On the dismissal of Richard Falk by Human Rights Watch

Richard Falk, law professor and United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, was apparently sacked by Human Rights Watch from one of its advisory bodies following a witch-hunt campaign launch by UN Watch. UN Watch, trolling for more money from its secret donors, boasted of the “success” on its website.

After the UN Watch smear job was taken up as a whole by the French Jewish lobby association CRIF, Falk replied, and one can read his open letter on his blog. Regluar commenter here Deir Yassin left this informative post on Falk's blog that would help introduce the reader to this fabled organization. 

CRIF spend most of their time accusing even the slightest critique of Israel of being antisemitic. The list of French Jews that have been accused by them is endless, and you’re in good company: Etienne Balibar, Rony Brauman, Michel Warschawski, Eric Hazan….. Everytime there’s a documentary about Palestine or Israel on French national television, they send letters complaining about anti-semitism if it doesn’t start and end with the HaTikva and Am Israel chai. “Lorsque Sharon est venu en France, je lui ai dit qu’il doit absolument mettre en place un ministère de la Propagande, comme Goebbels” [when Sharon came to France, I told him that he must absolutely create a ministry of Propaganda, like Goebbels], Interview of Roger Cukierman, leader of CRIF, Haaretz, 26 september 2001.

UN Watch isn’t picky. It lists pretty much every speck of dirt it can find on Falk. A lot of it is ridiculous. Supposedly, Falk is a “Hamas supporter” on the strength on the opinion of some official of the Palestinian Authority. One would think that being shunned by a lemming of Quislings should be a badge of honor for anybody. PA officials are notorious for accusing anyone who calls them out on their subservience to Israel as “Hamas supporter.” An even more preposterous accusation is that Falk attempted to “downplay, reinterpret and justify” Khaled Meshaal‘s call “to destroy Israel.” Falk merely pointed out  that on Israel Hamas speaks through both sides of its mouth. Surely, that should be reassuring to Israel’s apologists. As the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is proving to whoever tends to forget, and as the ANC is proving no less in South Africa, massacring miners, some resistance organizations hold a big For Sale sign behind their raised fist.

Other accusations are flogging dead horses. Falk posted a cartoon with potential antisemitic notes. He was notified and promptly removed it. Raising the issue again is simply indecent and a measure of the people who are behind it. UN Watch in fact flogs this particular dead horse twice, recording separately the offense itself, and a second time that Falk was criticized for it by another UN official.

Other accusations are, while twisted, not as trivial. I have read enough of Falk’s musings to come to the conclusion that he often combines pointed analysis with a descent into whacky territory. Un Watch  accuses him, for example, of accusing Israel of “planning a 'Palestinian Holocaust.'” This is a barefaced lie. Here is what Falk wrote in 2007:

The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy.

In other words, in 2007 Falk accused Israel of intentionally creating “life endangering conditions” and suggested that this has the potential to deteriorate into genocide. One could debate. But it is undeniable that 1) a desire to see Palestinians gone (or indeed pretend they never existed) is inherent in the very logic of Zionist settler colonization, has been amply expressed by many Zionist leaders, not to mention football stadium crowds, and also amply documented by scholars. 2) the manufactured health conditions in Gaza have been and are at crisis level. And 3) things can get worse. Other genocides, for example, the Armenian one, followed similar paths from "endangering life" to full genocide.

But Falk didn’t end there. The article begins with a gratuitous comparison with and discussion of the Holocaust, which serves no discernible purpose at all except to highlight Falk's identity, weaken the argument and make the author look lacking in judgment. It then follows with an even wackier argument, typical unfortunately, that finds the potential international and US abetting of an Israeli genocide yet-to-happen “morally worse” than the corresponding complicity in other, actual 20^th century genocides. Leaving aside the Nazi holocaust and the shameful across-the-board refusal of Western countries to accept Jewish refugees (Switzerland even lobbied the Nazis to stamp J in Jewish passports, to better stop them at the border),  Falk forgets that the US armed and supported the perpetrators of genocide in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and East Timor. Falk mentions the genocide in Rwanda as an example of Western countries “doing nothing to  stop” genocide, while completely ignoring the serious and credible allegations that France played a role in the genocide. That France supported the genocidal government and trained its troops is beyond dispute.

What purpose does this rhetoric serve, why separate and create hierarchies, not to mentioned false hierarchies, between victims? Why is every wacky conspiracy theory about the US and Israel credible while known, documented Western involvement in other genocides is downplayed? Falk starts by reminding us that he is an American Jew. And while that makes his energetic commitment to supporting Palestinian rights both admirable and understandable, it is hard to find anything admirable in belittling other victims of genocide, as if the fact that the Tutsis for example weren’t massacred by Jews makes them less deserving in Falk’s eyes.

To be clear, it is illegitimate to complain, as Israel’s willing apologists often do, that Falk devotes himself only to Palestinian rights and is thus neglecting other victims of atrocities. Everyone has a right to choose one's engagements, and Falk’s Jewish identity is as legitimate a reason as any to focus one’s engagement on Palestine. But focusing one’s energies on Palestine and imagining fictional reasons why Western complicity in the Palestinian case is “morally worse” are two separate things. Human rights and liberation are not zero sum games. When victims are made to compete against each other, it is always at the benefit of maintaining some form of oppression. Accountability for one genocide only come at the expense of others when some victims turn their coats and join perpetrators. True, uncompromising resistance to oppression depends on the principle that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” That spirit is utterly negated when one starts selecting between worthier and less worthy victims. To falsely promote such competition between victims as Falk does comes at the expense of solidarity and is detrimental to all struggles of justice.

