Israel and Human Rights

In the 14 months since the onset of the Arab uprising in Israeli-occupied territories the United States has called on both sides to desist from violence while several times citing Israel for its excessive use of force. Now, in its annual report on human-rights practices around the world, the State Department finds that Israeli troops inflicted “many avoidable deaths and injuries” on Arabs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including beating many who had not directly engaged in violence. Though Israel disputes these conclusions, the department notes that its findings are based in good part on what Israeli news and government sources have reported, not least criticism by Israel’s attorney general that the army exceeded legal limits on the use of force.

The department puts the number of Palestinians killed in the uprising in 1988 at 366, with more than 20,000 wounded or injured. Israel’s official response, now as before, is that these deaths and injuries resulted from “provocations” and “violent riots.” These contextual labels, however, do nothing to diminish the human toll or mitigate the use of incommensurate force. What has become clear is that, where rules of official conduct are concerned, rock-throwing has become de facto a capital offense--at least when the rock-thrower is an Arab. Neither the army nor the police, for example, have ever felt compelled to shoot the ultra-religious Jerusalemites who regularly stone supposed desecraters of the sabbath.

There are, to be sure, many countries with human-rights records far worse than Israel’s. But none of them can claim to be guided by the ethical standards and respect for the rule of law that Israel professes, and against which its behavior invites judgment. It is precisely because of these principles that many Israelis, not least in the army, are dismayed and sickened by what is going on. At its highest levels, however, the government still denies that what it faces is a political challenge that can be resolved only by a political response and not by yet more shootings, yet more beatings, yet more soul-destroying brutalization.