Israel 60 Years On.

I thought long and hard about what to write for the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel’s creation. Should I look at the background to its creation? Or perhaps a history of the various efforts at mediating solutions? I could have written many things, but none of them would have match this document for its eloquence:

Declaration of Israel’s Independence 1948

Issued at Tel Aviv on May 14, 1948 ( 5th of Iyar, 5708 )

ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) - The Land of Israel] was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.

After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people remained faithful to it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.

Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, ma’pilim [(Hebrew) - immigrants coming to Eretz-Israel in defiance of restrictive legislation] and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country’s inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.

In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.

This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.

The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations.

Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.

In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations.

On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.

This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.

ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE’S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.

WE DECLARE that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People’s Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People’s Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called “Israel”.

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

THE STATE OF ISRAEL is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.

WE APPEAL to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel into the comity of nations.

WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

WE EXTEND our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

WE APPEAL to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream - the redemption of Israel.

PLACING OUR TRUST IN THE ALMIGHTY, WE AFFIX OUR SIGNATURES TO THIS PROCLAMATION AT THIS SESSION OF THE PROVISIONAL COUNCIL OF STATE, ON THE SOIL OF THE HOMELAND, IN THE CITY OF TEL-AVIV, ON THIS SABBATH EVE, THE 5TH DAY OF IYAR, 5708 (14TH MAY, 1948).

David Ben-Gurion
Daniel Auster
Mordekhai Bentov
Yitzchak Ben Zvi
Eliyahu Berligne
Fritz Bernstein
Rabbi Wolf Gold
Meir Grabovsky
Yitzchak Gruenbaum
Dr. Abraham Granovsky
Eliyahu Dobkin
Meir Wilner-Kovner
Zerach Wahrhaftig
Herzl Vardi Rachel Cohen
Rabbi Kalman Kahana
Saadia Kobashi
Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin
Meir David Loewenstein
Zvi Luria
Golda Myerson
Nachum Nir
Zvi Segal
Rabbi Yehuda Leib Hacohen Fishman
David Zvi Pinkas
Aharon Zisling
Moshe Kolodny
Eliezer Kaplan
Abraham Katznelson
Felix Rosenblueth
David Remez
Berl Repetur
Mordekhai Shattner
Ben Zion Sternberg
Bekhor Shitreet
Moshe Shapira
Moshe Shertok

A Day To Remember.

The 10th May 1933 should be remembered, as the IHT reports:

“Germany’s president on Friday marked the 75th anniversary of the 1933 book-burning that was an emblematic step in the Nazis’ seizure of power, voicing his country’s shame for actions that he said faced little resistance at the time.

On May 10, 1933 — little more than three months after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor — students around Germany burned thousands of books deemed to be “un-German.”

“We recall today with shame that 75 years ago — not just here in Berlin, but in all of Germany — tens of thousands applauded and cheered as the books of Erich Kaestner, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Kurt Tucholsky and many others were thrown into the fire by students,” President Horst Koehler said.

Koehler said in a speech at Berlin’s Academy of Arts that the book-burning, broadcast on radio, left room for no illusions about the way Nazi-run Germany was headed, coming after a boycott of Jewish businesses weeks earlier.

“It was only a small step from the ostracism of Jews to the burning of their books, and again a small step from the burning of books to the burning of human beings,” Koehler said. “And there was barely any resistance against the action.”

He noted that the book-burning was not even organized by the state, but by the student body, adding that “academics, students and professors engaged in propaganda against what they viewed as ‘un-German.
…
“

Resistance to Books

Most Afghan girls have a hard life, third class citizens in their own country, striving to improve themselves against overwhelming odds and when they try to get out of the vicious circle of illiteracy, poverty, and destitution then they are viciously attacked, The Times reports:

“After they had terrorised the caretaker for doing the work of foreigners, they collected floor mats and desks to light bonfires inside the classrooms. Then they gathered all the dog-eared exercise books and school textbooks that they could find and threw them into the flames.

After a year’s respite the Taleban has returned to attacking schools and intimidating teachers across much of the south and east of the country. Schoolbooks, regarded as a threat to the Taleban’s grip on the minds of young Afghans, are a particular target.