Falk’s walks on the wild side provide UN Watch enough ammunition, including his endorsement of 9/11 conspiracies and, of course, the boneheaded defense of his ignorant endorsement of Atzmon’s antisemitic “book.”  There is no point on defending Falk on these points (although they do not prove UN Watch allegations!). He is wacky and at times profoundly ignorant. But while that has to be conceded, it cannot be left at that.

First, so what? UN Watch has not uncovered a single paragraph in any of Falk’s copious professional work, including his UN reports about Israel, that does not meet the standards of required competence. We can be assured of that since if they had had anything they would have published it. They did throw the kitchen sink at him after all. The only accusations that (very partially) stick to him belong to his personal musings. That he is biased against Israel is neither here nor there. When you are charged with investigating human rights violations in an area, being biased against the government holding power in that area ought to be part of the job description. The only relevant question is the quality of Falk’s output; on that UN Watch is as silent as it is on Israel’s criminal record.

Apropos that, HRW fired Falk at the behest of one of the most corrupting and corrupt NGOs in the history of that three letter infamy. Had Falk supported Israel’s crimes, UN Watch would never have complained about his alleged antisemitism. Known antisemites are welcome guests in Israel and are even given VIP tours of the Knesset. I won’t be surprised to find out that antisemites are among those funding UN Watch. UN Watch went fishing in Falk’s off-the-job record because this is a wretched, anti-human, anti-freedom and anti-rights organization dedicated to witch-hunting critics of Israel.

What that all means is the Human Rights Watch fired one of its prominent legal advisers for its off-the-job personal opinions. That’s simply wrong, although I am afraid that it is a tough argument to make in a era when a US court justifies firing a dentist assistant for the crime of being “irresistible.” Human Right Watch fired Falk because it must please its wealthy donors. And the perspective of these donors is the one the dominates: all people are like fully-owned office furniture; rolling chairs are not supposed to have personal opinions that clash with the decor.

These are the times we live in, and it is worth considering that it isn't irrelevant to the question of human rights. People who don't respect our right to be human are probably not going to do a good job defending our human rights. If HRW really cared about human rights, as a principle, not just as a reason to ask for donations, it could have started with defending the human right of Richard Falk to be Richard Falk, a distinct human being, with a distinct personality, foibles and flaws, and even wacky conspiracies theories and other hang-ups that in no way impede his ability to provide HRW with good advice about human rights in Palestine, without having that as a reason for dismissal. But anyone who has been near an NGO office knows that I’m being utterly utopian.

Bibi's bombshell blows up in his face

I thought this was a joke when I first saw it but apparently Netanyahu was serious when he unfurled what purported to be Iran's blueprint for the bomb.  Seeing the pic on Times of Israel didn't help me believe it was serious but it is for real after all.



As ToI points out,

Even some supporters of Israel, such as American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, bemoaned Netanyahu’s use of the cartoon.

@JeffreyGoldberg

Jeffrey Goldberg

Okay, it's official: #Netanyahu has no idea what he's doing. He has just turned a serious issue into a joke.

+972 Mag has the responses of various Israeli artists.   Here's my fave:


(Noa Angel)

Elsewhere, The Guardian contained just a hint of the ridicule directed at Bibi:

European officials were sceptical about Netanyahu's argument, comparing it to the infamous illustrated presentation about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction made in 2003 by the then US secretary of state, Colin Powell. "It was like Powell and WMD, but much lower quality graphics," one European diplomat said.

Searching "Netanyahu UN" in Google news, it appears that most of the main players in the US media have done Bibi the favour of ignoring him.  Certainly the LA Times and Fox News have withheld the pic which makes Bibi look so ridiculous.

World laughs at Israel

Listen up for when Israel's casts its vote at the UNESCO conference:





UK abstains, Austria yes, Germany no, France yes, China yes, Russia yes.... voting 173 members , abstentions 52 , majority needed 81, votes in favor 107, votes opposed 14!

BICOM briefing boob

Many thanks to Mike Cushman on the Just Peace UK list for linking to this Guido Fawkes' blog post about an embarrassing mispost by BICOM CEO, Lorna Fitzsimmons.  It appears that an email from her intended only for the eyes of donors to the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre got sent instead to the media.  As it happens, Fitzsimmons's mistake was first reported in the Daily Mail which, remarkably, stands to the left of the Guido Fawkes' blog but the latter's post is more detailed:

After his story earlier in the week about pro-Israel lobby group BICOM, Guido was tipped that their CEO Lorna Fitzsimons, the former Labour MP, was in some serious trouble. He was tracking down an email that was accidentally sent out on Monday to some of BICOM’s media list instead of the intended recipients – the donors. Annoyingly Ephraim Hardcastle beat him to it this morning and reveals how Lorna blurted to the world that she has been:

“…liaising with BBC and Sky to ensure ‘the most objectively favourable line was taken…I briefed Jonathan Ford, the Financial Times leader writer for his upcoming leading article… BICOM had regular contact with the Editor at Large of Prospect magazine, David Goodhart, helping to inform him about the forthcoming UN vote on Palestinian statehood…”

We have put the whole email online here. It’s standard lobbyist boasting, but Guido imagines the FT editors will take a dim view of any sign of them being influenced by a PR operation. A BICOM source tried to play down the story as“mildly embarrassing”, but it was the comment given to the Mailthat really tickled Guido: “A BICOM spokesman denies that Ms Fitzsimons is to lose her job.” If you have to say it…

There's a little bit more to the post and the pdf of the email is worth a look at.

