Another UN Report

Once again Israel acts with rage because it cannot cope with the

Truth.  It  is very unfortunate that the UN has not only failed for

the last seventy years to bring justice to the Palestinians, it has also

lost its credibility for reacting outrageously against any statements

or reports that expose the truth about Israel.  The recent report of

ESCWA describing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as apartheid led

to the resignation of Rima Khalaf,  a Jordanian  UN diplomat and

executive secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western

Asia, when she was pressured by the UN General Secretary to withdraw

the report.  Click here to view her letter of resignation.  Wish more

diplomats had this kind of integrity.

Actually I wonder whether the General Secretary even bothered to read

the report.  It looks like he was pressured as usual and unwilling to

stand up for the principles of the UN body lest he face the Israeli

music and the  usual accusations  of  anti-Semitism.  Almost a month

ago the name of Salaam Fayad a former Palestinian Prime minister, came

up for a special UN envoy to Libya, but the Secretary General was

pressured to withdraw the name.  Maybe the UN should consider

changing its name if it is only the US and Israel who actually call the

shots.

Israel considers itself special and wants the whole world to treat it

as special irrespective of what it does.  Moreover, when it  claims to

be the "only democracy in the Middle East" and its army is the most

moral army, it has to be accountable.  No other Arab country in the

region has claimed that it is a democracy.  We have heard courageous

voices saying enough is enough, but they paid heavily for raising

their voice.  Yet, sadly we have watched  how the international

community as well as church leaders  continue to be intimidated and

silenced for attempting to expose the truth.  Until when does the

international community have to deal with this spoiled child every

time he puts up a tantrum?  Even Israeli voices have said it loud and

clear that the occupation is creating an apartheid system.  What do

you call a system that allows its authority to confiscate land,  and

bulldoze complete areas where Palestinians are living so as to

provide housing for Israeli settlements?  And this is but one phenomenon

of the system.  The report was correctly documented with facts

such as:

Israel’s Law of Return, “conferring on Jews worldwide the right to

enter Israel and obtain Israeli citizenship regardless of their

countries of origin and whether or not they can show links to

Israel-Palestine, while withholding any comparable right from

Palestinians, including those with documented ancestral homes in the

country,” as a policy of “demographic engineering” meant to uphold

Israel’s status as the Jewish state.”

The report further accuses Israel of “practices” that have fragmented

Palestinians, “This fragmentation operates to stabilize the Israeli

regime of racial domination over the Palestinians and to weaken the

will and capacity of the Palestinian people to mount a unified and

effective resistance,”

“Israeli law normally allows spouses of Israeli citizens to relocate

to Israel but uniquely prohibits this option in the case of

Palestinians from the occupied territory or beyond.”  Even

Palestinians in East Jerusalem have to go through an endless ordeal to

be able to have their spouses from the West Bank join them in

Jerusalem.  And very often the request is denied.

Actually the following paragraph in the preface of the report should

be a wake up call to the United Nations to realize its responsibility

to put an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories

and to  bring about a just and lasting  solution to the Palestinian

Israeli conflict.

“The situation in Israel-Palestine constitutes an unmet obligation of

the organized international community to resolve a conflict partially

generated by its own actions. That obligation dates formally to 1922,

when the League of Nations established the British Mandate for

Palestine as a territory eminently ready for independence as an

inclusive secular State, yet incorporated into the Mandate the core

pledge of the Balfour Declaration to support the “Jewish people” in

their efforts to establish in Palestine a “Jewish national home”.

Later United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions

attempted to resolve the conflict generated by that arrangement, yet

could not prevent related proposals, such as partition, from being

overtaken by events on the ground. If this attention to the case of

Israel by the United Nations appears exceptional, therefore, it is

only because no comparable linkage exists between United Nations

actions and any other prolonged denial to a people of their right of

self-determination.”