Since the beginning of the new school year on March 23 there have been 36 attacks. Empty buildings have been set on fire or had grenades thrown into them. Teachers have been kidnapped, and later released. In one grisly case a caretaker was mutilated by having his ears and nose cut off, a common punishment for those accused of collaborating with the Afghan Government.
…
Classes in Kandahar city are still full of girls, most of whom walk to school wearing burkas that are tucked under their desks during lessons given by male teachers.

At the Shalid Abdul Ahad Karzai school, which teaches boys in the morning and girls in the afternoon, the principal, Dawood Shah, admitted that many parents are deeply worried.

He said: “The main problems are explosions, kidnappings and assassinations.” Two years ago 16 pupils died when a bomb exploded outside his school. Some pupils have been withdrawn recently because their parents fear they are being targeted for abduction by kidnappers.

A more everyday problem is intimidation of girls by men who approach them as they walk home. In deeply conservative Kandahar, girls’ education is still opposed by many men.

Sixteen-year-old Anita said: “It is difficult but we have to come to classes. It is our duty to be educated. Our families are happy that we come to school but they worry about our security.” Some of her classmates have stopped attending because of the threats though, she admitted. “

Dying For a Cigarette?

Cigarettes and death are often linked but in a BBC World Service programme, Misha Glenny looked at how they financed the conflict in the Balkans and it sheds new light on the political disputes between Montenegrin and Serbia, download as a MP3.

Hamas Out Duke David Irving.

The latest filth from Hamas beggars belief, via Engage:

Humble Pie? Unlikely

Boris Johnson’s win in the mayoral elections will probably herald a bitter period of bloodletting with blame liberally strewn around, questions will be asked of the Labour Party, new Labour and not least Ken Livingstone.

It is easy enough to blame the media and certainly the Evening Standard had it in for Ken, others dug around for any dirt sowing it squarely at Ken’s feet. Sadly, Livingston provided more than enough material for his critics, from shenanigans in City Hall to sucking up to Clerics and attacking human-rights campaigners.

Blame enough for all occasions and Ken might rightly criticise the media, but he is a professional politician and cannot be unfamiliar with their shady methods so it’s all the more surprising that he supplied much of the material that they’ve used against him.

Ultimately, Livingstone is to blame for his own defeat.

The hubris that he exhibited certainly demonstrated the many flaws in his character, and just for a moment during the election campaign we saw a more modest, slightly humble Ken but it failed to convince people to vote for him.

Instead old Etonian Boris Johnson is now London mayor.

Until now Johnson’s managerial experience was confined to organising the Spectator’s stationary cabinet or buying a round of drinks. He may well find that the job of London mayor is very taxing and beyond his buffoonery. However, it’s reasonable to expect that the Tory Party will carefully manage Johnson’s term in office, they’ll put their best people on it because with the success or failure of Johnson hangs the Tory Party and importantly, their chance of winning the next general election.

The Tories will do anything to win the next general election, they see the mayoral election as a springboard to power, so they’ll probably aim for a technocratic administration with Johnson simply as a figurehead, carefully marshalled and briefed by Tory Party minders.

I suspect that they will try to play up the cuddly side of the Tory Party, to wash away the harsh image of Thatcherism and the dotage of John Major, hoping that the Brown government will play into their hands.

The Cameron game plan is to run a fairly competent and uncontroversial mayoralty, try to convince people that the Tories are not headbangers or fiscal vampires and make a big play at the general election.

I sincerely hope that they don’t succeed, but with the Brown government and the new Labour zombies anything is possible.

Having said all of that I doubt very much that Ken will be eating any humble pie, he’s not the type, shame because if he had, then he still might be Mayor.

Harry’s Gone!

Harry’s Place has finally migrated to WordPress at their new site.

It is still early days and its not always as easy as it should be to move one site completely over to a new host.

They have to move some 96 Mb of comments over, so please be patient with them and enjoy the new HP.

Going but Not Forgotten

Blogs come, blogs go but few make me laugh as much as Judeosphere, who writes:

“I’ll get straight to the point: This is my final post. I am shutting down Judeosphere.

