State Dept. Human Rights Report

The State Department released today its 2009 Human Rights Report that outlines freedom of the press, religion, democracy, and a slew of other issues throughout the world. The section on Israel is quite lengthy and, while one would expect the bulk of the report to deal with Israeli actions toward Palestinians, significant sections are devoted to other domestic issues, including the role of the religious Jewish community.

Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Michael Posner addressed questions on the Israeli section of the report and how U.S. officials considered the continued blockade on the Gaza Strip and last year’s Operation Cast Lead. The exchange, while not saying much, went like this:

QUESTION: I’d like to ask about your area of conflict, and I have to read the specific section on Israel a little more carefully. But you talk about – I mean, obviously, the human rights of Israelis in the conflict being killed by rockets and things is disturbing. But I’m wondering how you see the situation in Gaza and the lack of humanitarian aid or shortage of humanitarian aid. I mean, isn’t access to clean water, shelter, food, electricity, those type of things also a human right that people, regardless of whether they’re in the middle of a conflict, deserve?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY POSNER: Let me answer that in two respects. The broader discussion of Gaza in the last year, and it’s very much in the report, focused on Operation Cast Lead at the beginning of the year and the Goldstone Report that followed at the UN.

And our assessment of that from the beginning has been that there was an inadequate attention in that report to the nature of the conflict. It’s an urban conflict, an asymmetrical conflict where there needs to be an evaluation by the Israelis, by us, by everybody who is involved in those sorts of conflicts, in the way in which you can preserve and protect noncombatant civilians, including the humanitarian issue you describe. This is a subject that I think has not gotten the attention it deserves, and it ought to be the way we look forward.

We’ve also said to the Israelis and all the parties they need to review everything that happened in Cast Lead, conduct serious review and investigation, and have accountability mechanisms.

QUESTION: If I could just quickly follow up?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY POSNER: Sure.

QUESTION: I mean, I’m not – I guess I’m not even asking – I mean, does it really matter what the nature of the conflict is? And I’m not even talking about Operation Cast Lead and how it was conducted, and obviously, rights on both sides were violated. I’m talking about the kind of day-to-day, you know, quality-of-life issues. Regardless of who was at fault or, you know, things like that, I mean, you know, you talk in other areas of the report and – about, you know, places where people are suffering in Sri Lanka because of the conflict.

I mean, does it really matter, you know, that Hamas is ruling Gaza and, you know, they’re committing human rights – I mean, the fact that there are so many roadblocks and the inability to get aid in, I mean, is that a violation of human rights by Israel?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY POSNER: Well, let me come back to your initial question and try to answer it both ways. The issues – humanitarian access, humanitarian concerns are definitely part of what we are paying attention to. And Senator Mitchell, others in the U.S. Government are constantly in these discussions. I had some when I was in Israel in January. And the kinds of things you’re describing there is some movement on, but hospital conditions, access to food and medicine, all of that is clearly something that’s – that we favor and that we are trying to be supportive of. We’re supportive financially to UNRWA, which is feeding probably 70 percent of the population of Gaza.

It is more complicated, to be sure, to deal with humanitarian questions in a place where the – where Hamas is largely in control. It makes the effort more difficult. It does not mean that there isn’t a responsibility. It does not mean that we’re not going to continue to do what we can to promote humanitarian assistance and support.