motivation to protest.
I'll go further and say that if someone spends any length of time discussing human rights abuses in non western states, there motivation often gets questioned. Orienentalisim and racism are the usual charges leveled.
This is why I think there is such a contradiction between the amount of protesting an issue attracts and the scale of human rights violation involved.
Looking at it from this perspective changes my opinion on such protest quite a bit. I used to take a very dim view of why Israel was being singled out and looked at the most obvious distinction of the Israeli state: its Jewishness. But now I think the problem is very different, protesters are merely responding to a media that if feeding a western orientated audience. It is, perhaps, churlish to criticize the fact that people have found the time to protest at all. The fact they view the world through such distorted western orientated eyes should not take away from the fact that if you can get an issue into the media, people will respond to the issue. It is human nature for people to be unmoved by limited reports of distant brown and yellow people knocking seven bells out of each other.
A word on two issues that have some traction with the media that seem to break this analysis. One is Darfur the other is Comrade Bobs funland.
I think Darfur gets some traction largly due to the perception in the US that Christians are being killed. The issue has zero resonance with the left but does have some with the right. American Christians most likely believe that it is there duty to help there co-religionists and on the back of that level of attention two less pleasant travelers journey. Darfur is an excellent counter example to Israel "why Israel and not Darfur?" is a pretty damming question and one that so far I have not seen a valid answer too. The other 'fellow traveler' is Islamophobia, as Israel can be a vehicle for the legitimizing of anti-Semitism, Darfur can be used to legitimize or stir Islamophobia.
And comrade Bobs funland in Zimababwe? Well here is an excellent example that it takes whites or western whites to get peoples attentions on a story. During the Gukurahundi in the 80s, Mugabwe killed over 20 000 people in a pretty brutal repression (compare and contrast with what was happening in the South and the level of attention). But in the 2000s Mugabwe has been a huge news story? Remember where that started... seizing white land. No one was interested in Zimbabwes human rights until whites were affected, in this case the victims (for a change) rather than the oppressor.