Palestinian bid for statehood

As anyone who follows these things will know, the Palestinian Authority leadership is intending to make a bid for statehood at the UN. Quite honestly I can't say what it all means but I have grave misgivings about the exercise because I don't see how a state with no land and no power differs from the situation for the Palestinians now. Of course the PA has nominal power in the West Bank but it is considered by many to be hopelessly corrupt both financially and criminally and so in thrall to Israel as to be an appendage of the Israeli state. So, if the UN recognises such an entity as a state can't zionists carry on expanding, colonising, segregating, ethnic cleansing and slaughtering business as usual only at the same time as saying that the Palestinians have what they wanted?

That was just off the top of my head but there are also warnings coming out of Palestinian quarters to the effect that the PA does not represent the entirety of the Palestinian people so the statehood bid would not enhance the rights of the Palestinians but curtail them. The PA does not represent the Palestinians in Israel, Gaza or the diaspora. It doesn't even truly represent the Palestinians of the West Bank. This means that the PA doesn't have the required authority to make the bid but also any state emerging from the bid would have the same lack of authority but would be assumed by many to have authority, even to write off the rights of the bulk of the Palestinian people.

There's a statement here from the Palestinian Youth Movement titled Statement on the September 2011 Declaration of Statehood.  Here's a little chunk:

This declaration serves as a mechanism for rescuing the faulty peace framework and depoliticizing the struggle for Palestine by removing the struggle from its historical colonial context. The attempts to impose a false peace with the normalizing of the colonial regime has only led us to surrender increasing amounts of our land, the rights of our people, and our aspirations by delegitimizing and marginalizing our people’s struggle and deepening the fragmentation and division of our people. This declaration jeopardizes the rights and aspirations of over two-thirds of the Palestinian people who live as refugees in countries of refuge and in exile, to return to their original homes from which they were displaced in the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and subsequently since then. It also jeopardizes the position of the Palestinians residing in the 1948 occupied territories who continue to resist daily against the ethnic cleansing and racial practices from inside the colonial regime. Furthermore, it corroborates and empowers its Palestinian and Arab partners to act as the gatekeepers to the occupation and the colonization of the region within a neo-colonial framework.

Still, The Guardian's main resident zionist, Jonathan Freedland, supports the bid, and why wouldn't he?

Marwan Barghouti supports Palestinian bid for UN recognition

I just read this in Ha'aretz.

Jailed leader Marwan Barghouti has called on Palestinians to stage mass rallies in September in support of a diplomatic bid to gain UN membership for a state of Palestine.

Barghouti, a figure widely respected among many Palestinians, said taking the statehood quest to the United Nations was part of a new strategy that would open the door to "peaceful, popular resistance".

Barghouti was convicted of murder for his role in attacks on Israelis during the Second Intifada and was sentenced to life in jail by Israel in 2004.

"I call on our people in the homeland and in the diaspora to go out in a peaceful, million-man march during the week of voting in the United Nations in September," Barghouti said in a statement written from his jail cell in Israel.

Well I suppose it would show that lots of Palestinians support the idea but I don't know what the idea itself would achieve and I recently has some difficulty trying to find a Palestinian I know who would want to speak in favour of the UN bid at a public meeting.

But let's see some more from Ha'aretz:

The United States, the main sponsor of the two-decade-old peace process, has objected to the Palestinian diplomatic offensive, instead calling for a resumption of negotiations that were derailed by an impasse over settlement construction in the West Bank. Israel says the Palestinians aim to isolate and delegitimize it.

A U.S. veto at the Security Council is likely to thwart the Palestinian bid for full UN membership for a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Ok, the great satan's against it as is the little satan but what's their beef?  It might just be the aversion to the very word Palestine. That could be Israel's beef.  I really can't see what the UN's recognition of a powerless state would achieve and for all I know the yanks could be engaging in a double bluff. They might want the UN to bless the efforts of the PA.

PA bid for statehood

There's an article in the Financial Times on the PA's coming bid for admission to the UN.  Here's a piece:

This year’s strange diplomatic beauty contest between Israel and the Palestinians is entering a crucial phase: excitement is building, the tantrums are becoming louder – and the jury is showing signs of strain.

The final pageant starts in September, and will see the two contestants appear before a panel of no fewer than 193 judges. That, of course, is the number of states that sit in the UN general assembly. Facing it, as things stand, will be a draft resolution calling for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

I don't think there's much to get worked up about one or another here but I could be missing something, as I often do. But I couldn't help noticing that if there are 193 member states of the General Assembly, which I think is because the Holy See is a non-member state of the UN but represented at the General Assembly then Palestine would become UN General Assembly member state number 194. And wouldn't that be a coincidence?

Israel: "colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing"

That's what the man said, the man being Richard Falk, the UN's man in, well near, Palestine:

Israel declines to deal with Falk or even allow him into the country, accusing him of being biased.....

In his speech, Falk said he would like the Human Rights Council to ask the International Court of Justice to look at Israeli behavior in the occupied territories.

This should focus on whether the prolonged occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem had elements of "colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing inconsistent with international humanitarian law," the investigator declared. 

Only in the occupied territories? Perhaps he counts the whole shebang as occupied.

