The UN's Jewish Problem...

Anne Bayefsky on the latest report from the UN on so-called Israeli abuses.

Since 2001 the rapporteur, South African lawyer John Dugard, has relished the assignment of reporting from only one side. In his latest report Dugard unashamedly acknowledges: "The Special Rapporteur's mandate does not extend to human rights violations committed by the Palestinian Authority." Previous rapporteurs complained of the restriction, and one resigned on the ground that his task had become an obstacle to peace.

This year, from his UN platform, Dugard laid bare the real agenda. The two-state solution, a Jewish and a Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace and security, is passé. One state - or the demographic elimination of a Jewish state - is the goal.

"Interlocutors within both Israel and the West Bank warned the Special Rapporteur that with the two-State solution becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible, consideration should be given to the establishment of a binational Palestinian State. The demography of the region increasingly points to such an outcome."


Also in Dugard's fall 2005 report:

* trivializing Israeli casualties
"There have been over 200 attacks by non-State Palestinian actors against Israeli targets but few casualties have resulted from such attacks."

* refusal to describe Palestinian acts as "terrorism". In order to avoid it, he coins the term "terrorization" which he only ascribes to the specter of the sinister Israeli.
"...there is increased pressure on the part of the settlers to drive out their Palestinian neighbours by a process of terrorization.... Schoolchildren are beaten and terrorized by settlers on the way to school and wells and fields have been poisoned. Crops have been destroyed, sheep and goats stolen and poisoned. The police and IDF do little to protect cave dwellers, peasants and shepherds in this region."

* little effort to disguise his underlying concern is really with Jews. He worries about "transform[ing] Jerusalem into a Jewish city." The image of a "Jewish city" is intended to conjure up the image of Israeli racists ridding the land of non-Jews, despite the fact that there are no Israeli cities from which Arabs (who comprise 20% of the population) are excluded.

* the word "allegation" is inserted before detailed description of Israeli crimes, which he then makes no effort to verify
"Allegations of torture and inhuman treatment of detainees and prisoners continue..."

* checkpoints materialize in thin air. He refuses to make the connection to the terrorism that preceded their creation.
"Checkpoints in both the West Bank and Gaza continue to seriously undermine the freedom of movement."
Undermining freedom of movement by blowing up buses full of men, women and children on their way to work or to school is left out.

* constant repetition of the UN-formula that the cause of all Palestinian hardship is Israel
"...the humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory resulting from the occupation and the construction of the wall"... "Repeated IDF incursions have resulted in the destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure."

Causality flows in only one direction. Israel is the perpetrator, Palestinians are the victim. Omitted from the fairy tale: there have been successive Arab attempts to destroy Israel since its birth; the occupation of disputed territory is a result of one of many such wars; the construction of the security fence followed Palestinian terrorism (terrorism which the fence has significantly reduced); the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are responding to an actual threat to Israel's civilian population.

* At the very end of his 19-page report Dugard adds six sentences about Palestinian treatment, not of Israelis, but of their own people. He "expresses the hope" that the death penalty used by the Palestinian Authority in the case of five prisoners was an "aberration." He could not manage to mention the fundamental violation of Palestinian rights – the decades-long use by Palestinian terrorists of the civilian population as human shields.