Amnesty tried to get some more interest in the Nakba site they created that apparently didn't get enough traffic to justify its expense, and I responded:
57+ years since @Amnesty was founded, and it has not yet demanded that Palestinians have the right to citizenship in the Arab countries that most have been born in.https://t.co/hgG2vfhOuD https://t.co/xhYyDI4AjH— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) May 21, 2019
Of course, Amnesty didn't respond.
Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor chimed in:
Of course @amnesty isn't interested in helping #Palestinians. They're a radical political #NGO more on demonizing democracies, #Israel.— (((Gerald M Steinberg))) (@GeraldNGOM) May 21, 2019
Sarit Michaeli of B'Tselem responded to him:
Your sudden expressed concern for Palestinians would appear far less disingenuous had you not denied the existence of the Israeli military occupation they live under.— Sarit Michaeli (@saritm0) May 21, 2019
Once she joined the thread, I decided to ask her directly if B'Tselem supports the basic human rights of Palestinians born in Arab countries to become citizens, as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child:
Do you agree that Palestinians should be allowed to have full citizenship in their Arab host countries if they so desire? Let's have it for the record.— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) May 21, 2019
Michaeli didn't respond. Because she can't.
The unofficial position of B'Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and other NGOs is that the nonexistent "Right of Return" for all future generations of Palestinians is more important than the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. There is no legal or moral justification for that position, and they don't apply it to any other group of people in the world. They know it is indefensible, and their position helps prolong the suffering of stateless Palestinians.
Yet these NGOs, who pretend to "speak truth to power," cannot admit the truth - that Palestinians should be covered by these conventions and their Arab hosts should offer them citizenship after being in their countries for decades. This is the only defensible position for a human rights organization to take - but if they said it, Palestinian "leaders" (as well as Lebanese and others) would angrily retaliate, possibly kick them out of their areas, and threaten them.
So they must go along with the Palestinian position to keep Palestinians miserable and stateless. And they will refuse to answer any questions about it because it reveals that they care more about politics than Palestinian human rights.
It is pretty embarrassing, when you think about it. If only a major reporter would ask these questions from these NGOs that they can't ignore, we can learn a great deal about the hypocrisy of "human rights" NGOs.
The unofficial position of B'Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and other NGOs is that the nonexistent "Right of Return" for all future generations of Palestinians is more important than the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. There is no legal or moral justification for that position, and they don't apply it to any other group of people in the world. They know it is indefensible, and their position helps prolong the suffering of stateless Palestinians.
Yet these NGOs, who pretend to "speak truth to power," cannot admit the truth - that Palestinians should be covered by these conventions and their Arab hosts should offer them citizenship after being in their countries for decades. This is the only defensible position for a human rights organization to take - but if they said it, Palestinian "leaders" (as well as Lebanese and others) would angrily retaliate, possibly kick them out of their areas, and threaten them.
So they must go along with the Palestinian position to keep Palestinians miserable and stateless. And they will refuse to answer any questions about it because it reveals that they care more about politics than Palestinian human rights.
It is pretty embarrassing, when you think about it. If only a major reporter would ask these questions from these NGOs that they can't ignore, we can learn a great deal about the hypocrisy of "human rights" NGOs.