As we've documented, Glenn Beck has been tirelessly pushing the conspiracy theory that actions taken by the Obama administration in the Middle East and Egypt may ultimately lead to military action against Israel.
This conspiracy, of course, is nothing more than a desperate, ill-formed attempt to smear President Obama and others on the left, including financier and philanthropist George Soros, as evidenced by the fact that Beck has accidentally implicated associates of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and even suggested that Obama adviser Samantha Power and the Pulitzer Commission -- the Pulitzer Commission -- are conspiring against Israel.
Nonetheless, Beck upped the conspiracy theory ante on Thursday's edition of his Fox News show. Purporting to explain how “a timeline of the key events and statements and actions taken by this administration and groups associated with this administration” shows that Israel may come under attack, Beck implicated another organization as a player in the conspiracy, the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. But as with his previous claims, this one completely falls apart upon closer analysis.
That's because Soros did not found the Global Centre as Beck suggests, Israel is not the focus of the center, and Israel itself has spoken out in support of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.
Here's Beck on Thursday:
BECK: 2008, George Soros is so intrigued by the Power's doctrine that he helped fund and create and entire Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, which is designed to be a catalyst for action using the Responsibility to Protect as a justification. Got it? He thinks this is great but it's not really making progress in the U.N. “I, spooky dude, will get involved,” and he puts it together in a new global organization.
Let's look at these claims a little more closely.
The Global Centre is dedicated to “help[ing] transform the principle of the responsibility to protect into a cause for action in the face of mass atrocities.” The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine has the following precepts:
* The primary responsibility to protect populations from mass atrocities lies with the state itself.
* When a state proves either unable or unwilling to protect peoples, that responsibility shifts to the international community.
* This obligation must be exercised preventively; states can not delay action until mass crimes have already occurred.
* The tools of action include diplomatic, legal, and other peaceful measures; coercive measures such as sanctions; and, as a last resort, military force.
So Beck is suggesting that the Global Centre -- a group dedicated to protecting populations from heinous crimes -- is a player in a nefarious plot to attack Israel because of Soros' involvement with the organization and because of the Global Centre's actions -- namely, its advocacy for the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. (Beck has previously claimed that the Obama adviser Power favors using a “protect doctrine” “against Israel.”)
First of all, Beck doesn't even get basic facts about the organization correct. Contrary to Beck's assertion, Soros did not found the Global Centre. In an email to Media Matters, Global Centre Research Associate Elana Berger explained that "[n]either George Soros nor Samantha Power were part of the commission that authored the doctrine of Responsibility to protect" and that “Soros was not a founder of the Centre.”
“While it is true that George Soros' open society is one of our funders,” Berger said, “we have received funding from many governments so it is not as if ... OSI is providing anywhere near a majority of our budget.”
Furthermore, the Global Centre does not even focus on Israel, a fact that casts serious doubt on the idea that the group is conspiring to use Responsibility to Protect against Israel. In her email, Berger told Media Matters that the Global Centre has “never taken any official position whatsoever with respect to the Israeli Palestinian conflict and our organization has never put out any statement that in anyway addresses Israel.” Indeed, Global Centre's website does not list Israel among the areas in which the center is currently focusing its efforts.
Nor does Beck mention that Israel itself has said that it “welcome[d]” a UN Secretary General Report on “implementing the responsibility to protect.” Israel's ambassador said the report “offers a variety of proposals and tools for the international community to confront the menacing threat of genocide,” but warned that “we must also ensure that it does not become a political tool for exploitation and abuse.”
From Israeli ambassador Gabriela Shalev's 2009 remarks in front of the U.N. General Assembly:
Israel welcomes the report by the Secretary-General, Implementing the responsibility to protect (A/63/677) and the opportunity to engage in a candid exchange of views on this important topic. The report offers a variety of proposals and tools for the international community to confront the menacing threat of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. It is essential to carefully explore these approaches and the various challenges they present, in order to develop a consensus on how to best implement this concept.
[...]
Today's debate reflects the growing consensus that the gravest crimes, wherever committed, can be viewed as a global injustice. At the same time, however, it also reflects the need to candidly discuss the complex challenges presented by the Responsibility to Protect and to address the shortcomings involved in its implementation.
Among these main challenges is the need to reach agreement on relevant guidelines and the appropriate threshold for response. For the Responsibility to Protect to develop into an effective means offering true protection from the most serious of crimes, we must also ensure that it does not become a political tool for exploitation and abuse.
Israel looks forward to a fruitful and constructive discussion that would promote progress and agreement on this important topic.
Beck also ignored the fact that the Bush administration accepted the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. In 2005, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton proposed language for the Responsibility to Protect doctrine in a letter to United Nations colleagues. The letter said: “we agree that the host state has a responsibility to protect its populations from such atrocities, and we agree in a more general and moral sense that the international community has a responsibility to act when the host state allows such atrocities.”
In his proposed text for the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, Bolton said:
We underscore that national authorities have a responsibility to protect their populations and, in cases involving genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and other large-scale atrocities in which national authorities are unwilling or unable to protect their citizens, the international community should be prepared to use diplomatic, humanitarian, and other methods to protect civilian populations, and if such methods appear insufficient the Security Council may out of necessity decide to take action under the Charter, including enforcement action, if so required.
How anti-Israel could the Global Centre actually be?
But that's the point: there are no legitimate indications that the Global Centre is a player in a conspiracy to attack Israel, so Beck is forced to play up (and distort) Soros' involvement with the organization and distort the meaning of Responsibility to Protect while highlighting facts that fit his agenda and ignoring those that don't. It's a sneaky tactic certainly, but one that doesn't make for a solid argument.
Editor's note: This post replaces an earlier post which stated that Beck attacked the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect (ICRtoP). Beck used the logo of ICRtoP as a prop during his show, but apparently he meant to refer to the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect.