"His experiences with persecution made Lantos the Congressman an eloquent advocate for human rights and a staunch defender of Israel."By "defender of Israel," he doesn't mean a humane, complex loyalty to the idea of a just state of Israel (as one might find in Tikkun or in a person of integrity such as Amira Hass) - he means the lethal, racist, US-style, AIPAC Zionism that Lantos championed. It's astounding that a reporter could, with a straight face, link "advocate of human rights" with "staunch defender of Israel" in the same sentence and expect to be taken seriously.
Later in the report Naylor says that Speaker of the House Pelosi described Lantos as "shining a light on dark corners of oppression." Apparently just some corners...
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Israel weasels out of human rights observations because their chief behavior policy is one of a constant 'under threat' state of mind. Therefore, they don't consider themselves obligated to observe human rights on anything but a very conditional scale. Anyone who supports Israel unconditionally knows this. Their pre-emptive war policy is based on the same thing. And now, with Bush's US having followed suit with the Iraq War, both nations have wrecked their credibility in championing human rights.
A recent 'On Point' featured an Iraqi nun who just got back from 'Surge'-affected Baghdad, and she said conditions are worse than ever, worse than under Saddam, and anti-Americanism is more pronounced than ever.
Congresspeople like Lantos want it both ways: to pose as humanitarians while backing hypocritical 'humanitarians'. Of course, hypocrisy is no great sin to those who want to stay in power, with all the agendas therein.
Or, instead of 'human rights observations' it could be said 'human rights obligations'
(As if it would make any difference...)
This PM Guy Raz had a chat w/ AG Mukasey on board a plane for Baghdad. The whole interview was pretty smarmy, but I guess if you're stuck on a plane for 12 hours with someone you might as well be nice. Still the alleged purpose of the trip really didn't wash with me; something about monitoring the legal system in Iraq. It sounded very fishy to me. Naturally, Raz had zero real information to divulge.
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