Obama blocks resolution condemning Israel's settlement activity

Yet another capitulation by Obama to the State of Israel:

The United States on Friday vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory after the Palestinians refused to withdraw the Arab-drafted text.

The other 14 council members voted in favor of the draft resolution. But the United States, as one of the five permanent council members with the power to block any action by the Security Council, voted against it and struck it down.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told council members that the veto "should not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity." She added that the U.S. view is that Israeli settlements lack legitimacy.

But she said the draft "risks hardening the position of both sides" and reiterated the U.S. position that settlements and other contentious issues should be resolved in direct peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, speaking on behalf of Britain, France and Germany, condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "They are illegal under international law," he said.

And look how far the UK ambassador has stuck his neck out:

He added that the European Union's three biggest nations hope that an independent state of Palestine will join the United Nations as a new member state by September 2011.

He forgot to mention that it won't actually have any territory.

That Israeli flotilla inquiry in full

Mark Steel has a very funny comment piece in The Independent today. It's about these inquiries that get held into the circumstances surrounding wars and attacks on civilians and deals mostly with Israel's ridiculous inquiry into its attack on the Gaza flotilla but also mentions Israel's stated intention to co-operate with the UN inquiry on the same thing. I'll just post the last paragraph here but the whole thing is well worth a read:

bit by bit Israel is finding it has to answer for itself publicly, and the old excuses are not so easily accepted. From now on they'll have to put a bit more thought into their bollocks, which has got to be for the good.

I don't know. I presume that if Israel is truly co-operating with a UN inquiry then it has been rigged in their favour much like its own inquiry.

With PA help, Obama moves Palestine one step closer to genocide

The Goldstone report was a milestone in demanding accountability from Israel. Unfortunately, to tear one's hair out, it is being buried with the help of the Palestinian Judenrat in Ramallah.

the Palestinian Authority, under heavy pressure from the United States, has withdrawn its support for a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution on alleged war crimes in Gaza, diplomats in Geneva said Thursday.

U.N. and European diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with reporters, said the Palestinian delegation's surprise turnaround means any resolution on the report would likely be delayed until next March. (AP)

This is exactly what Nadia Hijab predicted less than two weeks ago:

The Obama administration could send a strong signal by voting to submit the report to the General Assembly, or even by abstaining. But, despite its fine words on Monday, it is more likely to want to bury it. Otherwise, attention will focus on prosecuting an Israel it’s trying to nudge to the negotiating table. The problem it will face is that Third World countries dominate both the Human Rights Council and General Assembly and they traditionally support Palestinian rights. So it will seek an alliance with Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. If they indicate they do not want the report to go forward, the rest of the Third World would find it hard to go over their heads.

But could Egypt and the Palestinian Authority possibly want to stop accountability for war crimes in Gaza? Hard to believe, but they may have already done so earlier this year when Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, the General Assembly’s Nicaraguan president, tried to get the international community to stop the slaughter.

Father Miguel has named no names, but in his speech at the end of his one-year term this week, he left little doubt about what happened. He said he had tried to persuade “those who should have been most closely involved” to convene the General Assembly to help the Palestinians under fire. But “all I received was advice to give the process more time… we should do nothing that could endanger the success that was always just beyond our reach.”

And he went on to make a very serious accusation against “those who should supposedly have been most interested” yet “denied their support.” He said he hoped “that they were right and that I was wrong. Otherwise, we face an ugly situation of constant complicity with the aggression against the rights of the noble and long-suffering Palestinian people.”

If this complicity repeats itself at the Human Rights Council, the Goldstone Report will be sunk. The power of the state system (and a putative statelet) will have trumped the principles of international law and human rights -- unless human rights advocates act to make sure the right thing gets done. (Middle East Online)

I wish I am wrong, but I see this success of Israel at the Human Right Council as one major advance toward genocide. This won't happen next week. But the brakes are being cut one by one. The righteous fury is in place, the silent world is watching incapacitated, and all is made ready for the final push down the hill.

Watching the UN

Here's a group, an NGO no less, that I've never really paid any attention to before. In fact I can't really recall if I'd ever heard of it. It's called UN Watch and it looks to be a zionist organisation founded by "Ambassador Morris B. Abram, the former U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva". Here's how it describes itself:

UN Watch is a non-governmental organization based in Geneva whose mandate is to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter.

It claims that it:

believes in the United Nations' mission on behalf of the international community to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" and provide for a more just world.

and yet it:

notes that the disproportionate attention and unfair treatment applied by the UN toward Israel over the years offers an object lesson (though not the only one) in how due process, equal treatment, and other fundamental principles of the UN Charter are often ignored or selectively upheld.

And that's just the website. What brought it to my attention is that apparently the UN is going to publish a report on Israel's assault on Gaza late last and early this year. This UN accredited NGO is worried that the report might cause antisemitism by exposing Israel's sheer wanton criminality. So what should an NGO do when it believes that the UN is being unduly partial to the victims of atrocities by a colonial settler racist state? Run to the UK's Zionist Federation of course.

I kid you not. Here's the Jewish Chronicle:

A United Nations investigation into the Gaza conflict will be used as a political weapon to undermine Israel and could lead to an upsurge of international antisemitism, the head of a Geneva NGO has warned.

Hillel Neuer, director of the highly respected UN Watch, has said the group is preparing to challenge the report, which is due to be formally presented to the UN Human Rights Commission at the end of the month.

It is widely believed that the report will result in calls for Israel to be prosecuted for alleged war crimes.