I did not arrive at this decision lightly. I began blogging for two reasons: (1) I felt that I could offer some value-added information and commentary on such vital issues as anti-semitism and anti-Zionism. (2) I found it rather cathartic to vent on these issues, and I discovered that blogging is far less disruptive than shouting at strangers on street corners.

So, what’s changed? For starters, it is increasingly difficult to find time to write quality blog posts. Various other matters (aka “real life”) keep interfering. Second, blogs that cover the issues that concern me are flourishing (see, for example, recently launched Z-Word). The blogosphere is in good hands.”

I hope to do a best of Judeosphere shortly, but as a starter try this post:

“Judeosphere’s List of Top Ten Double Standards On the Middle East ™

(1) Christian fundamentalists who support Israel are religious fanatics; Jewish fundamentalists who oppose Zionism are individuals of deep religious and moral conviction.

(2) Comparing Israelis to Nazis is a poignant political statement; comparing Saddam Hussein and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler is a gross distortion of history with the intent of demonizing foreign leaders and justifying imperialist military campaigns.

(3) Palestinian nationalism reflects the inherent right of all people to self-determination; Jewish nationalism is an archaic form of tribalism and racial supremacy.

(4) Criticizing academics that legitimize hateful stereotypes of African-Americans and Arab-Americans is a proper response from minority groups who oppose racism; criticizing academics that legitimize hateful stereotypes of Jewish-Americans is an attempt to stifle free speech.

(5) Iran has the right under international law to pursue nuclear power for peaceful purposes; any other country that pursues nuclear power is endangering the environment and increasing the risk of nuclear proliferation.

(6) Jews who cite the lessons of the Holocaust as a rationale for opposing Israel are moralists; Jews who cite the lessons of the Holocaust as a rationale for opposing authoritarian regimes in places like Yugoslavia and Iraq are neocon warmongers.

(7) Israeli policies are said to be tantamount to “genocide”; accusations of genocide in Darfur are a Zionist plot to divide the Muslim community.

(8 The war on terrorism is driven by Islamophobia; the “new anti-semitism” is a myth created to deflect legitimate criticism of Israel.

(9) Efforts to oppose anti-semitism on college campuses undermine academic freedom; academic boycotts against Israel infringe upon academic freedom but serve a greater good.

(10) Burning flags with Muslim symbols is desecration, burning the Israeli flag and the Star of David is political protest.”

Iran Attacked by Imperialists!

The BBC has disclosed a vicious attack on Iran by a group of modern day imperialists:

“Al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has blamed Iran for spreading the theory that Israel was behind the 11 September 2001 attacks.

In an audio tape posted on the internet, Zawahiri insisted al-Qaeda had carried out the attacks on the US.

He accused Iran, and its Hezbollah allies, of trying to discredit Osama Bin Laden’s network.

Correspondents say the comments underline al-Qaeda’s increasing public hostility towards Iran.

In a two-hour audiotape posted on an Islamist website, Osama Bin Laden’s chief deputy responded to questions posted by al-Qaeda sympathisers.

In response to a question about persistent rumours in the Middle East that Israel was involved in the 9/11 attacks, Zawahiri said the rumour had begun on the Hezbollah television station, Al-Manar.

“The purpose of this lie is clear - [to suggest] that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history, he said.

“Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it.”

Sunni fears

Zawahiri went on to criticise Iran for co-operating with the US in its 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, that helped to oust the Taleban.

…”

Damn imperialists!

Dissent On The Tibetan Intifada.

Dissent has two interesting articles on Tibet:

“What happened in Tibet and the neighboring provinces might best be called an intifada. I won’t attempt a comparison with the first and second Palestinian intifadas (the first is closer to the Tibetan uprising, though it lasted much longer and probably involved a larger proportion of the population). But I want to tell the Tibetan story with the Palestinian story in the back of my mind.

