Two Different Voices Address—or Not—Israel’s Occupation of Palestine

By Ian Williams

LEFT: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama addresses the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, DC, June 4, 2008. RIGHT: John Dugard, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, reports to the 4th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, March 22, 2007 (U.N. photo).

MAY SAW THE front-runner in the U.S. presidential stakes announce his impending defiance of international law and of U.N. resolutions, and support for the retention of stolen property. I refer, of course, to Barack Hussein Obama’s self-sacrifice on the altar of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), in which he tried to dispel the miasmic effect of his middle name on his reputation with the Likudnik wing of organized American Jewry.

Just as one wondered whether anyone could possibly be more pro-Israel than the Clintons, along came Bush—and now Obama. It is bad enough that any serious contender to the presidency of the United States has to take a loyalty oath to Israel before taking the oath of office, but the presumptive Democratic nominee went even further.

Obama’s pledge of an undivided Jerusalem, capital of Israel, ignored the status of the city in international law, which in recent years has been underscored by the defection to Tel Aviv of the last two embassies in Jerusalem, those of Costa Rica and El Salvador. Every year, of course, all candidates and most congressmen pledge support for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, and each time the State Department, the last remnant of American conscience and legality, manages to block the actual move.

The big comparative advantage Obama had over Hillary Clinton was that she had voted for the Iraq war, and he had not. But in the same AIPAC speech, he was every bit as hawkish on Iran as she has been. He will do “everything it takes,” he pledged, to stop Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions.

Obama’s spokespeople did hastily backtrack, assuring inquirers that he did not preclude Jerusalem being also the capital of a Palestinian state, and that what he meant was that there would be no reversion to a physically divided metropolis, like Nicosia, or Berlin before the Wall, or indeed Jerusalem before 1967.

To be fair, Obama did mention in his speech the problem of Israeli non-compliance with its road map commitments to the U.S. at Annapolis. However, he noticeably refrained from suggesting that Israeli compliance is not just a unilateral matter. According to general international law, the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. Charter, and specific U.N. resolutions, Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal. To only mention Israel’s broken pledge to the U.S. without mentioning its recidivist criminal behavior is, to use the Lobby’s favorite pejorative term, “unbalanced.”

But how does “real change” as a mantra fit in with either grovelling to AIPAC—or only pretending to. In effect, Obama has devalued his brand, and made it much more difficult to believe in change.

So how did the great hope for so many, the candidate supported by most American Muslims, Arabs and indeed most Americans who want to see a change in the disastrous policies, end up so far out on a limb?

Obama has been reeling from swift-boat-style attacks that presented him variously as a closet Muslim, a madrassa alumnus and even a terrorist sleeper. Even among sophisticated pro-Israelis his attachment to Israel has been continually challenged. In less sophisticated circles, as a reaffirmation that anti-Arabic or anti-Islamic sentiment is the permissible form of discrimination in today’s America, talk hosts sneeringly emphasized his middle name, Hussein, whenever they could.

Some of this is just brainless prejudice—but it works! In fact, Obama followed the same trajectory as Hillary Clinton, who was hounded in the early days for having expressed an occasional modicum of sense about the Palestinians. The witch-hunt served its purpose and drove her over to the Dark Side.

The sad thing about Obama’s speech is that he need not have gone so far. The lunatic fringe will keep attacking him whatever he says or does—and, perhaps even more importantly, American Jews in polls overwhelmingly oppose both the present war in Iraq and the proposed one in Iran. He would have been better off speaking to J Street, the new lobby that is far more representative of Jewish voters than the Likudniks of AIPAC.

The relentless attack tactic pays dividends in wider fields as well. Just like pro-Israel PACs (see p. 26), U.N. Watch and NGO Monitor both have innocuous-sounding names, and who does not want the U.N. and NGOs to be under scrutiny? But both are in fact a relentless assault on any organization that criticizes Israel in any way.

U.N. Watch has been crucial in eroding support for the U.N.’s new Human Rights Council and has managed to discredit it as a one-note anti-Israel body. In fact, now that the council has gotten into its stride—with, for example, 32 nations under review for their human rights records this session—that is far from true. It is of course the pro-Israeli bodies that are the one-noters, since they really do not care about other issues unless they can relate them to the cause.