Although the document, which was being completed this week, is also expected to criticise Hamas rocket attacks on Negev towns and villages, this is unlikely to be “the big story”, Mr Neuer argued, considering the allegations likely to be levelled against Israel.

Mr Neuer, in London to address the Zionist Federation’s annual meeting, has repeatedly questioned the impartiality of the fact-finding mission, headed by South African judge and war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone.

Mr Neuer’s claim that some of the mission’s members, including London School of Economics law professor Christine Chinkin, had pre-judged Israeli guilt was recently dismissed by the UN’s Human Rights Commission.

Mr Neuer said that the fact Judge Goldstone was Jewish was “a major factor in him being chosen to lead the inquiry. There is a danger that this will be used to show that the report is balanced.”

Well it's a good thing that UN Watch:

believes in the United Nations' mission on behalf of the international community to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" and provide for a more just world.

because if it didn't it might have their spokesperson, Hillel Neuer :

Describing the UN as “an upside down, absurd and false world”

And then this believer in the UN's war on war and fight for a just world gets seriously weird about Judge Goldstone saying that:

Goldstone is not a stupid man but I think he believes the ends justify the means, that what he is doing is bringing peace to the Middle East. He is wrong.

What ends? What means? What's he on about? He continues:

Israeli culpability has already been assumed by some UN officials. Human rights chief Navi Pillay has already announced that if the inquiry found evidence of war crimes, they should be investigated by the International Court in the Hague.

UN Watch, whose causes also include Darfur and political prisoners in Cuba, was preparing for the report to be turned into a “snowball to take Israel to the International Court”, warned Mr Neuer. “It will be a political weapon to target Israel and stop it protecting its rights. It will bring forward a campaign to demonise it and isolate it.”

And then Hillel Neuer asks what he calls, "the main question":

The main question.......was why Israel was not treated equally at the UN. Why, he asked, were some 80 per cent of the Human Rights Commission’s statements on humanitarian abuse about Israel and the Palestinians when there were “far worse examples” worldwide?

It might be a quality thing but is that really the main question? Shouldn't the main question be, how does an organisation that seems to be dedicated to providing diplomatic cover for Israel's criminality get to be an accredited NGO at the United Nations?

Actually there is another question. This Hillel guy says that a report exposing Israel's war crimes will cause antisemitism. I don't think it will. If Israel's crimes are exposed and denounced by an enquiry team headed by a Jewish guy, why should that cause antisemitism? Surely it would more likely cause anti-Jewish feeling if the crimes were not exposed in a judicial/diplomatic framework. But what do I know?

Israel's man at the U.N.

Israel's man at the U.N. is no less than U.N. Secretery General Ban Ki-Moon, who knows very well how to please his masters, even if that means colluding and covering up for Israeli assaults on U.N. facilities and reckless endangerment of U.N. personnel as well as the killing of civilians taking refuge in U.N. facility.

UNITED NATIONS, May 5 (Reuters) - A U.N. inquiry accused Israel on Tuesday of gross negligence and recklessness in attacks on U.N. property in the Gaza strip during fighting between the Jewish state and Palestinian militants in January.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who appointed the four-person inquiry board in February, said he would seek compensation for damage put at more than $11 million but would not follow the panel's call for further investigations. (Reuters)

The proper course of action would be to seek the immediate suspension of Israel from the U.N. pending further investigation, compensation, apology, and bringing those responsible to justice. But of course we're talking about Israel, so the Secretary-General wouldn't even publish the full report.

But at least Ban Ki-Moon got a nice pat on the back, maybe even an extra serving of his favorite ice-cream.

Israel's deputy U.N. ambassador, Daniel Carmon, called the report one-sided and unfair. "We were really shocked to see a report where the board is limiting itself to the facts of the damages only, ignoring the context, ignoring that there is war against terrorism," he told Reuters.

Carmon called the panel's recommendations "unacceptable," but welcomed Ban's letter which he said showed the U.N. chief was "somehow distancing himself from the board's report."

Durban and the White-Zionist alliance

Like Israel their idol, Zionist organizations have a tendency to win wars, and to become weaker and more deranged with every victory. The Durban Review conference was a Zionist victory of that kind.

The war was long in the planning. Since being cited from racism by the NGO form in Durban 2001, Zionist organizations began meticulously preparing their assault. The target was the bundle of U.N. agencies, NGO's and social movements that used the historic delegitimization of racism in the West to empower victims of racism. From obvious reasons, most if not all of those whose work is devoted to combating racism support Palestinian rights. That is a problem for Zionism. In Durban, the official document, after much wrangling, mentioned Palestinian rights in four innocuous paragraphs that reiterate commitment to the partition of Palestine and that famous "peace process". The document even affirmed Israel's right to security. There was no mention of racism despite this being the subject of the conference. Israel however was not amused by Palestinian suffering even being mentioned in an official document about racism.