We don’t have much detailed information about the recent demonstrations or about the repression. Accounts from Tibetan sources tell of peaceful marches broken up by police and soldiers with clubs and then with guns. Journalists confirm these accounts but tell also of riots that involved the looting and burning of Chinese shops and attacks on individual Chinese settlers. Official sources in Beijing emphasize the attacks and insist that police and soldiers fired only in self-defense. Most commentators assume what I will also assume, that whatever the violence of the demonstrators, the violence of the repression has been greater. It has also been highly effective very quickly—a sign of its massiveness and probably of its brutality.”

and

“Almost everywhere the Olympic torch goes on its 21-country, 85,000-mile relay from Athens to Beijing, it runs into demonstrators protesting China’s occupation of Tibet and its role in the genocide in Darfur. In London, thirty-five demonstrators were arrested by the police after numerous clashes, and in Paris, the Olympic flame was extinguished five times before those carrying it canceled their relay run.

A similar set of events took place in San Francisco, the Olympic torch’s one stop in America. The day before the torch arrived activists unfurled “Free Tibet” banners on the Golden Gate Bridge, setting the stage for the demonstrations that followed. The route of the Olympic torch was kept secret by city officials as long as possible, and then as the torch made its rescheduled trip, it was protected by police on motorcycles, who finally decided the best way to deal with the demonstrators they faced was to place the torch on a bus and drive it to the San Francisco airport.

But the failure of these global protests to have any discernible effect on Chinese foreign policy raises the question, What’s next?”

Update: The Chinese rulers of Tibet are enforcing “re-education” on the Tibetans, The Times reports:

“From civil servants to yak herders, barley farmers and street traders, the residents of the Tibetan capital and surrounding countryside are being subjected to a two-month re-education campaign to combat anti-Chinese sentiment.

Under the latest drive to instil a sense of patriotism — titled “Oppose splittism, protect stability, encourage development” — those involved in the anti-Chinese Lhasa riots of March 14 will be asked to denounce their actions and condemn others who took part.

China says that 22 people died when Tibetans rampaged through Lhasa, stabbing and stoning ethnic Han Chinese and burning shops and offices.

For thousands of monks across the restive Himalayan region and in adjacent provinces, such campaigns have become part of life in the monasteries.

Reminiscent in tone and rhetoric of the Cultural Revolution, patriotic lessons attack the “wrongs” of taking part in anti-Chinese protests or demonstrations in support of the Dalai Lama as China tries to persuade Tibetans to renounce their exiled spiritual leader.

Political education, an occasional if unwelcome interruption into monastic life, has become a daily ritual for monks such as Wangchuk — not his real name — who no longer have the freedom to watch the latest DVD, surf the internet or chat with friends on their mobile phones.

Wangchuk’s monastery has been his home since he was a child. He gets up at dawn, offers holy water and lights a yak butter lamp to honour the Buddha protector of his temple and the Dalai Lama — in all his 14 reincarnations.

Under more peaceable circumstances Wangchuk’s afternoon would have comprised an array of different activities, from saying prayers for the dead “to help their soul reach Heaven” to debates with his fellow monks or time spent with his teacher.

Now, the monasteries have been closed to the public and a very different study session forms part of his timetable: patriotic education:

“This is compulsory. There’s no excuse for not attending — unless you’re ill and then you have to have a note from doctor.”

The sessions used to be called for a week once every two or three months. They now take place almost daily. “We gather in the main hall and Communist Party officials deliver a speech telling us to be patriotic and they give each monk a paper to read.”

This session takes place in the morning; in the afternoon the monks are summoned to answer questions. “Usually it’s pretty relaxed. If I can’t remember my answers then I just repeat the same as the monk in front of me.

“Sometimes it turns more serious. That is when the police arrive. They stand beside each monk listening carefully to make sure each answer is correct. If the police come we have to lie. We have to say, ‘I love the Motherland. I don’t love him’. They don’t require you to explain who ‘him’ is, because we all know.”

Beijing has blamed the recent violence on the Dalai Lama and his followers. “We learn from the patriotic education that many things are banned. For example, we can’t have pictures of the Dalai Lama and we mustn’t listen to what people outside China tell us.”

In the past few weeks groups of Tibetan monks have staged highly publicised protests, including hijacking official tours of the region put on for foreign journalists.

