The U.S. Stance on Israel Ignores Human Rights
The United States positions itself as a neutral arbitrator in the decades-long conflict between Israel and Palestine, but Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. Embassy will move to Jerusalem is the most obvious reflection of the country’s increasing pro-Israel bias.
When considering the severity of the human rights abuses Palestinians suffer through at the hands of Israel, this move is a clear sign that justice is not being pursued.
These abuses are both subtly institutionalized and overtly physical. According to Human Rights Watch, because Israeli policies make it difficult for Palestinians to receive land permits in the occupied West Bank, there has been an influx of Israeli settlers displacing Palestinians from their homes. Since 1967, nearly 600,000 Israeli settlers have built 237 settlements in the West Bank, while 1.5 million Palestinians live in refugee camps throughout the Middle East.
Due to their military occupation of Palestinian territories, Israel controls the flow of people and goods in and out of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. Those caught violating these laws have been injured, and sometimes even killed, by Israeli authorities.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Club reports that of the 6,500 Palestinians prisoners, the majority are held illegally in Israel, rather than the occupied territories. Around a thousand are not allowed family visitation, and at least 500 are incarcerated without charge or trial.
Some of the most egregious human rights abuses are committed against minors, hundreds of which are arrested by Israel every year. A study by Israeli rights groups discovered that many are interrogated without lawyers present, where they report being physically and emotionally abused. This often results in confessions written in Hebrew, a language they usually do not even understand.
Despite these blatant violations of human rights, the Trump administration is signaling a more pro-Israel stance than his predecessors.
The U.S. is one of the only countries in the world to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. Not only is the move controversial due to the Palestinian claim to East Jerusalem as their capital, but also because the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution in 1980 declaring the Israeli annexation of that land illegal under international law.
By October, there had already been nearly 7,000 new settlement homes built in the West Bank this year, compared to 2,629 and 1,982 in the two previous years. Even though the Obama administration agreed to give Israel a record $38 billion in military aid, garnering criticism from human rights activists, in the final year of his presidency the U.S. abstained from a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements. This signaled a shift from past U.N. votes where the U.S. sided with Israel.
Obama was not as firm on Israeli human rights abuses as he should have been, and he deserves criticism for that, but Trump’s shift is more imminently troubling. Instead of speaking out against Israeli settlements, the Trump administration worked behind the scenes to lobby against a similar U.N. resolution before he even took office.
The shift in U.S. policy toward Israel can also be seen from Congressional Democrats.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer supports the move, saying it would “show the world that the U.S. definitively acknowledges Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.” Sen. Ben Cardin, the top-ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, also expressed agreement.
While there are Democrats who disagree with the move, such as Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin, there does not seem to be a consensus of resistance within the party. When combined with the fact that 14 Democratic Senators supported a bill this summer to make boycotting Israel a felony, it appears that there is a bipartisan pro-Israel bias in the U.S.
To be clear, this is not to say that the Palestinians are completely faultless. There is evidence that they too have committed human rights abuses against Israelis, and that should be condemned. The big difference, however, is that the Palestinians are suffering through a military occupation and are facing systemic abuses that impact every aspect of their lives.
If the U.S. continues down this dangerous path of wholeheartedly supporting Israel despite their human rights abuses, blood will be on their hands when the conflict in the region inevitably erupts from this historic decision.