A bigger problem at Durban was the adjacent NGO forum, a conference attended by over 2,000 NGOs, whose final declaration contained much stronger (and generally more accurate) language about Israel. No doubt, the NGO forum had some internal problems, but that wasn't Israel's concern. Nor was it antisemitism. No doubt some antisemitic material was distributed at Durban, certainly in the demonstrations around town; perhaps, but only perhaps, in some corners of the NGO forum. But how much? Here is what Cecilia Surasky from Muzzlewatch has to say after being in Geneva:

Coming here myself has made me distrust virtually all reporting of Durban I. Already, I see terms in the media like “hate-fest” and ” the “racist anti-racism conference.” ...I don’t doubt there was anti-Semitic literature and language at Durban I. But was it 90% of the conference, or .09%? I have no way to know. I do know, however, that yesterday’s Sharansky, Voight, Dershowitz session, supposedly on anti-Semitism, was a tour de force of insulting and demeaning anti-Muslim/Arab stereotyping and callousness, infused with Islamophobia, and that not one media account will ever call it what it is. (MuzzelWatch)

The problem for Israel was that its racism was undeniable, and that the overwhelming majority of the 2,000 NGOs gathered in Durban were ready to say so despite strong pressure. What was about to be lost in Durban was the power to shape the discourse, in simple words, hegemony. The Durban NGO forum, while not democratic enough, was too democratic, too open to Southern perspectives, too representative of real world public opinion and too disrespectful of the powerful interests that keep racism alive, among other places in Palestine. The tools of international law, the language of human rights and the delegitimization of racism could become effective.

This was unwelcome not only to Israel, but to a lot in the North, whose current affluence is to a very large extent the fruit of colonial exploitation and racism. The official Durban Conference was discussing slavery and was raising the specter of reparations, not only to African-Americans but also to Africans. A conversation about racism was also becoming a conversation about existing wealth disparities between South and North. Talking about race could be the antidote to the neo-liberal paradigm that blames poverty on the poor. That was scary to a lot of vested interests, especially as the spirit of the Social Forum was learning to speak the language of the international legal system.

Since Herzl's famous "rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism," Zionist organizations know who their natural allies are. Northern powers wanted the Durban process brought down a notch, and they were happy to oblige. A slew of organizations was created or retrofitted for the task, The Simon Wiesenthal Center, U.N. Watch, NGO Monitor, Human Rights First, the AJC, The International Association of Jewish Lawyers and jurists, and others. Their goals: to defund NGOs that support Palestinian rights, to discredit and disrupt those U.N. processes that threaten Israel's right to be racist, and to undermine demands for global justice and accountability that inevitably involve accountability from and about Israel. NGO Monitor spells this out in some detail.

Let's first recognize the Zionist "achievements".

Honest anti-racist NGOs have lost a lot of funding, some of it redirected to Zionist astroturf. The U.N. and the Ford Foundation stepped out of organizing an official NGO Forum in Geneva. An unofficial effort to have an NGO Forum produced a small gathering of ca. 150 NGOs. The organizers did everything they could to exclude the Palestinian issue. They still got no money. The final declaration, despite the best efforts of the Zionists and the organizers, kept the right tone. But it was hardly noticed by the international press bamboozled with an extravaganza of Shoa business starring Elie Wiesel, Bernard Henri-Levy, Alan Dershowitz and others.

The official conference was also disrupted. Nine countries, led by all the genocidal settler colonial states (the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand) joined Israel in boycotting the conference over fears of imaginary antisemitism. Nevertheless, and at least to keep European countries from leaving as well, the official declaration dropped all mention of Palestine beyond reaffirming the anodyne original declaration (as if there was nothing to review in Palestine eight years later). Supposedly, the document avoided mentioning specific victims. In fact, Roma people are mentioned by name, as they should be, and Jews are also mentioned effectively by reference to the Holocaust and antisemitism. People of African descent are mentioned by name, as they should be, and Muslim are mentioned by one unsatisfactory reference to Islamophobia. But neither the new document nor the original it re-affirmed mentions Palestinians as victims of racism, which, given the horrible and deteriorating conditions in Palestine, is frankly absurd. Worse still, under pressure, the document was adopted early, without discussion and without allowing any input from the thousands of NGO that actually work daily with issues of racism.

With ridiculous excuses, the U.N. secretariat banned Palestine related side events at the U.N. during the week on the conference. Only they didn't ban all of them. Only those that wanted to present a Palestinian anti-racist perspective were banned. The U.N. did allow a real anti-Islam and anti-Arab hate festival organized by Zionist organizations. You can get a taste of it (if you dare) with this 10 minutes of Dershowitz explaining why Palestinians are not victims but "heirs to Hitler." It is perhaps ironic, but the word that best describes this discrimination by U.N. officials, discrimination against victims of racism who must listen to racist speech against them inside the U.N. and don't event have the right to respond, is 'racism.'

The press was successfully fed the Zionist talking points. Obama himself described the original Durban declaration as unacceptable. The New York Times editors, abysmally and shamefully ignorant, wrote that "Israel was the only country singled out in the final conference communiqué." (NYT, April 20, 2009 ) Indeed, in that final declaration, Israel was the only country mentioned by name as having the right to security. Newspapers feasted on Ahamadinejad's speech and followed the Zionist talking points, calling the Durban Review conference a "hate-fest" and refusing to publish elemental corrections to Zionist disinformation. Indeed it was a hate-fest, a hate-fest against Palestinians and Muslims in general.

I will leave the question of Ahmadinejad's speech to later and focus here on what looks to me as the other outcomes of the conference.

First, the conference was not destroyed. Thanks to Zionist sabotage, the important and concrete struggles against racism all over the world that this conference was supposed to help move forward have been overshadowed and ignored. Nobody paid attention to them and not much was achieved beyond a watered down reference to religious persecution. The text of the declaration was also watered down significantly. That outcome, supported by the Western press and Western governments, is shameful. But on the other hand nothing was rolled back. Most importantly, the Durban declaration has been reaffirmed, and the various U.N. mechanisms will continue to work with it and advance its specific recommendations.

