Not playing this game

Editorial

The latest United Nations report on Israeli misdeeds alleges that the Jewish state is attempting a creeping takeover of Palestinian territory through the development and expansion of settlements in the West Bank. The panel, which released its report last week, demanded that Israel stop all settlement expansion and withdraw all settlers. It accused Israel of multiple violations of international law and trotted out the allegation of “war crimes.”

The six-month-long review was undertaken by a three-judge panel led by the French jurist Christine Chanet on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council. Israel refused to participate, a decision that was widely condemned by UN officials and diplomats around the world. Critics have warned that Israel’s refusal to participate in the inquiry could encourage other countries to ignore the efforts of similar panels to investigate human rights violations in their jurisdictions.

The fear is unfounded. More than half of the votes taken by the UN Human Rights Council are on the subject of Israel. Other countries – countries with grotesque and systematic human rights violations – need not be concerned about being hauled before such an inquiry; the council is too busy to address them. The idea that Israel’s refusal to participate will undermine the legitimacy of the council is similarly moot; it has already proved itself a farce.

It is the latest in successive decades of examples of the UN being co-opted by anti-Israel and anti-Western players with ideological agendas. The inquiry did not address terrorism by Palestinians aimed either at Palestinians themselves or at Israelis. It ignored the explicit threats against Israel made by the Iranian regime, which is undertaking a nuclear program to fulfil its promises. Apparently, it also is not in the inquiry’s mandate to investigate the murders of 60,000 people – and counting – in Syria in recent months, or the regime in Uzbekistan that has boiled alive its political dissidents, or the untold numbers of atrocities taking place elsewhere in the world.

This is not news. It has been taking place for decades, usurping the resources of the UN and reducing the opportunity for that crucial international body to do things that could effectively advance human rights and dignity in the world. Yet, we open up our newspapers and turn on the television and there it is again: Israel being condemned for not participating in its own humiliation and demonization.

Israel does the right thing in refusing to legitimize this kind of charade by participating in it.

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