WASHINGTON, January 27, 2018 (WAFA) - Under pressure from pro-Israel groups, the New Orleans City Council rescinded on Thursday Resolution 18-5, which it passed only two weeks earlier, prompting the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a civil rights organization, and 20 other groups, to condemn its retraction.
Even though Resolution 18-5 was sponsored by more than 20 community organizations and endorsed by several human rights groups, including Amnesty International, yet pro-Israel groups such as the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans and the Anti-Defamation League attacked it simply because the New Orleans Palestinian Solidarity Committee was one of the sponsors.
The resolution did not mention any country by name but rather commits the city of New Orleans to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also called for establishing a committee to assess all city contracts and terminate those with companies complicit in human rights abuses.
In a letter addressed to New Orleans City Council officials who had sponsored the resolution and then went back on it following pressure from the pro-Israel groups, ADC and the other organizations urged lawmakers to “uphold the principles of universal human rights,” as they did when passing the resolution.
“Despite what detractors had claimed, the resolution neither mandates any political program nor is it concerned with foreign affairs. It is simply a non-binding expression of New Orleans’ support for human rights in the city,” said ADC in a statement on Friday, adding that it was “deeply alarmed by the anti-Arab tone adopted by Res. 18-5’s opponents” who “had raised no objection to the resolution’s language but appeared to be more concerned with the identity of the proponents of Res. 18-5.”
The American-Arab civil rights organization said New Orleans officials “buckled under the smear campaign of pro-Israel groups, which portrayed Res. 18-5 as an anti-Israel resolution, which is to say opponents unwittingly recognize a commitment to human rights conflicts with support for Israel.”
It also accused the pro-Israel groups of “outright prejudice” because their opposition to the resolution stemmed from the fact that Arab Americans were involved in pushing for it.
“Res. 18-5 was placed on the public docket and its passage was led by several organizations in a transparent manner. But, apparently, all that’s for naught when the wrong type of people stand up for human rights. It is remarkable that a simple non-binding resolution expressing the UN’s founding principle of human rights could be attacked as controversial and repealed. And it is a sad reflection of the reactionary politics of pro-Israel organizations and how far they will go to shut down any discussion of human rights for fear that it might include awareness about Israel’s human rights violations,” said ADC.
“At a time when diverse groups are rising to build a more inclusive American, pro-Israel groups have aligned themselves against this coalition. It is even more regrettable that the New Orleans City Council would accede to their anachronistic vision. History will record the New Orleans City Council on the wrong side of justice and, eventually, on the losing side, too.”
ADC said it “strongly objects to this exclusionary and discriminatory repeal and the political tactics that accompanied it.” It called on the New Orleans City Council “to affirm support for human rights.”
M.K.
