Schadenfreude, human rights and Israel
Who gets to interpret a country’s record on human rights? Over the past number of years, we have seen the degradation and devolution of the meaning of such rights, particularly at the hands of international institutions. When we think of the United Nations Human Rights Council, for example, we expect an institution that exemplifies an impartiality codified in its conduct and behaviour. Likewise, we expect the UN General Assembly to equally condemn state actors when necessary and uphold the values it was entrusted with.
Time and again however, our faith in justice and fairness has dissolved as we come to understand that despite this world’s incredible achievements in science, medicine, engineering and the arts, these institutions are simply mirrors of humanity’s primal tribalism — to divide and conquer.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights codified by the UN General Assembly and its affiliate institutions is supposed to uphold fairness, equality and justice for all humanity. The 193 nation states that have a seat in the assembly are supposed to provide freedom and equity to their citizens; they are supposed to respect religion and minority rights; and they are supposed to work toward ending slavery, poverty and conflict in all its forms.
But in reality, we live in a world where state actors and non-governmental organizations have co-opted the meaning of human rights — sometimes for political expedience. It is why small countries like Israel that do strive to advance freedom and democracy are overwhelmed at global forums by actors opposed to these values.
The degradation of human rights and their meaning can best be understood by a complex social behaviour called Schadenfreude. Its simplest meaning is a self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures or humiliation of another.
With Schadenfreude, there is a false sense of justice associated with seeing either someone or a nation being accused of being “bad.” This is why our conception of human rights on a social level and an international level is failing us today. It has been co-opted by false narratives and actors that act according to political interest, and the world is not blind that in the case of Israel, Schadenfreude appears to be the motivation behind the relentless efforts by state actors and NGOS to attempt to showcase its behaviour as being “immoral” or “bad” and therefore requiring punishment.
This version of human rights — the one that picks on Israel and even Western values — is troubling. In recent months, the International Criminal Court’s legitimacy has come to be questioned over what appears to be a politicized decision to investigate Israel and its leaders for war crimes. Despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, and that the Palestinian Authority, which lodged the complaint, is not recognized as a “state,” the court is proceeding with its investigation.
And just this week, piling on the ICC’S targeting of Israel, the Human Rights Watch organization published a report outrageously alleging that “Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Israel is a small country that has suffered more violent confrontations with its neighbours than any other Western nation. It is a country that experiences terrorism — mainly from its Palestinian population — daily. As I write this piece, Israeli children are hiding in bunkers in the south trying to survive another round of rockets from Gaza. Yet the world is eerily silent. Where are its accusations of war crimes?
The Israel pile-on continued on Tuesday as former CIA director John Brennan tweeted that he “always found it difficult to fathom how a nation of people deeply scarred by a history replete with prejudice, religious persecution and unspeakable violence perpetrated against them would not be the empathetic champions of those whose rights and freedoms are still abridged.”
In fact, despite the rocket attacks, the horrendous suicide bombings, the incitement and international campaigns to defame the Jewish State, Israel has continued to strive as a unified nation toward equality, opportunity and mutual prosperity. The strain it endures in the Middle East tinderbox would have broken most nations long ago.
Schadenfreude reminds us that when the Jews were marched out of their villages and shot at a nearby ravine, it was their neighbours who stood by. Schadenfreude teaches us why, 76 years post-holocaust, when an elderly Jewish woman (Sarah Halimi) is thrown to her death from a third-storey balcony, the world is silent.
As a proponent of human rights, I believe we have to reclaim their meaning, defend civil and universal rights, and ensure that critical analysis is fair and contextualized. What is truly holding the world together are strong moral and ethical values espoused by people who are exerting goodwill, compassion and kindness every day.
We need to reframe the meaning of human rights urgently and passionately. Schadenfreude is a dangerous human complex that needs to be exposed wherever it manifests — for the sake of humanity.
MIRRORS OF HUMANITY’S PRIMAL TRIBALISM.