It’s easy to criticize one’s enemies. It’s not so easy to scold one’s friends.
Yet that’s what some senior administration officials have been doing lately. A State Department report released last week downgraded Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the lowest level of compliance when it comes to preventing the high crime of human trafficking. They are now on a par with countries such as Sudan and Cambodia.
Those four nations are America’s Persian Gulf allies, and while they have cooperated with us in some aspects of the war on terror, they are far from models of democracy and human rights.
The same goes for China, guilty of many human rights abuses. Last week, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld took China to task for failing to democratize its political system as it has its economic system.
As evidence, this week China ordered all internal Web sites and blogs to register with the government or be shut down. Suppression of free expression is all too common in China and other authoritarian regimes, including many friendly with the United States.
We are pleased that the administration is willing to challenge allies on these important issues, especially given the economic and strategic stakes.
In the wake of revelations about the American military’s treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, some might accuse the United States of hypocrisy when it comes to preaching human rights.
And while we decry any violations that occurred in those U.S. installations, it is disingenuous to compare what our soldiers do in a war zone with American civil society. We are not the Sudan.
But even if the critics were right, it would not negate the correctness of the administration’s stand against human rights abuse.
As Jews, we have seen our human rights violated time and time again throughout history. Even in recent years, with the mass expulsions from Arab lands, Jews have suffered greatly. In the wake of the Holocaust, that is totally unacceptable.
We cheer all calls for universal human rights, and we condemn all violations of those rights wherever they may occur.
Now that the Bush administration is on the record with its criticisms, we look forward to the next step: backing up the words with deeds. Wielding carrots and sticks, policymakers must be willing to push friend and foe alike towards stricter compliance with basic human rights.
We Jews know better than many how important it is to do so.