On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So just the other day, the declaration’s 60th anniversary was celebrated. It may well have escaped your attention; though people engaged in human rights work marked the occasion, the anniversary flew in, then out, below most people’s radar.
And why lament that? We all know, do we not, of the ongoing violations of human rights in many, many places around the world — in Sudan and Congo, in Russia and North Korea, in China and Somalia, and on and on? Who among us needs to be reminded, who among us does not already advocate the ever-fuller implementation of the great blessing we call “human rights”?
A cheer for irony: On December 11, one day after the declaration’s anniversary, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin and ranking member John McCain released the executive summary and conclusions of the committee’s report of its inquiry into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. And the findings of that report state explicitly that top Bush administration officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, bear major responsibility for the abuses committed by American troops in interrogations at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, at Guantanamo Bay and in other U.S. military detention centers. The report is the most thorough review by Congress to date of the origins of the abuse of prisoners in American military custody; it explicitly rejects the Bush administration’s contention that tough interrogation methods have helped keep the country and its troops safe. According to The New York Times, the “report also rejected previous claims by Mr. Rumsfeld and others that Defense Department policies played no role in the harsh treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 and in other episodes of abuse. The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the report says, ‘was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own’ but grew out of interrogation policies approved by Mr. Rumsfeld and other top officials, who ‘conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.’”
This will, perhaps, strike most readers as old news, the irony of the coincidence of dates — the anniversary, the report — aside. After all, have we not known all along, from earlier leaks, from surmise, from informed hunch — that the Justice Department, the Pentagon and even the White House knew and approved the violation of Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reads, in its entirety, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”? (A violation, as well, of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, to which the United States is a signatory.)
But to say that the Levin-McCain report does not tell us anything we did not know is mistaken: Within the human rights community, it has been a bombshell, one that may well lead to an exhaustive inquiry and perhaps even to prosecutions. Besides, if we knew, roughly, the truth, that raises the most disturbing question of all: If, in fact, we knew, how did it happen? Where were the protests? Where was the outrage? Had there been commensurate protests, might the courts have been less complicit? Why, in short, the silence?
At this point, there will likely be some readers who will say, “That’s an interesting question, but why raise it in a Jewish newspaper? In what relevant sense is it ‘a Jewish issue?’”
This next will seem at first blush a digression; please bear with me.
It is sometimes suggested that we, survivors one way or the other of the Holocaust, have been dangerously obsessed with it. Indeed, there is some truth to that, especially in the behavior of some of our community’s institutions. But: We are, most of us, familiar with the concept of a phantom limb — the sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still attached to the body. Approximately 50% to 80% of individuals with an amputation experience phantom sensations in their amputated limb; most such sensations are painful. Phantom limb pain is usually intermittent; it is also generally intractable and chronic. Once it develops it persists and is rarely improved by current medical treatments. Surgical procedures can be effective for a few months, but pain always returns, frequently worse, and so surgery is only performed in patients with terminal illness.
I propose here that we regard the six million as our phantom limb. It is by no means the whole of the truth about us, but it is an intractable truth, one that has irretrievably chosen us for pain and disorientation, yet also one with which we choose to live, the awesome and awful memory both given and chosen.
If we are alive to that truth, how can we be deaf to the victims of torture, whoever they are? How can we live with our own pain and be indifferent to theirs? Has our amputated limb folded us into a cocoon or has it commanded us to compassion?
We want, we say, that the world will remember, and our own children, too. Is not vehement opposition to torture committed in our name by our government not, then, a necessary act of memory? We remember and carry the pain because others chose silence. What more do we need to know than that?
Yehuda, are you Fein's father?
. Please spread the word on the film that will put BUSH BEHIND BARS!!! http://thetorturer.com .
Indeed, a worthy Jewish angle has been raised in this week's "The Hour". Kol ha-kavod! It should be pointed out that the pronoun "we" (or "our") in the second half of the article always refers to the Jews. We the Jews remember the Holocaust, and we the Jews therefore cannot be deaf to pain of other victims. The Holocaust and its lesson, however, are not an American Jewish experience - it is an experience that touches all Jews. So all Jews are included in Mr Fein's "we", including "us" - the many, many Jews who are not American citizens. Hence, the citing of "our government" in the last paragraph was an improper deviation from an important line of thought. Once it's "our government", then all along the intention of "we" (so it could be understood) had been "we, the American Jews". The final point should be that "we the Jews wish for the world and our children to remember the Holocaust - and therefore we the Jews think that the American government should be called upon to cease...." Sometimes, "we" have our own separate perspective that is a specific Jewish experience in which others are not included.