Second, Zionist organizations exposed themselves as never before as the enemies, not only of Palestinians but of the whole South and of victims of racism everywhere. Their sabotage of the conference, their contempt for the work that it embodies, for the principles it represents and the goals it seeks to achieve left a bitter taste in the mouth of every organization and every human right worker and activist who was there for honest reasons. Navil Pillay, the High Commissioner for Human Rights who presided over the conference, spoke of "a widespread, and highly organized campaign of disinformation...that was so determined to kill the conference." Zionist activists packed meetings, disturbed proceeding, manipulated unsuspecting African groups and exploited Darfur and Rwanda with the goal (in which they ultimately failed) of creating discord and preventing resolutions from being reached. Their dishonesty and unscrupulousness, and their willingness to destroy the U.N. and the whole edifice of human rights laws, is going to be remembered. One would wish that this memory is going to be proactive. But some of it won't be. As Malaak Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, physically assaulted by Zionist goons, said, "the Zionists here are making people hate Jews...I was unfamiliar with the tactics of Zionists. But I got a crash course on it here.” (JTA, April 28)

(Needless to say, Zionism wins by creating antisemitism, so there is nothing really strange here.)

The most noted episode of the Zionist attempt to hijack issues was the U.N side event organized by U.N. watch with a panel of two survivors of genocide from Darfur and Rwanda and a Gay Muslim Indian filmmaker, Parvez Sharma. Sharma quickly understood that he was in fact being used in a racist Islamphobic event as a token gay victim of Islam. And he blew a top. Two Israeli delegates later spat on him. His account of what happened is worth reading in full. I'll cite only a few sentence that lead to the next point.

As the much reviled, almost made-to-be Hitlerian Mr. A. was a few minutes into his speech, the all-Caucasian EU delegations (23 members, we are told) walked out ceremoniously only a few moments after the "humble" (his own term) former mayor of Tehran was pelted with red clown noses, also by Caucasian protestors. But as they made their displeasure known, delegates from African and Asian nations applauded. I wonder if a discussion of race, in terms of skin color, and indeed, the institutionalized racism in many European nations, is even noticed by the White gentleman's club that usually represents European nations at the UN...As Mr. Ahmadenijad walked into his press conference, again a motley crew of twenty-something, entirely White protesters hissed at him with quickly printed signs and hissed, stressing their sibilants: "Racccissst." A British Pakistani man and I were the only two who questioned them on whether they actually had any experience of racism, manifest most simply for both of us in just getting around with our brown skins or Muslim names in most Western nations.

The Durban Review and the Zionist organized but fully Northern supported Islamophobic hate-fest exposed the limits of a friendly and consensual global conversation on race. The white setter states boycotted the conference from the outset. The preplanned and staged white European walk-out further dramatized the global strength of racism and its presence at the very institutes of global governance that are supposed to eradicate it. The divisions in Geneva were visibly about color. The white Western press and punditocracy mostly couldn't notice that the majority brown people stayed in the room and applauded. When they say "the world" they mean Europe.

The Russian diplomat who brokered most of the Durban declaration accused the European states that walked out on Ahmadinejad of intentionally seeking to weaken the conference. In this, European states followed through with the wrecking job that was begun by the Obama administration. Prof. Vernellia R. Randall describes precisely what Obama was at as he negotiated, got his way, and then still boycotted the Conference:

Unfortunately, the Durban Review Conference is being hijacked by governments and members of civil society, including the Obama administration, who may not have the elimination of racism and racial discrimination, especially for African and People of African Descent, as their highest priority. In fact, in just the last week, in response to Obama administration ultimatum, the Durban review committee:

• withdrew language related to reparations;

• removed the proposed paragraph related to the transatlantic slave trade being a crime against humanity;

• removed proposed paragraphs designed to strengthen the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent; and,

• overall weakened the efforts related to people of African Descent.

This is devastating. ( Black Agenda Report)

To be sure, there is an official global consensus against racism, and this should not be minimized. It is a hard won achievement. The North participates and supports international institutions and human rights instruments. This anti-racist commitment is not completely false. Today a majority of white people do abhor crude racism and do pay at least a lip service to the elimination of racial discrimination. That is precisely why the Obama administration, the Zionists and the Europeans, in short, the white front, sought to camouflage their support for racism as "anti-racism". But that commitment has limits and the Durban process exposed those limits. Reparations, redistribution, indeed any material setback to the perpetrators and beneficiaries or racism is beyond the pale, in Palestine, but also in general, and certainly in the U.S.

The Durban Review Conference was therefore a moment of truth. Masks fell, and the major faultline reappeared.

"Palestinians poised for victory"

Heart warming stuff in these dark cold days. But that's what Richard Falk is saying in The Nation. I've got to say I have some gripes with some of what he is saying but I it is a very positive article, especially when the zionists are pulling out all the stops to distort media coverage in their favour and they have even got the BBC helping them starve Gaza. Falk is considering who has won in this assault on Gaza and he doesn't think it's Israel.

He starts with the impression the assault has made on the Palestinians:

Reports from the West Bank, Gaza and the Palestinian diaspora suggest widespread anger at the Palestinian Authority for its passivity and a rise in support for Hamas, even among secular Palestinians, in appreciation of its determined resistance to the brutality of the Israeli occupation and military operations. If Hamas becomes the dominant political force in all of occupied Palestine when the next elections are held, Israel will be the loser.

