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Find Israel Guilty

The U.N.'s anti-Semitic M.O.

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In the misnomer known as the United
Nations, there is at
least one cause that unites everyone: Find Israel Guilty.

The Human
Rights Council of the U.N. concluded its fact-finding investigation of the war
in Gaza and, not surprisingly, found a selective set of facts that would appeal
to the cheap seats of the General Assembly.

Yet, the
575-page report was largely silent about the most central fact of all, the one
that was easiest to find because without it there would have been no war: 8,000
rockets were launched into Israel since 2001, and in 2005 Israel withdrew from
Gaza, which brought more rockets and no peace.

When
then-presidential candidate Barack
Obama visited
Israel, he said that if his daughters ever faced such an existential threat he
would do anything to protect them. Should Israelis be any less committed to
their children?

The U.N.
report, in keeping with the general hypocrisy when it comes to judging Israel,
created a moral equivalence between a nation that defends itself against
terrorism and a terrorist organization that hides among its people, deploys
them as human shields and then complains about disproportionate loss.

Israel fought a
war to protect its citizens; Hamas instigated a war and then sacrificed its
citizens as casualties of that war, which, under international law, is itself a
war crime.

Yet the report
condemned Israel's disproportionate use of force and its failure to distinguish
between civilians and combatants. The true measure of disproportion, however,
is not based on a 20-day scorecard of Palestinian versus Israeli casualties,
but rather on Hamas' proclaimed decades-long intention to rid the region of all
its Jews. That's the endgame for Hamas, and that's the situation that Israel
has faced. The numbers can never be proportionate when one side wishes the
complete annihilation of the other, and a nation threatened with such a
zero-sum future can't be bound by a one-to-one ratio when the other side is,
literally, going for broke.

Besides, since
2001 the U.N. never once investigated Hamas for launching 8,000 missiles into
Israeli civilian areas. Apparently, it became a human rights matter only after
Israel took steps to end the rain of rockets. The U.N.'s message is clear:
Human rights apply to Palestinians and not Israelis; only Palestinian civilians
are innocent, and all Israelis--men, women and children--are legitimate
military targets.

Given the
asymmetrical nature of a war in which Palestinian combatants and civilians are
indistinguishable, where there are no uniforms and the fields of battle are
grotesquely transferred to playgrounds and apartment buildings, how can any
country protect itself against such an entangled, embedded, strategically
camouflaged enemy? Is the U.S. being held to such an impossible standard when
it seeks to root out terrorism in Afghanistan or elsewhere?

The U.N., which
includes so many rogue nations, obviously isn't horrified by terrorism in the Middle
East. In the
report, Hamas is casually referred to as "combatants" and not as
"terrorists," in keeping with the recent fashion of romanticizing the
Palestinian cause regardless of how demonically the aspirations for Palestinian
statehood have been waged.

Of course there
are innocent Palestinians who have no connection to Hamas. But Hamas came to
power through freely democratic elections. The Palestinians of Gaza voted
overwhelmingly for a group they knew was far more dedicated to destroying
Israel (and targeting Israeli citizens) than building Palestine. Surely
Israel's response had to be anticipated. Among the various broad themes covered
in the report, there was no mention about the relative meaning of innocence in
an area so committed to violence.

This, of
course, is of no surprise. The U.N. has certainly not been an honest broker in
the Middle East. But then again, who has? After all, there are hundreds of hot
spots around the world where human rights are being trounced and innocent lives
lost, yet there is no fiery rhetoric, global uproar and fact-finding missions
about Sudan, Iran, Syria or the Congo, among others.

One worldly
fact is so conspicuous it never needs to be found: The obsession with the
conflict in the Middle East has more to do with the hatred of Israel than with
Palestinian pain. In a world rich with nations to demonize, why does Israel
stand alone, the spotlight never moving, the accusation always without end?

This is a
"J'accuse" moment for the Human Rights Council and for those who
subject Israel to disproportionate blame. The intensity of condemnation and the
moral hypocrisy looks a lot more like anti-Semitism than a sincere and sober
plea to end the occupation. After all, Israel no longer occupies Gaza, and a
majority of Israelis favor a two-state solution.

The U.N.'s Gaza
report, like most world opinion, is insistent on what Israel can't do to defend
itself but is less clear on what it can do. This silence and double
standard perhaps reveal the true intent of its critics: If Israel cannot defend
itself, it will ultimately cease to exist.

Dr Stephen Darori

Geneva 

October 2nd, 2009