Gaza, and the Rest of the World

As the global social-media protest squad focuses on Gaza, I think about bad things happening elsewhere. On all continents, governments systematically silence, displace, imprison, torture and kill people. Details are well documented and easily accessible.

In short, widely-known human rights violations that should motivate the protest squad are going on all over the place (examples below, in case you need them).

This begs a question. Why is the protest squad focusing on Gaza (and within that, focusing on Israel as opposed to Hamas/Iran)?

Understand that I am not arguing for moral relativism. I am not suggesting that death, suffering and denial of human rights in one part of the world is OK because "many governments do the same thing".

And I am not getting into specifics of the endless Middle East conflict and the justifications offered for why actors on either side do what they do.

I am just pointing out the obvious, namely that the protest squad -- like any group or individual -- makes decisions about how to use its time, energy and money. It can choose from a rich global menu of things to protest. It has opted to direct its criticism and anger at Israel.

I repeat: the protest squad has made a deliberate choice and the choice is Israel.

Why? Some say the choice is driven by antisemitism. Another factor is "recency bias" -- the tendency to prioritize the latest thing seen or heard. After all (to take four examples):

• A war in Sudan has been going on for six months. It has left 5,000 civilians dead, more than 12,000 injured, and nearly 6 million forcibly displaced. UN Undersecretary-General Martin Griffiths has called it "one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history". The world barely notices.
• Ongoing Chinese repression (some call it genocide) of Uyghurs (a Muslim minority) is old news.
• In Syria, murders committed against its own people by the government of President Assad have dropped out of public consciousness -- lucky for Assad that Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours.
• The government of Myanmar continues to persecute the Muslim (Rohingya) minority (through a 70+ year campaign of mass murder, rape and relocation). It's another genocide according to many, but again, something that has faded from public attention.

Gaza, on the other hand, is happening right now, live, on the screen of your choice.

A closely related factor is "availability bias". The 24-hour news cycle needs constant feeding. It gorges on what is available. The Palestinian side has done an excellent job of providing lots of material. Victims of the Uyghur and Rohingya genocides can't compete.

Which brings me to something else that may influence the protest squad's choice. It's hard to sustain global indignation against a country that doesn't permit the operation of independent, critical news media (think China or Myanmar). "Sorry (not sorry), we won't let you record and disseminate things happening in our country that we don't want people to see."

Israel, on the other hand, is easy pickings because it allows critical domestic and international journalists to operate freely. The old story: no good deed goes unpunished.

Finally, there's the "Israel is asking for it" argument. It says "We will criticize Israel more harshly than other countries because Israel holds itself to a higher standard. It claims to be a progressive, liberal democracy."

This argument, often heard, is absurd. It means that the protest squad should focus on Israel instead of, say, the human-rights abuses of Putin's Russia, Xi's China or Assad's Syria because neither Russia, China nor Syria cares what the world thinks of them, and have no intention of doing the right thing in any case. How can anyone take seriously such perverse reasoning?

Here are detailed examples of bad things being done by governments in various regions of the world. (The list could be much longer.) I leave it to you to:

1) Judge whether these situations are more or less worthy of attention from the protest squad than the war in Gaza.

2) Ask yourself about the choices made by the protest squad and the reasons for their choices.

Myanmar (source: Amnesty International)

The crackdown against opposition to military rule intensified. Thousands of people were arbitrarily detained and more than 1,000 opposition politicians, political activists, human rights defenders and others were convicted in unfair trials. Widespread torture of detainees continued. Indiscriminate military attacks on civilians and civilian objects resulted in hundreds of deaths and mass displacement. Tens of thousands of ethnic Rohingya people remained in squalid displacement camps and their rights remained severely curtailed. Military authorities continued to restrict the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees remained widespread, routinely occurring after arrest and in military and police interrogation centres and in prisons. Some detainees, including men, women and people of diverse gender identity or sexual orientation, were subjected to sexual violence, harassment and humiliation, including invasive body searches, as a method of torture during interrogation and detention.2 At least 356 people were known to have died in custody in connection with torture during the year.

Military operations in Kayin and Kayah states against ethnic armed organizations and other armed groups in early 2022 took the form of collective punishment against Karen and Karenni civilians resulting in hundreds of deaths and the displacement of more than 150,000 people by March.