Yes, the Holocaust was a most awful, unimaginable, horrible experience, but it was even more than that. It was the culmination of a century in the Pale of Settlement with the pogroms and the Jewish People's exclusion from the greater society. It was the exclamation point for experiences of the hundreds of years before that in a Europe that tossed the Jewish people from one place to another, of Jews being burned to death in Spain. There should have been a thunderous screaming and howling from American Jews at the affronts to humanity of this departing Administration. Yet most of us thought it would be impolitic to react too strongly. Some of us even agreed with the Administration. It shouldn't be a surprise. What was our reaction when in the 1940's the filled trains were moving to the concentration camps? It was timid complaining and even acceptance.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1048562.html "Jaffa mosque daubed with 'Mohammed is a pig,' 'Death to Arabs' By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent ___________________________________________ The way to peace is to respect others rights. --------------------- Thankyou Mr Feinfor great article.
Please, Please, Please. There is a wealth of information out there about the Democrats "collusion" on this issue to warrant a tome. The idea that Carl Levin is somehow saintly for his role in promoting Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld as "torturers" is the equivalant of the pot calling the kettle black.
Hitlers speeches from beginning was Cristal clear about his intentions but conspiracy of silence of Germans and maybe others lead to horrible Holocaust,pain psychological scars will newer been erased from Jewish community & rest of the humanity. Same conspiracy of silence we are witnessing now with different country towards different community. If USA is a new Germany for now towards Muslims would that be possible China Russia or India will be new Germany towards Americans or the Jews again if we keep alive the tradition of CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE? It feels so natural to see those misinterpreted Geneva convention to bring the justice to avoid further holocaust.
Omitted from 2nd paragraph "Israel"
"Is not vehement opposition to torture committed in our name by our government not, then, a necessary act of memory?" The Israeli government engages in torture on a regular basis. Why do so many well intentioned and obviously progressive Jewish thinkers and organizations fail to mention Israel's violations of human rights and the Geneva Conventions when addressing these questions? And yes, I do condemn Palestinian abuses as well. But two wrongs do not make a right. Torture is wrong. Period.
Would we be at war with Arabs & torturing if not for Israel? Israel has been torturing a whole nation of people with "terror & fear" on a consistent basis for 60 years now. When one sees some posts here of "exclusion of Jews” in the past it is worth noting that Israel is the most racist & bigoted nation in all history. It kills people, and not only terrifies them but also steals from them, simply because they are not Jewish. How can anyone in his or her right mind support this?
The Arab-Jewish tension is a very low-intensity confrontation. "RespectnJustice" wouldn't have noticed it if the Jews weren't the focus of his attention. His own country has used atomic weapons on its enemies. One hundred years of conflict between Jews and Arabs hardly compare to those few terrifying seconds.
RespectnJustice believes that the USA finds itself at war with the Arabs because of Israel. Also Nazi Germany claimed to have gone to war in 1939 because "international Jewry" forced it to. There's a great Yiddish joke that fits the antisemitic spirit of RespectnJustice's viewpoint. One Jew notices that his best friend is reading an antisemite newpaper. "Why are you reading this disgusting stuff? You should be reading our Forverts, or perhaps the Hebrew press!" But his friend, smiling, won't lift his wondrous eyes from the paper, saying: "Oh, no. Whenever I read our depressing papers, I'm told how dangerous our situation is - that they are preparing to annihilate us, to expel us, that our leaders haven't a clue what to do. Believe me, it's much more pleasant to learn that we're in control of the world..."
Reuven said: "The Arab-Jewish tension is a very low-intensity confrontation." Would you say this if you were in a Palestinian persons shoes? Reuven said: "RespectnJustice" wouldn't have noticed it if the Jews weren't the focus of his attention." I note "playing the man and not the ball" indicates you have no rational argument. It reflects on you not me. You may not comprehend it but I advise my focus is on peace & justice & kindness & decency for all as from now.
Yehuda said: "......There's a great Yiddish joke that fits the antisemitic spirit of RespectnJustice's viewpoint...." Again......playing the man & not the ball,... and false accusations to muddy the waters, ..... We need to stop thinking "us & THEM!!!" We are all people. Why is Israel so opposed to having all Palestinians as citizens with equal rights for all under the law? Isn't this what Jews want in other countries? (OR, a fair settlement?)Yehuda, I think we need to stop living in the past and treat each other decently.....not bulldoze down someones dwelling in order to steal thier land....and occasionally shoot their children on their way to school "because they are not Jewish".