The latest re-education campaign, which will include films and television programmes, suggests that China fears the spread of the discontent. “

(Hat tip: Ami)

More Darwin

Charles Darwin’s work, Origin of the Species published in 1859, was both controversial and breathtakingly simple. It sparked the development of many modern branches of science and his contribution to our understanding of humanity cannot be understated, so it is with great pleasure that I present Darwin On-line, with many of his original notes.

Darwin On-line contains a fine audio section with MP3s (rendered using text to speech technology) of his major works.

Enjoy!

No Sweat News.

I seem to have missed this when it first came out but No Sweat reports:

“Iranian Trade Unionist, Mahmoud Salehi, Freed

TUC welcomes release of Iranian bakery workers’ leader Mahmoud Salehi The TUC has welcomed the news today (Sunday 6 April) that Iranian bakery workers’ leader Mahmoud Salehi was released from the City of Sanandaj‘s central prison at 3pm. He had completed a one-year jail sentence for trade union activities nearly two weeks ago, but the authorities had refused to release him. The TUC reiterated its call for the Iranian Government to release bus workers’ leader Mansour Osanloo from the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, to free all jailed Iranian trade unionists, and to abide by international labour laws”

LabourStart provides excellent background information:

“On April 9, 2007, a commanding officer of the Saqez security forces appeared at Mahmoud Salehi’s work and asked him to attend at the office of the prosecutor to negotiate with the governor and the prosecutor about this year’s celebration of the international workers’ day, which was being organized by Salehi and his colleagues. However, in the prosecutor’s office, Salehi, the former President of the Bakery Workers’ Association of the City of Saqez and a well-known labour activist in Iran, was told that the Kurdistan Appeal Court has reached the final verdict on his May Day 2004 case and that he has been sentenced to one year imprisonment and a three year suspended prison sentence. They immediately put Salehi under arrest. Salehi objected to the deceitful and illegal way in which his arrest took place and refused to sign the order. After that Salehi was taken immediately to the Sanandaj Central Prison. This way, the government authorities did not allow Salehi to contact his family, lawyer and colleagues, and he was not even allowed to take his medications with him. Salehi has major kidney problems, as one of his kidneys has stopped working and the other one is almost failing and without medications and continuous treatment his life would be endangered. Thus far, the verdict of the appeal court has not been handed down to Salehi’s lawyers.”

(Hat Tip: Jim Denham)

Israeli Workers Killed.

El Nuevo Pantano brings up an interesting point:

“I wonder if Hamas will now be subjected to similar criticism by the concerned of the world for endangering the supply of fuel to the civilian population of Gaza. And I wonder what arguments one might reasonably offer to Israelis workers to persuade them to to take up the vacancies left by the men murdered today.”

JP reports:

“Gaza’s only power plant will be shut down in two to three days unless Israel resumes fuel shipments, power plant director Rafik Maliha said Saturday.

Maliha warned that half a million Gazans would be left without electricity.

Israel halted supplies last week after Gaza terrorists attacked the Nahal Oz fuel depot on the Gaza-Israel border and killed two workers.

The power plant’s fuel reserves have been low in recent months, after Israel restricted fuel supplies in hopes of forcing terrorists to halt rocket attacks from Gaza. “

Interviewing The ISI.

The BBC World Service programme, the Interview, has a strange encounter with the former Director General of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence, Asad Durrani.

He comes across as highly intelligent, politically astute and incredibly morally ambivalent when it suits him.

Download it here.

Open Thread on Tibet

China in Tibet will be an ongoing issue for months yet, and with the provocative torched procession scheduled to go through Tibet before arriving in Beijing.

When that happens I imagine that there will be more protesting by the Tibetans, who will probably feel the brutal repressive measures so perfected by the Chinese State.

My sympathies with the Tibetans are fairly obvious, but there are many who are asking questions, such as:

is it right for people in the West to criticise China? aren’t we being hypocrites too?

What right do Westerners have to rebuke China over Tibet, whilst troops are still in Iraq?

Isn’t it all just a CIA funded plot to overthrow China? etc

I have argued over these points, elsewhere at Madam Maiow’s, but please feel free to give me your views.

Or do you think that universal human rights should apply to every corner of the planet? Including Beijing?