The use of cluster munitions in aerial attacks was documented in Chin, Kayah and Kayin states, indicating that Myanmar had developed and was deploying a new weapon system that is banned under international law.6 The military also increased its use of internationally banned anti-personnel landmines, laying them in or around homes, toilets, churches and on paths to rice fields and other locations frequented by civilians.

Syria (source: Syrian Network for Human Rights)

Violations of human rights include, inter alia, killing, arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance, forced displacement, seizure of lands and properties, and rampant security instability that have provided a ripe environment for many assassinations and bombings, with all these violations still being documented in Syria. ... These violations ... threaten the very core of the rights and dignity of the human being, with no end in sight ... (H)undreds of thousands of Syrians continue to sell their properties, flee their lands and seek asylum around the world. ... Syria has become a unhabitable country with no regard for even the most basic human rights.

China (source: Amnesty International)

Systematic repression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet continued under the guise of “anti-separatism”, “anti-extremism” and “counterterrorism”. Access to both regions was highly restricted, making human rights documentation and reporting virtually impossible. Pervasive surveillance prevented those living there from sharing information about human rights violations.

The government continued to implement far-reaching policies that severely restricted the freedoms of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and those from other predominantly Muslim ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang, which threatened to erase their religious and cultural identities.

During their visit to the region in May, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and her team were not permitted to visit detainees or their families and were accompanied by state officials at all times.

Ethnic Tibetans continued to face discrimination and restrictions on their rights to freedom of religion and belief, expression, association and peaceful assembly.

In September, the Kardze Intermediate People’s Court in Sichuan sentenced six Tibetan writers and activists to prison terms of between four and 14 years for “inciting separatism” and “endangering state security”.

El Salvador (source: Amnesty International)

Authorities declared a state of emergency resulting in massive human rights violations, weakening of the rule of law, as well as a continuous and serious deterioration in access to public information. Attacks against human rights defenders and journalists remained entrenched. The absolute prohibition of abortion remained in force.

During the state of emergency, El Salvador had the highest rate of people deprived of liberty of any country in the world, with 1,927 people imprisoned per 100,000 inhabitants. By the end of the year, there were more than 94,000 people detained in the country, despite the fact that the holding capacity of the country’s prisons, as of February 2021, was 30,864, according to official data obtained by local organizations.

Extreme overcrowding resulted in violations of the right to life and physical integrity and caused serious sanitation problems and shortages of food and basic hygiene supplies, seriously affecting the health of detainees.

Cases were documented where prisoners were ill-treated by prison guards, as well as cases of torture by gang members, including beatings, lynchings and constant threats, which prison officials did not attempt to prevent.

Venezuela (source: Amnesty International)

Intelligence services and other security forces, with the acquiescence of the judicial system, continued to arbitrarily detain, torture and otherwise ill-treat those perceived to be opponents of the government of Nicola?s Maduro. A report by the UN Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on Venezuela exposed patterns of crimes against humanity and called for investigations into several named government officials.

Political opponents, real and perceived, were constantly under attack and at risk of arbitrary detention, torture and other human rights violations. Several thousand people continued to be subject to restrictions on their freedom because of current or past politically motivated judicial procedures.

As of September, security forces had carried out 488 alleged extrajudicial executions in various parts of the country. Those responsible remained unpunished.

Arbitrary detentions remained widespread and those held were often subjected to torture or other ill-treatment. Authorities also carried out short-term enforced disappearances as part of this pattern of violations.

[The UN Fact Finding Mission] ... identified a group of individuals in [the] intelligence agencies that carried out arbitrary detentions, torture and other ill-treatment and a chain of command linking them directly to Nicolás Maduro, and called for them to be investigated for crimes against humanity.

Saudi Arabia (source: Amnesty International)

Human rights organizations remained banned under the Law on Associations. Human rights defenders and activists continued to be arbitrarily detained, harassed in detention or subjected to arbitrary travel bans that restrict their freedom of movement. Dozens continued to serve prison terms for their human rights work.

Saudi Arabian authorities arbitrarily detained Ethiopian men, women and children for up to 18 months in inhumane conditions and tortured and otherwise ill-treated them before forcibly returning them to Ethiopia, most of them between April and May, solely for their irregular immigration status. They were held in overcrowded cells with inadequate access to food, water, sanitation and healthcare in two detention centres prior to their deportation. At least 12 men died.