Opposing the Abraham Accords is a pretty good indication you don't really care about peace - or human rights

Noura Erakat, the virulently anti-Israel academic who positions herself as a "human rights attorney," used Naftali Bennett's visit to the White House as an excuse to write a Washington Post op-ed to attack Israel as an "apartheid" state, along with the other lies we are so familiar with.

It would take a much longer article to go through all of her arguments, many of which I have debunked a number of times, but one paragraph is enough to show Erakat's dishonesty and how little she cares about liberal causes.

As part of his plan to present a new image, Bennett is seeking to “shrink the conflict” by making conditions more tolerable for Palestinians while maintaining Israeli domination, much like Trump’s vision for “economic peace.” This approach will also feature exalting the Abraham Accords — Israel’s recognition pacts with U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes — as models of peace. Bennett will likely support increasing U.S. aid for the Palestinian Authority, which is part of Israel’s security apparatus; just recently it arrested dozens of Palestinian human rights defenders in an effort to quash dissent.

Erakat derides the Abraham Accords on the grounds that Israel is only making peace with "U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes." One wonders whether her opposition is to the "US-backed" part or the "authoritarian" part. Given that every Muslim-majority state in the Middle East is an authoritarian regime, that means that Erakat is against Israel making peace with any state at all. This "human rights" attorney isn't interested in the problem that every Muslim and Arab country in the region is authoritarian - she is upset that Israel makes peace with any of them. 

Her statement reveals that she is not anti-authoritarianism, but anti-peace - with Israel. 

If someone opposes a peace agreement with Israel - and keep in mind that the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan were brokered under Democratic presidents, and their regimes are equally authoritarian - that means that you are against Israel's existence altogether and oppose the very idea of Jewish self-determination. 

How, exactly, would Israel's disappearance enhance human rights in the Middle East? Would the Palestinian Arabs enjoy more freedom and more rights?

We all know the answer to that, based on Erakat's next sentence, where she notes that the Palestinian Authority arrests protesters. (Calling them "human rights defenders" is a little bit of a stretch.) She blames Israel for this, of course, as if these arrests were outsourced by Israel. 

The Arabs enjoying the highest level of human rights in the Middle East are those who live in Israel. Israel's erasure, which Erakat clearly desires, would make things far worse for them, and probably for all Arabs whose regimes are at least a little shamed by Israel's human rights record compared to their own. 

Certainly the Gulf state have horrific human rights records, but their desire to tilt towards the West is moderating them, and peace with Israel is part of that. Opposing the Abraham Accords means opposing not only peace but also human rights for Arabs. 

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