Al Jazeera’s Scurrilous Attack on Morocco

[Valin]

Dispatches:

Michael J Totten

Dec 10 2014

 

Some people and organizations who claim to champion human rights don’t give a flying fork about the genuine article and would rather slam Western democracies and their allies than take an unflinching look at those who binge on anti-Westernism who, not coincidentally, include most of the worst human rights abusers on earth. The U.S. and Israel are the most abused targets, but Arab countries can get hit with it too.

 

The latest example came over the Thanksgiving weekend when Morocco hosted the second annual World Human Rights Forum in the city of Marrakech. (The first was held last year in Brazil.) I was invited to participate—I was not paid to be there, but travel expenses were covered—along with almost 7,000 others, mostly from the Middle East and Africa.

 

Al Jazeera published a report about the conference before it even began and described it as a “masquerade” right in the headline. The forum, it says, was “designed to deceive Western political and business partners about the North African kingdom's 2011 political reform project.”

 

This is nonsense on stilts. The forum had nothing to do with Morocco or its internal affairs. It just happened to take place in Morocco. It was sponsored by an international institution concerned with human rights all over the world. Next year’s forum will be held in Argentina.

 

But Morocco is a pro-Western country, one of America’s major non-NATO allies, and a source of stability instead of “resistance,” so in certain quarters it’s suspect.

 

(Snip)