I just read this. Are You Ready to Face the Facts About Israel? by Paul Craig Roberts "On October 21 (1948) the Government of Israel took a decision that was to have a lasting and divisive effect on the rights and status of those Arabs who lived within its borders: the official establishment of military government in the areas where most of the inhabitants were Arabs." - Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History I had given up on finding an American with a moral conscience and the courage to go with it and was on the verge of retiring my keyboard when I met the Rev. Thomas L. Are. Rev. Are is a Presbyterian pastor who used to tell his Atlanta, Georgia, congregation: "I am a Zionist." Like most Americans, Rev. Are had been seduced by Israeli propaganda and helped to spread the propaganda among his congregation. Around 1990 Rev. Are had an awakening for which he credits the Christian Canon of St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem and author Marc Ellis, co-editor of the book, Beyond Occupation. Realizing that his ignorance of the situation on the ground had made him complicit in great crimes, Rev. Are wrote a book hoping to save others from his mistake and perhaps in part to make amends, Israeli Peace/Palestinian Justice, published in Canada in 1994. Rev. Are researched his subject and wrote a brave book. Keep in mind that 1994 was long prior to Walt and Mearsheimer's recent book, which exposed the power of the Israel Lobby and its ability to control the explanation Americans receive about the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Rev. Are begins with an account of Israel's opening attack on the Palestinians, an event which took place before most Americans alive today were born. He quotes the distinguished British historian, Arnold J. Toynbee: "The treatment of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 (and 1948) was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis. Though nor comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality." Golda Meir, considered by Israelis as a great leader and by others as one of history's great killers, disputed the facts: "It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." Golda Meir's apology for Israel's great crimes is so counter-factual that it blows the mind. Palestinian refugee camps still exist outside Palestine filled with Palestinians and their descendants whose towns, villages, homes and lands were seized by the Israelis in 1948. Rev. Are provides the reader with Na'im Ateek's description of what happened to him, an 11-year old, when the Jews came to take Beisan on May 12, 1948. Entire Palestinian communities simply disappeared. In 1949 the United Nations counted 711,000 Palestinian refugees. In 2005 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency estimated 4.25 million Palestinians and their descendants were refugees from their homeland. The Israeli policy of evicting non-Jews has continued for six decades. On June 19, 2008, the Laity Committee in the Holy Land reported in Window Into Palestine that the Israeli Ministry of Interior is taking away the residency rights of Jerusalem Christians who have been reclassified as "visitors in their own city." On December 10, 2007, MK Ephraim Sneh boasted in the Jerusalem Post that Israel had achieved "a true Zionist victory" over the UN partition plan "which sought to establish two nations in the land of Israel." The partition plan had assigned Israel 56 percent of Palestine, leaving the inhabitants with only 44 percent. But Israel had altered this over time. Sneh proudly declared: "When we complete the permanent agreement, we will hold 78 percent of the land while the Palestinians will control 22 percent." Sneb could have added that the 22 percent is essentially a collection of unconnected ghettos cut off from one another and from roads, water, medical care, and jobs. Rev. Are documents that the abuse of Palestinians' human rights is official Israeli policy. Killings, torture, and beatings are routine. On May 17, 1990, the Washington Post reported that Save the Children "documented indiscriminate beating, tear-gassing and shooting of children at home or just outside the house playing in the street, who were sitting in the classroom or going to the store for groceries." On January 19, 1988, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, later Prime Minister, announced the policy of "punitive beating" of Palestinians. The Israelis described the purpose of punitive beating: "Our task is to recreate a barrier and once again put the fear of death into the Arabs of the area." According to Save the Children, beatings of children and women are common. Rev. Are, citing the report in the Washington Post, writes: "Save the Children concluded that one-third of beaten children were under ten years old, and one-fifth under the age of five. Nearly a third of the children beaten suffered broken bones." On February 8, 1988, Newsweek magazine quoted an Israeli soldier: "We got orders to knock on every door, enter and take out all the males. The younger ones we lined up with their faces against the wall, and soldiers beat them with billy clubs. This was no private initiative, these were orders from our company commander.... After one soldier finished beating a detainee, another soldier called him 'you Nazi,' and the first man shot back: 'You bleeding heart.' When one soldier tried to stop another from beating an Arab for no reason, a fist fight broke out." These were the old days before conscience was eliminated from the ranks of the Israeli military. In the London Sunday Times, June 19, 1977, Ralph Schoenman, executive director of the Bertrand Russell Foundation, wrote: "Israeli interrogators routinely ill-treat and torture Arab prisoners. Prisoners