At its most recent 8th session, held June 2 to 18 in Geneva, the Council heard from Prof. Richard Falk, the newly appointed special rapporteur on the situation in the occupied territories. Since he has been on the record about rights violations in Palestine for some time, the Lobby has been on the case regarding Falk’s nomination. There should be some blushes here, since it would be difficult to find anyone with a genuine professional interest in human rights who has not delivered an adverse opinion on the Israeli occupation and its consequences.

The Lobby’s implied criteria exclude almost any candidate except Alan Dershowitz, who famously can find an excuse for almost any deed that the Israeli state perpetrates, and indeed that the U.S. government commits on its behalf.

Interestingly, the guys who can make excuses for Protestant pastors who think the pope is the anti-Christ and that Hitler was doing the Lord’s work have all been coming down on Falk because he thinks there may be unanswered questions about the 9/11 attacks. Personally, I think he may be a little too open-minded on this issue, but he stole their thunder by asking for his mandate to be widened to include human rights violations on the Palestinian side. It was a clever move that should be emulated by the developing world delegations who try so hard to give truth to the rumors spread by U.N. Watch by defending notorious human rights abusers elsewhere even as they assiduously attack Israel.

Falk delivered the final report prepared by his predecessor, John Dugard, the South African human rights defender and anti-apartheid fighter who has certainly gone out in an annotated blaze of glory, that takes his critics to task while citing documentation for all his assertions. Perhaps the most telling sentence was when he addressed criticisms that his reports are repetitious—which, incidentally, also answers the charges of singling out Israel. “In short, reports are repetitious because the same violations of human rights and humanitarian law continue to occur in the OPT [occupied Palestinian territory],” he stated firmly (see box p. 23).

Ironically, he almost provides an excuse to Obama—since, after all, if the U.N. fails to call attention to its own legal pronouncements, why should an American presidential candidate?

Dugard also addressed the question of the negotiations, whose main aim from the Israeli and American side has been precisely to sideline international law, and thus Palestinian rights. “Negotiations should take place within a normative framework,” he declared, “with the guiding norms to be found in international law, particularly international humanitarian law and human rights law, the Advisory Opinion [on the wall] of the International Court of Justice [ICJ], and Security Council resolutions. Negotiations on issues such as boundaries, settlements, East Jerusalem, the return of refugees and the isolation of Gaza should be informed by such norms and not by political horse-trading.”

And of course there are some very weird horses in the market now. The EU and the U.N. have been following Israeli instructions, relayed by the U.S., not to talk to Hezbollah and Hamas. Yet Israel is about to conclude a deal with them both, and is talking to Syria, giving Washington, which believed the guff Israeli leaders fed it, indigestion.

The U.N., as part of the Quartet, is hamstrung. In effect, its executive side is unable to voice, let alone implement, the decisions of its juridical and legislative arms. The Quartet remains silent, Dugard pointed out, about the legalities, Israel’s defiance of the Geneva Conventions and World Court opinion on the Wall and the settlements. “The reason for this is not hard to find,” he perkily points out. “The Security Council is prevented from giving its backing to the [ICJ] Opinion by the United States, which has refused to accept it. Similarly the United States prevents the Quartet from taking steps to implement the Opinion.”

Dugard goes on to note that the ICJ is “the judicial organ of the United Nations. Moreover the General Assembly has by an overwhelming majority repeatedly given its approval to the Opinion. This means that it is now part of the law of the United Nations. As such the representative of the United Nations in the Quartet—the secretary-general or his representative—is in law obliged to be guided by the Opinion and to endeavor in good faith to do his or her best to ensure compliance with the Opinion. If the secretary-general (or his representative) is politically unable to do so he has two choices: either to withdraw from the Quartet or to explain to his constituency—“we the peoples of the United Nations” in the language of the Charter—why he is unable to do so and how he justifies remaining in the Quartet in the light of its refusal to be guided by the law of the United Nations. The first course is possibly unwise at this time as this would deprive the United Nations of a role in the peace process. This makes the second course essential.”

