A commenter on my post “The anti-Israel ‘Rights & Democracy’ funded by Canadians” takes exception to my label of the Rights & Democracy organization as an NGO and as anti-Israel. And so I quote John Flag (emphasis mine):
Uhm, Rights & Democracy was created by Parliament, reports to Parliament and its President and Board are appointed by government, therefore it’s NOT an NGO! Rights & Democracy does not call itself an NGO, if you read its website. It is an independent, non-partisan, PUBLIC institution. Only people like you call it an NGO, which is completely misinformed. Do a little reading yourself, Natasha, beyond the misinformed rants of Beryl Wiseman (sic) and Ezra Levant. Without knowing anything about R&D, they label its staff haters of Israel because they support human rights for Palestinians. Such an allegation is, quite frankly, appalling.
First: the NGO issue
This comes from Rights & Democracy’s website:
Rights & Democracy has consultative status (Category II) with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and is on the International Labour Organization’s Special List of NGOs.
And this is from NGO Monitor:
Montreal-based NGO, the ICHRDD was founded by an Act of the Canadian Parliament, and annually receives over C$4 million from the Canadian government. It presents itself, however, as an independent and non-partisan organization.
The link provided by the NGO Monitor goes directly to the Rights & Democracy splash page:
Second: The anti-Israel claim
Mr. Flag claims that I get all my decision-making information only from Ezra Levant and Beryl Wajsman (not Wiseman, as Flag calls him). I guess he included Wajsman, as I posted two links to articles here and here, one of them written by Wajsman.
Actually there are a number of other sources, but here’s one: Ending demonization, the Canadian way.
However, for many years, on the issue of Israel, this group discarded these principles by supporting the anti-Israel demonization process, including providing funds to radical Palestinian NGOs whose work demonizes and delegitimizes Israel. Two recipients, Al-Haq and Al Mezan, are among the leaders of the BDS and “lawfare” campaigns.
And once again from NGO Monitor:
ICHRDD’s campaign to promote “democratic institutions in developing areas” has been used to justify a strongly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel political agenda. The organization has approved funding grants for a number of projects conducted by very politicized recipients, including the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group and the International Women’s House in Hares.
From NGO Monitor’s report on Rights & Democracy:
In both its funding decisions and its public statements, the organization shows an almost-total disregard for the terrorist activities of Palestinian groups against Israelis, as well as the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Palestinian Authority and the terrorist groups against Palestinians. Moreover, the ICHRDD takes radical and explicitly partisan positions on political issues that are widely understood to be the subject of permanent-status negotiations between the parties. As a consequence, the ICHRDD not only fails to fulfill its mandate with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also undermines its status as an objective and responsible representative of Canadian civil society in all of its many and worthwhile endeavors.
To summarize my own thoughts on the organization inappropriately named (IMO) Rights & Democracy: other groups recognize them as an NGO; on their own website, they apparently confirm that designation and accept it (I could find no disclaimer stating that the NGO designation was incorrect). By Rights & Democracy’s own actions, they are both radical and partisan, showing a definite anti-Israel bias. So to Mr. Flag, you can dress your duck up and call it a swan; it still quacks like a duck.
{ 12 comments }
Hello All,
Flag’s comment betrays his weak comprehension of the history in the ME simply by calling the ever expanding numbers of refugees who have been disallowed to immigrate to the true Palestine, now called Jordan, “Palestinians.”
I quote from http://www.masada2000.org/historical.html
“The Palestinian terror campaign would itself be easy to suppress today and eradicate if the Middle East conflict were really a Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel would simply obliterate the terrorists and expel their supporters to Syria and Lebanon. The Middle East war continues because it is really an Arab-Israeli war, not an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is also in large part a war between barbarism and civilization. In many ways an Islamic religious jihad against the Jews.”
Palestinians are in themselves a propagandist creation by the surrounding Arab nations and Islamic influenced Monarchies, thugocracies, and fake republics and democracies. There was no nationalist identifiable nation or group of people who cared to call themselves “Palestinians” before 1948. The Palestinians were prodded into such an identity by the newly post WWI identified Trans-Jordan, Egypt and Syria who refused to allow the previously mostly nomadic clans of the former Ottoman holdings of Palestine won by Yavuz Sultan Selim at the Battle of Ridanieh in 1517 to live outside of a land controlled by Jews.
See a brief mapping of Ottoman holdings via: http://naqshbandi.org/ottomans/maps/
Another inconvenient truth often ignored is that the ‘improvements in infrastructure, health conditions and material welfare that were largely due to the increased direct and indirect involvement of European elements – including Jewish immigrants” from the 1880’s to 1914 are what contributed to a marked drop in mortality of the former Muslims in Ottoman Palestine. And after the British Mandate, as the Jews continued to build their communities, more of the impoverished Muslim population were given an incentive to establish roots and build their own communities due to the stability of Jewish built infrastructure and trade.
