Political aggression and its consequences

Excerpts from an official United Nations summary of the Human Rights Council resolution on the Goldstone Report:

. . . while the Israeli Government sought to portray its operations as a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self defence, the Israeli plan had been directed, at least in part, at the people of Gaza as a whole ... the treatment of many civilians detained or killed while trying to surrender [is] one manifestation of the way in which the effective rules of engagement, standard operating procedures and instructions to the troops on the ground appeared to have been framed to create an environment in which due regard for civilian lives and basic human dignity was replaced with a disregard for basic international humanitarian law.... The destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories and residential houses had been the result of a deliberate and systematic policy by the Israeli armed forces and not because those objects had presented a military threat ... other Israeli activities, particularly in Jerusalem, including ... limits to Palestinian access to properties and holy sites based on national origin, religion, sex, age or other grounds ... a grave violation of the Palestinian people's civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights ... Israeli violations of human rights in occupied East Jerusalem, particularly the confiscation of lands and properties, the demolishing of houses, the construction and expansion of settlements, the continuing construction of the separation wall built in part on land Israel occupied in the 1967 war, and the continuous digging and excavation works in and around Al-Aqsa mosque and its vicinity.... The Council demanded that Israel allow Palestinian citizens and worshippers unhindered access to their properties and religious sites in the occupied Palestinian territory, cease immediately all digging and excavations beneath and around the mosque, and refrain from any acts may endanger the structure or change the nature of Christian and Islamic holy sites."

What to do?

An obvious option is to persuade friendly and neutral governments that the resolution is one-sided, distorted or false, and a threat against Israel's elementary right to defend itself. Israel will work with its friends to assure that other United Nations forums, the courts and governments of individual countries do not respond to the Human Rights Council resolution with any concrete actions against Israel, its citizens, officials, or soldiers.

The most obvious falsehood is the claim that Israel is digging and excavating in, around, or beneath the Al-Aqsa mosque. The closest Israeli excavations are outside the large elevated area on which the mosque sits. The one-sided nature of the resolution is evident in that 10 out of 11 paragraphs deal with Israel's alleged violations, while only a "by the way" paragraph deals with allegations about Hamas:

(The Report) also found that Palestinian armed groups caused terror within Israel's civilian population through the launch of thousands of rockets and mortars into Israel since April 2001, determining that both sides may thus have committed serious war crimes and possible crimes against humanity."

Some Israeli politicians are blaming the resolution on the lack of sufficient efforts by Israel to explain its actions. More and better explanation is their solution.

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Tempest in a teapot

It's one of those times that excites Jews' well-developed paranoia.
 
A sizable majority of member states in the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva endorsed the Goldstone report, and sent it on the General Assembly and Security Council. Supporters will try to get an endorsement from the Security Council to indict Israel before the International Criminal Court.
 
The resolution not only accepted the Goldstone report on the Gaza Operation, but for good measure condemned Israel for human rights violations in the West Bank and Jerusalem, including the denial of religious rights. (During times of tension, Israel does not permit entry to the Temple Mount for men under an age when they are thought to be potential troublemakers.)
 
Not even Richard Goldstone was satisfied with the decision of the Human Rights Council, insofar as it did not condemn Hamas for its violations.
 
The delegates who voted for the endorsement came from Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Djbouti, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia. Some of these we should discount as international good-for-nothings allowed to yell and scream, but not permitted by the rules of the game to do anything serious. Saudi Arabia is tolerated on account of its wealth, but also kept from serious damage by existing rules and norms.

Some speak in double talk, endorse what the Palestinians want, perhaps to keep some of their own people quiet, but deal with Israel. Jordan and Egypt are prominent in this group. China, India and Russia are important for Israel, but do what they have to in order to satisfy their other interests. None of them is on the verge of taking serious actions against Israel. All are more violent than Israel in dealing with those who threaten their own regimes.
 
Indonesia has no diplomatic relations with Israel, but we have encountered large groups of Indonesian Christians in our favorite Jerusalem Chinese restaurant. The Philippines enjoys the foreign exchange earned by thousands of its people working here as care givers for the aged and infirm.
 
Altogether, the votes in favor of endorsement are just part of the international background static. Not pleasant to the ears, but not likely to affect one's quality of life.

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Competing to establish Palestine? Or to kill it...

Recent expressions coming from the Palestinians reveal a chronic internal competition that does not auger well for their ability to get it together and reach statehood.
 
A week ago the Palestine National Authority, presumably under the direction of Mahmoud Abbas, withdrew its demand that the Goldstone Report move up from the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva to the Security Council in New York.
 
Leading Palestinian voices accused Abbas of caving into Israeli demands, and say he did it to get Israeli permission to open a second Palestinian cell phone service, in which they claim his son had a financial interest.
 
Abbas responded with a "who, me?" He insisted that he was acting on the advice of the United States rather than pressure from Israel, and that his son was not involved with the cell phone initiative.
 
