Once a political prisoner in the Soviet Union and now a member
of the Israeli Parliament, Natan Sharansky came to UCLA on Tuesday
to speak on human rights and democracy in the Middle East.
Sharansky, the Israeli Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora
Affairs, came to UCLA to present students with Israel’s
stance on politics and human rights.
“It is important for everyone on campus to know how
concerned both Jews and Israel are about human rights. Israel is
very, very concerned with human rights,” said Arash Nafisi,
vice president for Bruins for Israel.
Israel’s concern for human rights reaches beyond
it’s own borders to include all people, Sharansky said.
“Democracy is for all people in the world,” he said.
“Palestinians deserve to live in freedom and democracy, no
less than we Jews.”
As told by Sharansky, Israel is the only proponent of human
rights and democracy in the region, and its neighbors are regimes
tantamount to Stalinist Russia or Hitler’s Germany.
“Israel is the only country in the Middle East which
respects human rights,” Sharansky said. “There is no
other country in the Middle East where people can freely express
their views … where the rights of women are respected, where the
rights of sexual minorities are respected.”
And while Israel is a model of democracy, other Middle Eastern
nations follow the model of preceding 20th century dictators, and
use tactics of fear and brainwashing to maintain power over their
people, Sharansky said.
“If you want to stay in power, you have to keep your own
people under control,” he said. “A dictator, in order
to keep people under control, needs an enemy.”
But while Sharansky may compare Middle Eastern regimes to Nazism
and Communism, others say the same of the Israeli government.
Those who speak out against Israel, point to the perceived
massacre of civilians by Israeli soldiers in Jenin, leveling of
Palestinian homes and Israel’s presence in disputed
territories as examples of actions that run contrary to human
rights.
Sharansky attempted to disprove some of these allegations.
“Israel is a democracy in the state of war,” he
said, adding that as such a state, Israel is subject to incredibly
difficult decisions.
One decision that Sharansky discussed in particular, was the
method of dealing with the town of Jenin, which he said is the
origin of many suicide bombers.
In Jenin, soldiers went house to house and killed only those who
were perceived as a threat.
“Fifty-four Palestinians were killed … at least 500
Palestinians were saved,” he said.
Sharansky does not merely talk about human rights ““ he has
in fact spent his life fighting for it, said Geoffrey Garrett, Vice
Provost of the International Institute at UCLA and director of the
Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations, who sponsored
the event.
“For more than a quarter of a century, Natan Sharansky has
been internationally known as a champion of human rights,”
Garret said, adding that for his efforts, Sharansky has received
the Congressional Gold Medal.
And in the Soviet Union, Sharansky paid a high price for his
activism.
“He was arrested by the KGB in 1977 and sentenced to
prison,” Garrett said, adding that he spent more than a year
of his nine in prison, in solitary confinement, which Sharansky
remembered as a cell so small and dark that it could drive a person
crazy.