When will those elections be held? Will Hamas be able to organise for them or participate in them? Also, there is nothing here about Israel's yen for ethnic cleansing. The choices out of Fatah and Hamas are a bit devil and deep blue sea-ish. If Abbas wins, Israel has a supine bullied and/bribed Palestinian administration of occupied territory. He could even pretend that he has a state and accept the ethnic cleansing from within the pre-67 borders that the Israeli moderate leader, Tzipi Livni, mooted just a few weeks ago.

On the other hand, if a resistance group wins, the zionists could cry (and shoot, don't forget) about their want of a "partner" (yeah, right!) and use resistance to the occupation to justify the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and Gaza.

Still, there is good news on the diplomatic front:

Qatar and Mauritania, among the few states in the region that had accepted Israel, broke relations, and the European Union has suspended moves to improve Israel's status as a trading partner. The Turkish prime minister even suggested expelling Israel from the United Nations....

...voices, ranging from the UN's high commissioner for human rights to the president of the General Assembly, are for the first time calling for a war crimes investigation. The Malaysian Parliament has unanimously called on the UN to establish a special war crimes tribunal.

I don't know what it takes to establish such a tribunal but I'm guessing there'll be powerful states with veto powers putting the kibosh on this idea.

Richard Falk even suspends disbelief momentarily to give Israel the benefit of the doubt over its motivation:

Even if Israel's claims of defensive response are accepted at face value, this is excessive use of force. There are also widespread reports that Israel has used legally dubious weapons like white phosphorus, dense inert metal explosives and depleted uranium. And finally, through its rigid control of exits, Israel has denied the people even the right to flee the fighting, a violation of humanitarian law that lends credibility to the claim that Israeli occupation policy essentially imprisons Gazans.

So if Israel's not lying it's still committed war crimes.

There is then a useful discussion of the holistic impact of war, any war involving any protagonists:

Winning militarily but losing politically should not surprise students of modern warfare. After all, the United States won every battle in Vietnam and yet eventually lost the war. The same was true for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and indeed it was the general pattern in decolonization struggles. In such wars the militarily dominant side not only loses the war but generates a deep crisis at home and experiences a tarnished international reputation. What these counterinsurgency or neocolonial wars have in common is that "the enemy" is merged with civilian society; the fighting abandons the restraints of international humanitarian law; and by killing helpless civilians, the occupying or colonial power is perceived as committing war crimes.

And in Israel's case?

This has been the case in Gaza, with worldwide outrage inflicting on Israel a major defeat in the battle for public legitimacy, which in the end is often decisive in shaping the outcome of major conflicts.

And what about its main backer?

Neither the United States nor Israel has discovered the limits of military power in the contemporary world. The leaders of both countries seem unable to learn the lesson of recent history: that occupation in the postcolonial world rarely produces the desired results at an acceptable cost. It is from this perspective, despite a horrific price in lives and suffering, that the Palestinians may be slowly winning the "second war," the legitimacy war, whose battlefield has become global. Perhaps the most impressive victory in a legitimacy war was won by South Africa's anti-apartheid movement.

Now here the guy's worrying me and he then worries me some more:

If the Gaza conflict brings the Palestinian struggle for self-determination to the top of the global justice agenda, it will be a major victory for Hamas. Of course, Hamas is not the African National Congress, and Israel is not South Africa. The Palestinians lack the sort of inspired leadership that Nelson Mandela and other ANC figures provided.

Fair comment, Hamas is not the ANC. The ANC could claim to represent all South Africans regardless of their skin colour, skin colour being for apartheid what religious practice or heritage is for zionism. Hamas does not represent nor does it truly seek to represent all of the people of Palestine. But "Israel is not South Africa", what did he mean by that. Did he mean that the apartheid regime was more open about its system than Israel has ever been? Did he mean that when the apartheid regime started negotiating it did so in good faith? Did he mean that the apartheid regime accepted a truth and reconciliation commission and Israel can tolerate neither truth nor reconciliation? I am worried he might mean that Israel is "normal" without the occupation but I don't know what he meant because, sadly, he didn't say.

So what does the future hold?

legitimacy wars have no clear boundaries and involve subtle shifts of public opinion that can alter the overall political climate in decisive ways. I believe the Gaza conflict, especially against the background of Israel's prior siege and its 2006 Lebanon misadventure, is approaching that tipping point. Despite the frightful punishment inflicted on Gaza's people, despite the bitterly divided Palestinian leadership, despite the cruelties of more than four decades of occupation, the Palestinians are poised to achieve victory.

Now that could be very nice indeed but what does Falk want to happen?

The fragile cease-fire poses new challenges and opportunities. There are hopeful scenarios, but they depend on leaps of imagination that have been lacking on both sides. Hamas could confirm its willingness to behave as a political actor and stop firing rockets at civilians. Israel could recover in the legitimacy war by dealing directly with Hamas and taking its offer of a long-term cease-fire seriously. Israel could also show a willingness to engage in peace talks based on the 2002 Arab League Peace Initiative. Even at this late stage of the conflict, such alternatives offer both Israelis and Palestinians a promising, if perilous, escape route from the inferno.

I should have left this with the "Palestinians poised for victory" so let's just repeat for the squillionth time that Israel is a colonial settler state based on ethnic cleansing and racist laws so it can never recover legitimacy, it never had any. It could go back up in the estimation of some but if it remains a state on most of Palestine where Jews from anywhere have more rights than native non-Jews, Israel might have a legitimate image, but the reality will be very different.