Israel’s ‘anger diplomacy’ leads nowhere
Yossi
Beilin, Al Monitor, May 25, 2018
Boycotting
the UN Human Rights Council over its call to probe into incidents in the Gaza
Strip harms Israel’s interests and closes the door on dialogue.
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Fabrice
Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images. A special session of the UN Human Rights Council
to
discuss the deteriorating human rights situation in the Palestinian territories
hears a video message from UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Michael Lynk, in
Geneva, Switzerland, May 18, 2018.
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The May 18
decision of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to establish
a commission of inquiry into the killing of Palestinian protesters in the
latest clashes at the Gaza border, especially those on May 14, was met with a
Pavlovian response from Jerusalem: Israel will boycott the
commission, will not allow its members to visit Israel and will
refrain from testifying to it. As in the past, it might make do with submitting
an official paper that explains the need to defend its borders, and protect its
citizens.
The UN
council is a very problematic body as far as Israel is concerned. Its
critique over the years has been far from professionally objective, and much
closer to hostile. Most of its debates and decisions touch on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and its leaning against Israel is evident, as is
the fact that it overlooks other cases around the world, involving much
greater numbers of casualties and cruelty that can’t be denied and can’t be
ignored.
But over
the years Israel’s use of the right to remain silent has not helped at all, has
not strengthened its case and has not raised second thoughts among
critics of the Jewish state. When the Jewish South African Judge Richard
Goldstone headed a commission of inquiry on behalf of the council in
2009, to investigate the events of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip,
Israel boycotted him and his commission. The report was indeed very critical,
but two years later Goldstone published a surprising essay in The
Washington Post, where he wrote that if Israel would have cooperated
with him, if it had revealed the relevant material to him, which had reached
him in the meantime, he would not have accused it of the crimes it was accused
of.
Despite
all this, Israel sticks to its stance. In 2012, it decided to break any ties to
the commission. Shortly afterward Jerusalem changed policy and made
every effort to reconnect with the commission, since someone in the government
understood that anger can’t guide Israel’s foreign policy and that
self-isolation does not punish the state’s rivals or its enemies — only
Israel itself.
The
United Nations is an organization intended to protect small nations, so that
they are not trampled on by the world powers, as occurred in the two world wars
that preceded its establishment. But to meet this challenge, every state,
small or large, holds the same weight in its vote in the UN General Assembly
and its various bodies (except on the Security Council). Most of these states
were only established in recent decades. These are among the “nonaligned
nations,” and they support anything they see as movements fighting for the
freedom of their people, while they see Israel as part of the West, and as a
colonial state — not as a state that has gathered persecuted Jews and
defends them. The work of persuasion is much more difficult than fleeing, and
so the Israeli tendency is not to make an effort, but to boycott and cut itself
off.
This
week, I returned from one of the least comfortable forums for Israel: the UN Committee
on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. This
has been a problematic forum for official Israel over the years, and the
Israelis who participate in its discussions are not — usually
— official representatives. The meeting May 18 dealt with possible ways to
find a path out of the dead end the peace process has reached in recent years.
Most speakers were Palestinians, a few were Israelis, along with researchers
sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. The setting was the UN building in New
York, and in the audience were many ambassadors and statesmen, such as the
Indonesian foreign minister, but also a wider audience of students and
experts.
What was
said on stage was generally careful and diplomatic. It was much more difficult
to hear the “questions” from the audience, most of which — as usual
— were short speeches. These were, in general, provocative, touching not
only on Israel’s refusal to accept Palestinian demands for an agreement, but
also the traditional Arab criticism of the very creation of Israel, the right
of the Zionist movement to exist and other such arguments that have
been repeated for decades, and which give Israelis goosebumps every time
they hear them.
This was
an opportunity to explain to the young people in the hall the Israeli position,
the logic of Zionism and the goal of those who strive for peace in Israel to
reach an agreement with the Palestinian people — first of all for
selfish reasons, from the understanding that without a border we can’t ensure a
democratic state with a Jewish majority, and without peaceful relations we and
our neighbors would live by the sword.
This was
not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s version of public diplomacy, which
concentrates on historical proofs for grave Palestinian conduct and Palestinian
refusal, but rather an attempt to explain Israel from its subjective viewpoint,
as a home for the Jewish people that would not come at the expense of
Palestinians who live in Israel or the occupied territories. After the
discussion, a young woman from Gaza approached me and said that if that’s the
Israeli position, she is prepared to accept it. She also admitted that she
didn’t have the courage to say that before the wider audience.
I don’t
wish to deceive myself. Such conversations do not change reality. But
boycotting them is an outrageous waste of forums that are interested in hearing
our voice, where our voice is not heard now. Seeding doubt among people who are
used to a certain kind of propaganda could turn them into our partners in the
future, while boycotting does not gain us anything but a release from the
unpleasant necessity of challenging people. As for official Israel, it not
only has to explain but also to listen. Some of the insights voiced at such
forums, like some of the questions of the commission of inquiry, are worth
hearing, dealing with and drawing conclusions from.
This
policy of burying one’s head in the sand has large implications, beyond the
question whether an Israeli presence at UN debates could change international
resolutions or the outcome of different inquiry committees. This introverted
approach and resorting again and again to a group of supporting countries,
which are hardly Israel’s first choice of allies or role models, affects
Israel’s new generation of diplomats. These young diplomats become persuaded
that the whole world is against Israel, and therefore dialogue will lead
nowhere. And so they are led to prefer not coping with the
situation, dropping all attempts at convincing others and any attempts of
understanding the positions of others. The isolation price that Israel might
pay for such mindset could become very costly.
Boycotting
the commission of inquiry of the Human Rights Council is very convenient for
officials in Israel, and staves off, for the short term, a big headache. But in
the long run it damages the national interest. Inviting the commission to
Israel, meeting with its members and presenting Israel’s detailed
positions could prevent an extreme report. A boycott invites such a
report, which would add to continuing damage to the image of the state, even when
it doesn’t deserve it.
