The Un-Human Rights Council

The Un-Human Rights Council

Dan Margalit

The United Nations Human Rights Council was assembled six years ago in a way that allows Muslim nations to bend it to their will. According to the council’s charter, all 47 member states must have impeccable human rights records. But within the council one can find nations that chop off the arms of thieves in town squares and forbid women from driving. There are member states that massacre their own people, scoff at freedom of the press and whose justice system is an extension of the ruling regime.

This is the face of the council that recently decided to launch an investigation into the effect of Jewish settlements on the human rights of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria. In the past, the council established an investigative committee, headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, to probe Israel’s 2008 offensive in Gaza – Operation Cast Lead – and twisted the truth in such epic proportions that even Goldstone himself wrote an article in the Washington Post a year ago reconsidering the accusations he had leveled against Israel in his scathing report. Now the council is trying to revive these accusations against Israel under a different pretext.

What will this investigation investigate? After all, every Israeli Arab prefers that his complaints be heard in the High Court of Justice in Jerusalem over any other court in the Middle East. Where does Israeli-Arab MK Dr. Ahmad Tibi (Ra’am-Ta’al) choose to demonstrate against the government? Does he prefer to face security forces in Tel Aviv or in Damascus? His silence speaks volumes.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the average Arab citizen prefers cruel self-determination to liberal Jewish rule. Already in the 1930s, Palestinian nationalist Musa Alami told David Ben-Gurion: He would choose a poor Palestine devoid of Jews over a thriving state with Jews in it. Alami represented, then and still today, his people’s sentiments.

The malicious decision to establish a U.N.-sponsored investigative committee to probe settlements must be examined from two perspectives. First of all, the entire world does in fact oppose the settlements even though they were established in self-defense in the face of Palestinian aggression in 1967 (the Palestinians refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist until the 1993 Oslo Accords). This difference of opinion is well established but there is no point in our rehashing it as the debate can only be detrimental to Israel. All that can be done is to hope for a peace agreement based on a two-state solution.

The second perspective is this: Is Israel in fact infringing on the individual rights of Palestinians in the territories for reasons other than security and protecting human lives? This is an important line of defense for Israel. Because the most important human right is the right to life.

There are no doubt flaws in our conduct toward the Palestinians. There are injustices and harassments and needless arrests. I am not taking these things lightly or ignoring the constant need for supervision and rectification. But an “occupation” that, at the end of the day, submits to the rule of law and evacuates (though begrudgingly) private land in Migron and Ramat Gilad and Alon Moreh, is not a cruel regime that warrants a human rights investigation. But the U.N. – whose employees constantly badmouth Israel – is not preparing a fair investigation. It is preparing a one-sided indictment.

Should we cooperate with the investigation or boycott it? In the last round, when it came to the Goldstone Committee, boycotting the investigation was greatly detrimental to Israel. Even when Goldstone recanted, the damage wasn’t undone. This new committee has the power to inflict harm. It is not clear that we should take the boycott route again. Perhaps we should defer that decision until we know who will be carrying out the investigation.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1625