Egyptian opposition politicians are calling Abbas a traitor to Palestine, and demanding that the Palestinian ambassador leave Cairo.
 
Leading Palestinian figures accuse Israel of taking more and more land in Jerusalem, say that Arabs are not investing enough in their neighborhoods, and recall that it was Benyamin Netanyahu who opened a provocative site for tourists that threatened Muslim landmarks during his previous term as prime minister in 1996.
 
Abbas has joined the chorus, led by Hamas and its Islamic allies, that Israeli extremists are behind the recent incidents of violence in Jerusalem. Palestinians must defend the sanctity of al Aqsa.
 
This is not the first time Palestinians have accused one another of not being sufficiently shrill, and fiddling with sacred causes. Ranking office holders and their relatives have been involved with selling cement meant for Palestinian purposes to Israelis for building apartments in the West Bank, and even for the awful security barrier.
 
What is most worrying is the inclination of religious and political leaders to goad one another for not being sufficiently extreme on issues of national importance.

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Some puzzles for Israel and others

Should Israel be scorned because its former prime minister is said to have helped himself to financial favors during his service in increasingly important government offices on the way to the top? Or be praised for indicting him on charges of fraudulent receipt of goods, false registration of corporate documents, fraud, breach of trust and tax evasion? Should it be scorned because its former president is alleged to be a sexual predator, or praised for indicting him on charges of rape and sexual harassment?
 
Even those who praise Israel for cleaning house may criticize it for taking so long to do so. Investigations went on for years before the Attorney General handed down indictments, and the trials may last even longer. 

Justice, and the closely related legitimacy of criticism, are deeply rooted in Jewish doctrine. Israelis who do not study sacred texts acquire the traits somewhere else.
 
Should one doubt the presence of criticism, it is only necessary to look at the front page of the country's most distinguished newspaper the day after the Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke to the United Nations General Assembly.
 
Praise for a speech carried live in Israeli and international media? Think again.

Big egos, good intentions and failed policies

Seventy years ago, a distinguished scholar documented one of the keystones of politics: politicians have abnormally large egos. (Harold Lasswell, Psychopathology and Politics)
 
His finding is worth remembering today - policy failures continue to hurt because people with big egos have trouble admitting mistakes.
 
American history, wealth and military power may serve to magnify the phenomenon, in a field where even the leaders of small and pathetic states think of themselves in grand terms. It is certain that the mistakes of American leaders touch directly more people than the mistakes of national leaders elsewhere. The world-wide reach of American aspirations means that poor judgment in the White House has greater impact than errors coming out of other national capitals.
 
There is no shortage of examples.

Simple solutions and other sewage

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The truth about the Israeli education system

The scare story of the day on the front page of Ha'aretz: "Teacher salaries in Israel among the lowest in the world." The story compares Israel's performance on a number of indicators to the high income group of nations covered in a report by the OECD (Organization for Economic co-operation and Development). Toward the end of the story was the news that Israel does better than many countries on indicators of higher education. An item on the radio contrasted Israel's educational expenditures, teachers' salaries and class size to those of Norway.
 
These reports do say something about education in Israel, but no less about the media.
 
Nowhere does one see an effort to explain the findings, other than citing the country's shame for not doing more.

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'Don't make things worse'

For over 40 years, the principal field in which I have taught and written, and which most of my conversations have focused on, has been public policy.
 
I spent about a quarter of my career among American students and officials. Most of the rest was spent among Israelis, and in meetings with individuals high, low and middle in other places. Sooner or later we usually got around to discussing what governments were doing, and how they were doing it.
 
My classes and queries usually focused on the elements that influence policymakers and the benefits or costs to citizens: what is, what explains it, and what is likely to be. Sometimes, I wandered into the realm of what should be.

I am not anti-America, but...

Mahmoud Abbas has a new demand of the United States: to order the immediate removal of the security barrier being built between Palestinian areas of the West Bank and Israel. According to Abbas, the barrier is standing in the way of the peace process. On account of an end to the violence, he claims, it is unnecessary.
 
That is like a cancer patient telling his physician that he can stop chemotherapy because he is having a good day.
 
It is not possible at this time to predict whether Israel's security barrier will have a life that is shorter or longer than the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of China, or the various barriers that the United States is building between itself and Mexico.

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Ghetto revolt

There is a ghetto revolt in Jerusalem.
 
It began several weeks ago in protest against the municipality opening a parking garage on the Sabbath that served visitors to the Old City. It escalated in protest against the arrest of a woman from one of the ultra-Orthodox communities on charges of abusing her three-year-old son.
 
The ghetto is always seething to some degree. Protests can escalate at any time on account of  opposition to a store selling non-kosher food; the discovery of bones at a construction site; the demand that a road be closed on the Sabbath; advertising posters showing immodest women; or a demonstration of gay pride.

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