30 November 2009: Zahava Gal-On, former Knesset member and the founding executive director of B'Tselem, on the organization and the struggle for human rights

It was the initiative of Dedi Zucker, Avigdor Feldman, and me. Yossi Sarid gave the organization its name. It was difficult in the climate of the first intifada to speak about human rights, in general, and human rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, in particular. The Israeli public's indifference to the wrongs and oppression in the Occupied Territories was greater then than it is now. We were, and 20 years later still are, a state that has no tradition of safeguarding human rights, and if there has been improvement, it relates to the rights of Jews only. Indeed, as B'Tselem's founding Executive Director, I considered it most important to document and publish, in a credible manner, the wrongs and oppression that were committed and are still being committed in our name and on our behalf.

In 1989, B'Tselem and the Palestinian organization al-Haq jointly received the prestigious award given to human rights organizations by former US President Jimmy Carter. At the ceremony in Atlanta, I recall, I told those present that in a few years there won't be any need for B'Tselem. How naïve and full of hope that statement was. Here we are, 20 years later, and, according to figures published by the organization, 8,900 Israelis and Palestinians have been killed, thousands of homes have been destroyed, thousands of Palestinian have been held in administrative detention, and the number of Israelis living over the Green Line has grown.

The human-rights discourse always takes place here in the context of terrorism. To my mind, human rights is of value only if they are protected in times of crisis. Protecting them in times of peace and conciliation is easy. The real test of our principles occurs precisely in a tough environment and when there is great rage. Human rights cannot be set aside in the face of terrorism, and the battle against terrorism must be conducted lawfully. Emergency situations require an enlightened society to show special concern for human rights.

Palestinian terrorism is terrible and it murders innocent people without distinction. International humanitarian law absolutely prohibits intentional harm of civilians. It also states that breach of the rules by one side does not permit breach by the adversary. This is the conception that guided me then, and now. The government of Israel, which controls the territories through its military force, uses the cover of the war on terrorism to systematically breach human rights. Believing that human rights are supposed to limit the state's permitted sphere of action, I attempted in our reports to transmit the message that the strength of democracy, compared with its adversaries, rests on the fact that the former does adopt the methods of the latter. In this sense, protection of human rights in such grave circumstances provides real security for the state.

Unfortunately, since the wretched statement of the late Yitzhak Rabin, that it would be better to let the Palestinian Authority fight terrorism “without the High Court of Justice and without B'Tselem,” we have been witness to a systematic attempt by the state to slander and delegitimize human rights organizations. One government after another has viewed any criticism as treasonous and subversive. Human rights in Israel are still perceived as an elitist, political, leftist concept, better left to bleeding hearts in distant and tranquil countries, and not as a universal value.

From the perspective of twenty years, it can be said that B'Tselem's battle over the Israeli public's consciousness has certainly been a success. It has not changed the majority of Israelis into advocates of human rights for all, but it has convinced them that there is a price to the occupation and the violation of rights, and that this price is paid not only by those whose land is occupied, but by the occupiers as well.