A new NGO has sprung up, named DAWN: Democracy for the Arab World Now. The New York Times praised it ahead of its announcement Tuesday.
Sounds reasonable. Who can be against democracy in the Arab world?
Except that the organization, founded and run by anti-Israel activists like Juan Cole, Sari Bashi and Sarah Leah Whitson, is very selective as to which non-democratic nations they want to pressure:
As a US-based organization, DAWN focuses its research and advocacy on MENA governments with close ties to the United States and the military, diplomatic, and economic support that the US provides these governments, as that is where we have the greatest responsibility.We believe that we can have the most impact by convincing the US government and other international entities, including businesses, to uphold their human rights obligations by ending support for abusive and undemocratic governments in the region.
Oh. So they only care about human rights in Arab nations that are allied with the US, so they can pressure the US to withhold aid and arms to those nations, while the other nations can go ahead and deny human rights all they want.
Specifically, the nations that are funded by Iran are off limits to this group.
So, what is the desired effect of DAWN's advocacy? It is to create a Middle East that is dominated by Iran!
That sounds like a human rights paradise! I mean, human rights in Syria and Hezbollah-occupied Lebanon and Iraq and under Houthi rule in Yemen is the envy of other Arabs!
And by sheer coincidence, the Arab nations in DAWN's crosshairs are also those that are somewhat allied with Israel. Imagine that.
It is no surprise that DAWN associates itself with the late Jamal Khashoggi, who also was feted as a pro-democracy activist when in fact he supported the violent Muslim Brotherhood brand of Islamism and Hamas terror.
These people will insist that they care about human rights, but it doesn't take much to see that their agenda is quite the opposite.