The Warped Mirror: Peace For Our Time

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman
02 August 09

The newly published Global Peace Index makes for curious reading, considering the very long list of countries supposedly more peaceful than Israel.

Let's imagine you're an Israeli who feels a bit queasy about the country's security situation, the ever present danger of war and the lack of peace. Maybe you're wondering if you should look for a place that's a bit safer, a bit more peaceful?

It's easy enough to find out what the experts would advise: just consult this year's Global Peace Index, released by the widely respected Vision of Humanity group. In the report, 144 countries are ranked according to how "peaceful" they are.

If you're looking for Israel on this list, you'll have to scroll down all the way to the very bottom, to number 141. Yeah, that's right: only in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq are things worse, peace-wise, apparently.

Well, this is of course fantastic news if you're looking for a more peaceful place than Israel - you have 140 countries to choose from.

Great, so let's get started – how about Sudan? It's just above Israel, at number 140. Obviously, this means that the refugees from Sudan who risk their lives and often spend all their savings and possessions to make it to Israel are completely mistaken, because they are actually fleeing to a less peaceful country.

These refugees are also tragically wrong not to seek refuge in Egypt: it's most definitely a haven of peace, coming in at number 54. And that's by no means all: Egypt's ranking in the category "Respect for Human Rights" is also better than Israel's. Egypt scores 3.5, while Israel gets a dismal 4 (5 being the worst possible).

Since we in Israel are used to getting chided about our insufficient respect for human rights, this is a great opportunity to check out who's ahead of us in this category - maybe we can learn a thing or two.

Maybe we could move up a bit, say to a 3.5 rating; we could aspire to show as much respect for human rights as, well, can you guess what other countries besides Egypt scored 3.5 on respect for human rights?

How about Saudi Arabia? Yes, in the category “Respect for human rights”, Saudi Arabia, with its 3.5 rating, is clearly ahead of Israel.

Perhaps things start falling into place now - do you remember this recent story about the efforts of Human Rights Watch (HRW) to raise funds from Saudi donors by pitching the group's anti-Israel stance?

It's clear now that people who criticized these efforts simply didn't understand how comparatively good Saudi Arabia's human rights record is.

It just so happened that on the same day I came across the story of the fundraising efforts of HRW in Saudi Arabia, I also stumbled upon two reports that painted a rather dismal picture of Saudi respect for human rights.

One report, entitled "Eleven days in Saudi Gitmo," was the story of a British Muslim who had taught for almost 30 years at a university in Mecca, but found himself suddenly detained and held in rather harrowing conditions, and finally deported - apparently without any explanation about what the accusations against him were.
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