Ramallah "Human Rights" NGO supports terror, has strange definition of "tolerance"

The Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies is yet another little-known NGOs that get funding from the West for their seemingly pro-democracy, pro-human rights agenda.

And looking at their English-language website you can see that they seem to prioritize the values of "tolerance". They even give out an annual Arab Tolerance Award.

The RCRHS Arabic website, however, has articles not translated into the English website.

One talks about a workshop held in January about the "dialectical relationship between resistance and negotiations." One of the speakers stated flatly that negotiations cannot provide the objectives that Palestinian Arabs want without keeping the option of terrorism ("armed resistance.") All forms of "resistance" are considered legitimate and the specific circumstances dictate which ones should be used at any time.

In other words, this "human rights' NGO cannot condemn terrorism, and in fact thinks that it has its place.

Another interesting document is a 300-page report on "Tolerance Values in Arab School Curriculums [sic]." It looks at school curricula in the Arab world, ostensibly to remark on how well they integrate values of tolerance.

Some of the report does that, for example about tolerance of the Christian minority in the Arab world (nothing about Jews, though.) But the reports also emphasize nationalism and patriotism, which are very different concepts, and  in some cases are antithetical to tolerance.

For example, on page 47, under the Palestinian Arab curricula, it says that the 8th grade curriculum is "introducing (the student) to the Palestinian cities, which are: Jerusalem... Akko... Tiberias... Ramle" - all cities in Israel.

On page 48, another of the values that the RCHRS highlights in the textbooks is "freedom," including romantic depictions of the intifadas and the importance of "resistance against the occupier."

On page 51, it describes the importance of tolerance in the Islamic Studies curriculum, and discusses "Teaching the student the importance of jihad for Allah's sake, for a noble goal, for defending religion, homeland, and holy places/sanctities..."

The section that critiques how the Palestinian Arab schools are teaching students does not mention any of these issues as being problematic.

According to NGO Monitor, RCRHS gets funding from the Government of Sweden, the British Government’s Department for International Development, the US-based National Endowment for Democracy, and other sources.


(h/t Al Gharqad)