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Israeli Knesset member, Natan Sharansky, talks about human rights and democracy in the Middle Eas

Once a political prisoner in the Soviet Union and now a member of the Israeli Parliament, Natan Sharansky came to UCLA on Tuesday to speak on human rights and democracy in the Middle East.

Sharansky, the Israeli Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, came to UCLA to present students with Israel’s stance on politics and human rights.

“It is important for everyone on campus to know how concerned both Jews and Israel are about human rights. Israel is very, very concerned with human rights,” said Arash Nafisi, vice president for Bruins for Israel.

Israel’s concern for human rights reaches beyond it’s own borders to include all people, Sharansky said.

“Democracy is for all people in the world,” he said. “Palestinians deserve to live in freedom and democracy, no less than we Jews.”

As told by Sharansky, Israel is the only proponent of human rights and democracy in the region, and its neighbors are regimes tantamount to Stalinist Russia or Hitler’s Germany.

“Israel is the only country in the Middle East which respects human rights,” Sharansky said. “There is no other country in the Middle East where people can freely express their views ... where the rights of women are respected, where the rights of sexual minorities are respected.”

And while Israel is a model of democracy, other Middle Eastern nations follow the model of preceding 20th century dictators, and use tactics of fear and brainwashing to maintain power over their people, Sharansky said.

“If you want to stay in power, you have to keep your own people under control,” he said. “A dictator, in order to keep people under control, needs an enemy.”

But while Sharansky may compare Middle Eastern regimes to Nazism and Communism, others say the same of the Israeli government.

Those who speak out against Israel, point to the perceived massacre of civilians by Israeli soldiers in Jenin, leveling of Palestinian homes and Israel’s presence in disputed territories as examples of actions that run contrary to human rights.

Sharansky attempted to disprove some of these allegations.

“Israel is a democracy in the state of war,” he said, adding that as such a state, Israel is subject to incredibly difficult decisions.

One decision that Sharansky discussed in particular, was the method of dealing with the town of Jenin, which he said is the origin of many suicide bombers.

In Jenin, soldiers went house to house and killed only those who were perceived as a threat.

“Fifty-four Palestinians were killed ... at least 500 Palestinians were saved,” he said.

Sharansky does not merely talk about human rights – he has in fact spent his life fighting for it, said Geoffrey Garrett, Vice Provost of the International Institute at UCLA and director of the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations, who sponsored the event.

“For more than a quarter of a century, Natan Sharansky has been internationally known as a champion of human rights,” Garret said, adding that for his efforts, Sharansky has received the Congressional Gold Medal.

And in the Soviet Union, Sharansky paid a high price for his activism.

“He was arrested by the KGB in 1977 and sentenced to prison,” Garrett said, adding that he spent more than a year of his nine in prison, in solitary confinement, which Sharansky remembered as a cell so small and dark that it could drive a person crazy.