The full impressive document is available at <http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/6950129.html>.

Real change is called for internationally as well as in Washington.

Ian Williams, a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations, is working on a book about U.N.-Haters in the U.S., and has a blog at <www.deadlinepundit.blogspot.com>. His last book was Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776.

SIDEBAR

Criticism of Special Rapporteur and Mandate

The Special Rapporteur has been criticized for a number of reasons by concerned States. First, reports are repetitious. Second, they fail to address terrorism. Third, they fail to consider human rights violations committed by Palestinians. These criticisms will be briefly considered at the outset of the present report.

A. Repetition

It is true that reports on the OPT follow a familiar pattern and deal with substantially similar factual situations. They record violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that have occurred in a systematic and consistent manner over many years, some going back to the start of the occupation 40 years ago. Settlements, checkpoints, demolition of houses, torture, closure of crossings and military incursions have characterized the occupation for many decades and have featured regularly in reports. Reports inevitably, and correctly, continue to report on such matters and to record their consequences and frequency in a changing environment. New violations of human rights and humanitarian law are added as they occur, such as the construction of the wall (since 2003), sonic booms, targeted killings, the use of Palestinians as human shields, and the humanitarian crisis produced by the non-payment of tax money due to the Palestinians. In short, reports are repetitious because the same violations of human rights and humanitarian law continue to occur in the OPT.

B. Terrorism

Terrorism is a scourge, a serious violation of human rights and international humanitarian law. No attempt is made in the reports to minimize the pain and suffering it causes to victims, their families and the broader community. Palestinians are guilty of terrorizing innocent Israeli civilians by means of suicide bombs and Qassam rockets. Likewise the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are guilty of terrorizing innocent Palestinian civilians by military incursions, targeted killings and sonic booms that fail to distinguish between military targets and civilians. All these acts must be condemned and have been condemned.

Common sense, however, dictates that a distinction must be drawn between acts of mindless terror, such as acts committed by al-Qaeda, and acts committed in the course of a war of national liberation against colonialism, apartheid or military occupation. While such acts cannot be justified, they must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation. History is replete with examples of military occupation that have been resisted by violence—acts of terror. The German occupation was resisted by many European countries in the Second World War; the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) resisted South Africa’s occupation of Namibia; and Jewish groups resisted British occupation of Palestine—inter alia, by the blowing up of the King David Hotel in 1946 with heavy loss of life, by a group masterminded by Menachem Begin, who later became prime minister of Israel. Acts of terror against military occupation must be seen in historical context. This is why every effort should be made to bring the occupation to a speedy end. Until this is done peace cannot be expected, and violence will continue. In other situations, for example Namibia, peace has been achieved by the ending of occupation, without setting the end of resistance as a precondition. Israel cannot expect perfect peace and the end of violence as a precondition for the ending of the occupation.

A further comment on terrorism is called for. In the present international climate it is easy for a State to justify its repressive measures as a response to terrorism—and to expect a sympathetic hearing. Israel exploits the present international fear of terrorism to the full. But this will not solve the Palestinian problem. Israel must address the occupation and the violation of human rights and international humanitarian law it engenders, and not invoke the justification of terrorism as a distraction, as a pretext for failure to confront the root cause of Palestinian violence—the occupation.

C. Palestinian human rights violations

The mandate of the special rapporteur is concerned with violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that are a consequence of military occupation. Although military occupation is tolerated by international law it is not approved and must be brought to a speedy end. The mandate of the special rapporteur therefore requires him to report on human rights violations committed by the occupying power and not by the occupied people. For this reason this report, like previous reports, will not address the violation of the human rights of Israelis by Palestinians. Nor will it address the conflict between Fatah and Hamas, and the human rights violations that this conflict has engendered. Similarly it will not consider the human rights record of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank or of Hamas in Gaza. The special rapporteur is aware of the ongoing violations of human rights committed by Palestinians upon Palestinians and by Palestinians upon Israelis. He is deeply concerned and condemns such violations. However, they find no place in this report because the mandate requires that the report be limited to the consequences of the military occupation of the OPT by Israel.

—From the final report by Special Rapporteur John Dugard