who cares about human rights
Shawn Pogatchnik of the Associated Press reports that former President Jimmy Carter spoke at the ninth annual NGO Forum on Human Rights, which convened in Dublin last Tuesday. Carter accused the U.S., Israel and the European Union of seeking to divide the Palestinian people by reopening aid to President Mahmoud Abbas’ new government in the West Bank while denying the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, also said the Bush administration’s refusal to accept Hamas’ 2006 election victory was “criminal.” Carter said the consensus of the U.S., Israel and the EU to start funneling aid to Abbas’ new government in the West Bank but continue blocking Hamas in the Gaza Strip represented an “effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples.”
“All efforts of the international community should be to reconcile the two, but there’s no effort from the outside to bring the two together,” he was reported to have said.
While he did make human rights a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy, there is some irony here given that while in office Carter authored the Carter Doctrine, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf. No matter that the United States is located in North America; our national interests are whereever we like and we will defend them to the death.
No U.S. administration has ever recognized the rights of Palestinians to self-determination, so why should they start now? Israel has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance from the U.S. since 1976. The U.S. turns a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear weapons. Clearly the U.S. is playing every card it can to minimize the Palestinians — a parallel could be drawn to how the U.S. treated native Americans after stealing their land and forcing them onto reservations. It could be rather convenient to have a friendly and powerful nation like Israel nearby our national interests in the Persian Gulf.
Does former President Carter really care about the Palestinians? If so it’s a little late in the game. The U.S. only cares about human rights when they align with our, um, national interests in the world. Perhaps if oil was discovered in Gaza, Hamas might gain a little leverage with the U.S.
Another example (besides Hamas) where the U.S. refuses to acknowledge democracy is Pakistan, where our feds strongly support General Musharraf, a self-appointed President who took power in a military coup which ousted the elected Prime Minister. The U.S. is providing no support for the popular democratic opposition in that country. So in other words, the U.S. loves democracy just as long as the guy we like gets elected.