are hooded or blindfolded and are hung by their wrists for long periods. Most are struck in the genitals or in other ways sexually abused. Most are sexually assaulted. Others are administered electric shock." Amnesty International concluded that "there is no country in the world in which the use of official and sustained torture is as well established and documented as in the case of Israel." Even the pro-Israeli Washington Post reported: "Upon arrest, a detainee undergoes a period of starvation, deprivation of sleep by organized methods and prolonged periods during which the prisoner is made to stand with his hands cuffed and raised, a filthy sack covering the head. Prisoners are dragged on the ground, beaten with objects, kicked, stripped and placed under ice-cold showers." Sounds like Abu Gharib. There are news reports that Israeli torture experts participated in the torture of the detainees assembled by the American military as part of the Bush Regime's propaganda onslaught to convince Americans that Iraq was overflowing with al-Qaeda terrorists. On July 23, 2008, Antiwar.com posted an Iraqi news report that the Iraqi government had released a total of 109,087 Iraqis that the Americans had "detained." Obviously, these "terrorist detainees" had been used for the needs of Bush Regime propaganda. No one will ever know how many of them were abused by Israeli torturers imported by the CIA. Rev. Are's book makes sensible suggestions for resolving the conflict that Israel began. However, the problem is that Israeli governments believe only in force. The policy of the Israeli government has always been to beat, kill, and brutalize Palestinians into submission and flight. Anyone who doubts this can read the book of Israel's finest historian Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006). Americans are a gullible and naive people. They have been complicit for 60 years in crimes that in Arnold Toynbee's words "are comparable in quality" to the crimes of Nazi Germany. As Toynbee was writing decades ago, the accumulated Israeli crimes might now be comparable also in quantity. The US routinely vetoes United Nations condemnations of Israel for its brutal crimes against the Palestinians. Insouciant American taxpayers have been bled for a half century to provide the Israelis with superior military weapons with which Israelis assault their neighbors, all the while convincing America – essentially a captive nation – that Israel is the victim. John F. Mahoney wrote: "Thomas Are reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: an active pastor who comes to the unsettling realization that he and his people have been fed a terrible lie that is killing and torturing thousands of innocent men, women and children. Not without ample research and prayer does such a pastor, in turn, risk unsettling his congregation. The Reverend Are has done his homework and, I suspect, has prayed often and long during the writing of this courageous book." Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran theologian and pastor who was executed for his active participation in the German Resistance against Nazism. Professor Benjamin M. Weir, San Francisco Theological Seminary, wrote: "This book will make the reader squirm. It asks you to lend your voice in behalf of the voiceless." Americans who can no longer think for themselves and who are terrified of disapproval by their peer group are incapable of lending their voices to anyone except those who control the world of propaganda in which they live. The ignorance and unconcern of Americans is a great frustration to my friends in the Israeli peace movement. Without outside support those Israelis who believe in good will are deprived, by America's support for their government's policy of violence, of any peaceful resolution of a conflict began in 1947 by Israeli aggression against unsuspecting Palestinian villages. Rev. Are wrote his book with the hope that the pen is mightier than the sword and that facts can crowd out propaganda and create a framework for a just resolution of the Palestinian issue. In his concluding chapter, "What Christians Can Do," Rev. Are writes: "We cannot allow others to dictate our thinking on any subject, especially on anything as important as Christian faithfulness, which is tested by an attitude towards seeking justice for the oppressed. It's a Christian's duty to know." Duty, of course, has costs. Rev. Are writes: "Speak up for the Palestinians and you will make enemies. Yet, as Christians, we must be willing to raise issues that until now we have chosen to dodge." More than a decade later, President Jimmy Carter, a true friend of Israel, tried again to awaken Americans' moral conscience with his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter was instantly demonized by the Israel Lobby. Sixty years of efforts by good and humane people to hold Israel accountable have so far failed, but they are more important today than ever before. Israel has its captive American nation on the verge of attacking Iran, the consequences of which could be catastrophic for all concerned. The alleged purpose of the attack is to eliminate nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons. The real reason is to eliminate all support for Hamas and Hezbollah so that Israel can seize the entire West Bank and southern Lebanon. The Bush regime is eager to do Israel's bidding, and the media and evangelical "Christian" churches have been preparing the American people for the event. It is paradoxical that Israel is demonstrating that veracity lies not in the Christian belief in good will but in Lenin's doctrine that violence is the effective force in history and that the evangelical Christian Zionist churches agree.
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