The human (rights) comedy

By Eli Belotsercovsky

The paraphrase on the William Saroyan (1943) masterpiece is indicative of the unfortunate state of one of the most important areas of international relations, human rights — check out the Goldstone report

(October 17, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Any Internet search for human rights organisations would reveal a long list of entities dedicated to the subject. Most consist of individuals devoted to a topical or geographic approach to the basic issue of upholding and guarding the principles of human rights. However, one organisation exists in a league of its own — the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). This body was set up by the UN General Assembly in March 2006 to address human rights violations and make recommendations. Yet from its very inception it turned into a purely political institution, hijacked by a small number of member states whose own human rights records are nothing less than disgraceful.

A mere perusal of the list of members reveals an incredible degree of cynicism in assigning this body with the mandate of safeguarding human rights. How can Pakistan, a state which refuses to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai 26/11 attacks, investigate allegations of human rights which are far milder than its own transgressions? Can a state like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in which women are denied such basic values as voting or even the right to drive a car, pass judgment on human rights?

Can impartiality and objectivity be expected from them in any manner whatever?In this politically charged body, in which human rights themselves play no role whatever, political expediency has brought about an obsession with just one country in the international arena, Israel. Of the 11 special sessions that have been held by the Human Rights Council, five were dedicated solely to the condemnation of Israel. The resolutions that have been adopted are utterly devoid of even a minimal effort to present objective analysis. The human rights ideal has served as a fig leaf for cynical political horse-trading and Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, has become the whipping boy.

This biased and politicised approach adopted by the council has been condemned by global leaders. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan twice criticised the Council for “disproportionate focus on violations by Israel” and urged the same attention to other states. The current UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, issued a statement saying he was “disappointed at the council’s decision to single out only one specific regional item given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world.” Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson expressed her opinion on the council stating: “This is unfortunately a practice by the council: adopting resolutions guided not by human rights but by politics. This is very regrettable.” And the list goes on — including such entities as Human Rights Watch, an NGO that cannot be identified as being pro-Israeli, which accused the Human Rights Council of silence in the face of atrocities throughout the world and the UN watchdog, UN Watch, which declared that “No one has ever disputed that the Arab-controlled Human Rights Council deliberately selected individuals who had made up their mind well in advance — not only that Israel was guilty, but that a democratic state with an imperfect but respected legal system should be considered the same as, or worse than, a terrorist group”.

Under these circumstances it was hardly surprising when, in January 2009, the Council adopted a resolution establishing a fact-finding mission with a mandate which even transcended the already shockingly-low value system to which it had previously sunk. According to the mandate, the mission was to “investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying power Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory particularly Gaza Strip”.

This formulation represented a complete abandonment of a basic, or even a cosmetic, attempt to establish what really happened in the Gaza Strip. The mandate was unique in that it established in advance which party was to bear the guilt even before the investigation began. To add insult to injury, the mission comprised those who had publicly made their position against Israel known prior even to their appointment.

Needless to say, the report produced was not worth the paper it was written on. The fact that Israeli towns and villages had been under constant bombardment for eight long years and over a quarter of a million innocent civilians had been living under constant threat of the Hamas arsenal of weaponry did not even merit a passing mention in the report. Also conveniently omitted were the countless Israeli attempts to prevent the war by use of diplomatic measures that also included Egyptian mediation, which were met only by Hamas intransigence. The report also failed to mention the Hamas commitment to the destruction of Israel as well as its devotion to a rabid anti-Semitic ideology.

The Richard Goldstone report,therefore, became an unsophisticated distortion of reality and presented a biased and one-sided picture. It is apparent that “fact-finding” was not on its agenda, but rather designing an additional tool to cater the ambitions of some of its members to harness various international bodies for another political campaign against Israel. It squandered an opportunity to conduct a thorough investigation into the entire campaign. This has had the effect of further eroding the already besmirched reputation of the organisation in the eyes of the democratic world and highly compromised its future actions.

But there are even more dangerous ramifications. It drew an extremely dangerous parallel between the right to self defense by a state that has been continuously targeted and attacked unprovokedly and intentional killings of civilians by a recognised terrorist organisation. According to the conclusions of the report, terrorists operating from densely populated areas would enjoy complete immunity while any State which attempts to protect its citizens from such attacks is, in essence, powerless. As such, any terrorist organisation which wields de-facto control over a population is granted protected status. The report justifies the use of terror in the name of “self-determination” in flagrant contradiction of the accepted view of the international community regarding inadmissibility of terrorist acts under any circumstances.

Finally, in its accusation that Israel intentionally targeted civilians, the report disregarded all the measures taken by Israel aimed at reducing the civilian toll that had been acknowledged by all other serious independent inquiries. It made no mention, for example, of IDF precautions such as cross-verification of intelligence prior to targeting or the numerous incidents in which operations were aborted due to concerns about disproportionate civilian harm. And while the report did, reluctantly, acknowledge Israel’s “significant efforts” to issue warnings before attacks, it dismisses these as not having been effective. It cast doubts on all the statements of Israeli officials and members of the armed forces barring those that supported the initial premises of the report.

It extensively quotes, for example, from the statement of a small group of Israelis for their criticisms of Israel and yet the assertions of the selfsame group are given no weight whatever when they confirm that Hamas booby-trapped civilian buildings.

The report even attempted to question the independence of the acclaimed and highly regarded Israeli judicial system, whose rulings often serve as guidelines for many democracies fighting terror.

- The writer is Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Israel in India

-Sri Lanka Guardian