(Ottoman Palestine, 1800-1914: studies in economic and social history By Gad G. Gilbar, http://books.google.ca/books?id=sdYUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=nomads+ottoman+palestine&source=bl&ots=BpjAqAStXo&sig=a2SWpcvo0PYycdWvdaLz1b8QoaI&hl=en&ei=AGdxS7fiD8ug8AbMkuGvCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=nomads%20ottoman%20palestine&f=false )
When the surrounding Arabs vowed to wipe Israel off the map in an Islamic fueled anti-Semitic campaign of Grand Mufti-esque inspired genocide in 1948, the Israeli Arab population, either coerced or displaced by the ensuing existential war, became refugees. These refugees, first promised a land free of Jews after the slaughter, were left to fend for themselves after being used as proxy exterminators, as their prelate masters licked their wounds. And a new plan was hatched to disallow the refugees to immigrate to the like minded regions surrounding Israel, and use them as propaganda of Jewish thuggary when in fact; these displaced people were a product of a war instigated by the Arabs against Jews.
After more than half a Century of unchecked polygamous marriage and birth rates, the Arab refugees of the Arab-Israeli War (aka as the War of independence/Liberation) have grown in numbers from approx 600 000 to 3.9 Million in the West Bank and 1.5 Million in the Gaza Strip.
Census and demographics of populations for the Ottoman and Mandate Palestine via: http://www.mideastweb.org/palpop.htm
Current numbers from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics via: http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/_pcbs/PressRelease/population_dE.pdf
Whether we take the Hamas Charter or the Palestinian Authority’s revolving door policy on the release of, or facilitating the escape of terrorist and move them to very comfortable conditions, the Arab refugees who now call themselves Palestinians are the true believers Hitler’s friend Grand Mufti Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini would be proud of. And it would seem that the fascist inspired disinformation campaign has also infected the disillusioned illiterate of the Rights & Democracy aka ICHRDD.
You got it Kaffir. Why are so many pretending there is such a thing as a Palestine people? They don’t exist. The people who inhabit that shit hole called the Gaza strip are basically just Arabs that were thrown out of other Arabic countries because they are considered scumbags by their own. Face it, you would have to be the scummiest of the scumbags to be exiled to that shit hole piece of land by your fellow mulsim brethren.
Thanks, Kaffir. I thought about posting some of the “Palestinian” history, but I’m glad I didn’t bother because you were far more thorough than I would have been.
I got a little annoyed by Flag’s 2nd comment (posted above), which followed this one here. I didn’t take kindly to his lecturing me to expand my reading, especially when it’s apparent that he should practise what he preaches.
I know. Flag wrote, “Without knowing anything about R&D, they (Wiseman and Levant) label its staff haters of Israel because they support human rights for Palestinians. Such an allegation is, quite frankly, appalling.”
Trouble is, the Arabs who claim to be Palestinians don’t care about the freedoms associated with true Human Rights, maybe the kind being discussed at Durban II, but nothing my tax dollars should be funding.
When the Children under Hamas and PA control have been brainwashing them to kill Jews, complete with Assoud the Hamas Bunny, “…I will finish off the Jews and eat them…” (http://www.menassat.com/?q=en/news-articles/3237-peace-now-or-bunny-gets-it ), this 4 year old piece hits the nail on the head why there will never be peace in the Holy Land:
http://www.meforum.org/1066/the-palestinian-authoritys-double-game-preach
So, if you’re actively funding or supporting any Palestinian organization, whose basic tenants are already established upon the fascists pillars of Islam, which I know none of which actively support peace, trade and stability over ethnic hatred, than how can you avoid being associated with what these Arab groups stand for? It would be very much like R&D working with the Iranian government to promote its’ own democratic institutions, let alone Human Rights.
Hey, I have an idea, since the Ahmadenanutjob is such a fan of the Palestinians, and the common goal of wiping Israel off the face of the planet, why not let Iran replace the funding for R&D?
Natasha please put a link up to this video from BLC’s blog. I laughed so fucking hard at it this morning.
I will admit I go out of my way to offend. I think it is because I am so pissed off that I drank the political correct kool-aid as a younger person and even made others drink it. I am so fucking mad at myself because I didn’t see he importance of offending. I do now, and I try hard to offend someone at least once a week.
http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.com/?ref=mooseandsquirrel.ca
Me too! I re-posted the same vid here.
Hah, well, if you WERE gonna parrot someone, Mr Levant would be an awesome candidate!
But hey, looks like you do pretty well on your own : )
Thanks, Rose!
Why play semantics with bush league pubic parasites. NGO, GONGO, QUANGO all amount to the same thing – extravagant redundancy, careerist sinecure and expansion of quasi governmental power at the tax payer’s expense.
The only proponents of this decadent redirection of governmental priority are the parasites who feed from it.
Yes, true enough, Bill. I just had enough of this guy lecturing my about not reading when he’s the one who doesn’t read — at least, nothing else except the propaganda he spews.
You da’ girl Natasha! you go girlfriend!
Heh. I was getting a tad annoyed by him accusing me of simply parroting what Ezra says. Often Ezra’s blog is simply a starting point for me to go off searching elsewhere for more info.
Because of the pest and his insinuations, I had to go look up all that crap all over again. I admit if I was better organized I would have had it all at my fingertips, but it really didn’t take too long to find it all again.
Comments on this entry are closed.