Freedom House 2009 report: freedom is an exception from the rule in the Middle East

Yaacov Lozowick, the author of a great book “Right to Exist, A Moral Defense of Israel’s Wars” (which I highly recommend to anyone, friend or foe), makes a few important points in his short post, Lands of the Unfree:

Freedom House has published its report about freedom in the world, 20089. They find 42 countries and 9 territories to be Not Free, the report I’ve linked to focuses mostly on the 17 countries and 4 territories that are the worst of all.
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The Palestinians aren’t on the list. Or rather, they are, higher up in the Not Free category, and while this is not only because of Israel it is partially so, and this is bad. Still, they’re not in the 21 worst places to be described in the report. Which then raises the question, why do some people think the Palestinians have it worse than anyone else? And what are we to make of American, British, Argentinian or other bloggers activists and noise-makers, who willfully overlook the suffering of tens of millions of people in order to focus mainly or exclusively on Israel’s crimes in denying freedom?

I’m not defending Israel in this post; I’m attacking Israel’s detractors.

I can only add that I see nothing wrong with defending Israel (or any other country, for that matter), especially when it is measured by double standards and is singled out for unjust and inordinate onslaught.

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Freedom House

The list of Worst of the Worst, 2009:
Belarus
Burma
Chad
China
Cuba
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Laos
Libya
North Korea
Saudi Arabia
Somalia
Sudan
Syria
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Zimbabwe
Tibet (China)
South Ossetia (Georgia)
Western Sahara (Morocco)
Chechnya (Russia)