US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield tweeted on Saturday, “This week, I had the chance to meet with civil society leaders in Ramallah. I was inspired by their work to advance democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity for the Palestinian people. We support Palestinian NGOs’ role monitoring human rights abuses wherever they occur.”
This statement was interpreted as a rebuke to Israel for declaring six organizations as terrorist.
But there is more to this story.
According to an anonymous State Department official, Thomas-Greenfield did not plan to meet with any of the NGOs Israel says are linked to terror, as reported by Al Quds Al-Arabi. As a result, 70 Palestinian NGOs boycotted Thomas-Greenfield and said they would refuse to meet with her, calling any such meetings “normalization.”
That means that if Thomas-Greenfield did meet with anyone, she has to keep it a secret – because the same Palestinian “human rights” community that she extolled would be most unhappy with anyone who felt it was important to speak to the US.
As we’ve seen with Arab boycotts since at least the 1930s, when anyone defies them, the consequences are not pretty.
So we have a huge irony where Linda Thomas-Greenfield is praising organizations that are either threatening other NGOs for not toeing the Palestinian line of hate, or those who cannot work freely in the oppressive environment that Palestinian civil society has created.
Most of her tweets from her trip to the region include photos. Not this one. A photo would endanger people.
In short, she has proven that there is no freedom of expression in the Palestinian territories, and the US is forced to hide who it is talking to to protect them from Palestinian “human rights” activists.
That’s pretty messed up. And it shows that the entire “human rights” edifice in the Palestinian-ruled areas is against basic human rights.
Leave a Reply