An Institutionalized Disregard for Palestinian Life

[A mother and daughter in the in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, February 2011. Image via Shutterstock.] [A mother and daughter in the in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, February 2011. Image via Shutterstock.]

An Institutionalized Disregard for Palestinian Life

By : Mouin Rabbani

One either rejects the killing of non-combatants on principle or takes a more tribal approach to such matters. In the case of Israel and the Palestinians, the global outpouring of grief and condemnation over the killing of three Israeli youths in the occupied West Bank constitutes the moral equivalent of Rolf Harris denouncing Jimmy Savile.One either rejects the killing of non-combatants on principle or takes a more tribal approach to such matters. In the case of Israel and the Palestinians, the global outpouring of grief and condemnation over the killing of three Israeli youths in the occupied West Bank constitutes the moral equivalent of Rolf Harris denouncing Jimmy Savile.

More than extending a cold shoulder to the Palestinian children who Israel has slayed at the rate of two a week since 2000, those who pioneer new heights of sanctimony every time an Israeli life is taken have been complicit in extinguishing Palestinian ones. While there seems to be no Israeli child in harm’s way Obama will not compare to his own daughters, their Palestinian counterparts are brushed aside with increasingly obscene mantras about Israel’s right to self-defense. Indeed, the institutionalized disregard for Palestinian life in Western corridors of power not only helps explain why Palestinians also resort to violence, but Israel’s latest assault on the Gaza Strip as well.

Thus, the latest round of escalation is dated from the moment three Israeli youths went missing on 12 June, for the simple reason that the shooting death of two Palestinian boys in Ramallah on 15 May—like any number of incidents in the intervening month where Israel exercised its right to colonize and dispossess—is considered wholly insignificant.

Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s instantaneous determination that Hamas was responsible was met with immediate confirmation by the White House, and has since been treated as established fact by the media. Yet the culprits remain at large and their institutional affiliation unclear. For its part Hamas, which like other Palestinian organizations never hesitates to claim responsibility for its actions and is prone to exaggerate its activities, has on this occasion pointedly denied involvement.

What we do know is that a distress call by one of the Israeli youths on 12 June included the sound of gunfire and led the Israeli security establishment to conclude they had been killed. Netanyahu deliberately suppressed this information, used the pretext of a hostage rescue operation to launch an organized military rampage throughout the West Bank, and engaged in demagoguery and incitement against the Palestinians that even by his standards plumbed new depths of vulgarity. To blame the subsequent burning alive of a sixteen-year-old Palestinian on a few errant fanatics (after attempts to portray it as the murder of a gay boy by his own family failed) is to pretend such barbarism exists independently of the colonial and political contexts that produce it.

If it was clear there were no hostages to be rescued, what then was Israel seeking to achieve? Quite a lot, and then some. Key among its objectives was reversing the tentative steps Palestinian rivals Fatah and Hamas had since April taken towards national reconciliation. Israel prefers a divided Palestinian polity partially ruled by militant Islamists to a unified one led by Mahmoud Abbas, a pliant septuagenarian who remains committed to negotiations and publicly proclaims security collaboration with Israel to be “sacred.” Concerned that the combination of reconciliation and growing Palestinian unrest could plant the seeds of yet another Palestinian uprising, Israel additionally sought to nip it in the bud. In doing so, it also re-arrested a number of Palestinians released during the 2011 prisoner exchange with Hamas, thus erasing the stain of releasing captives rather than incarcerating or assassinating those who forced it to do so. In the context of the latest collapse of US-sponsored diplomacy, and—Australia and Canada excepted—a virtually global consensus that Israel, its insatiable appetite for Palestinians land, and failure to discharge its commitments regarding prisoner releases were to blame, it was particularly convenient for Netanyahu to change the narrative from one about colonialism and its consequences to terrorism.

In the meantime, Israel’s pugilistic actions have produced major unrest in the West Bank and among the Palestinian community within Israel, and a new confrontation with the Gaza Strip. It remains a long way off from the much-vaunted “third intifada,” primarily because the organizational infrastructure that produced and sustained the first and second either is degraded, no longer exists, or is controlled by leaders that prefer the perks and privileges of power to struggle and sacrifice.

Hamas, too, would rather avoid a large-scale confrontation with Israel. But as we have seen in recent days, it is in contrast to recent months meeting escalation with escalation rather than enforcing calm. Not only have previous constraints on its conduct been removed, but it has less to lose than at any point since it seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007. Its main objectives in the recent reconciliation agreement—payment of salaries for its civil servants, a re-opening of the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border, reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, and enhanced regional and international legitimacy—have signally failed to materialize. The new Palestinian Authority government formed with its endorsement acts as if the Gaza Strip does not exist, and continues to cooperate with Israel against Hamas in the West Bank. The unremitting hostility of Egypt’s new rulers to the Gaza Strip and Hamas in particular also suggests the absence of a credible mediator unless Turkey or Qatar somehow step into the breach.

Taken together, these developments could make for a confrontation between Israel and Hamas longer and more intense than either party bargained for. As always, the key issue remains whether the international community will continue to extend to Israel the impunity enjoyed by Jimmy Savile or impose the accountability finally imposed upon Rolf Harris.

[An edited version of this article first appeared as “Institutionalised Disregard for Palestinian Life” in the London Review of Books.]

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The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a unique mechanism that intends to review the behavior of states without distinction. The UN General Assembly established it in 2006 as part of the functions of the Human Rights Council. It is a state-driven process to comprehensively assess a state`s compliance with human rights law. The Human Rights Council is to hold three two-week sessions each year during which time they review the files of sixteen member states. Accordingly each state will undergo the review every three years. As of 2011, all 193 UN member states had undergone a review.

The Human Rights Council conducted Israel`s UPR in 2009.  In response to the findings, Israel`s ambassador to the UN explained that it took the Review process "very seriously" because it is "an opportunity for genuine introspection, and frank discussion within the Israeli system" 

Israel`s second UPR is scheduled to take place in 2013. A coalition of Palestinian human rights organizations submitted their concise report on Israel`s violations between 2009 and 2012.  This document will not be read, however, because Israel is boycotting the UPR, citing bias.  In May 2012, Israel described the Human Rights Council as “a political tool and convenient platform, cynically used to advance certain political aims, to bash and demonize Israel.”

Israel`s condemnation of the Human Rights Council followed the body`s initiation of a fact-finding mission to investigate the impact of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Today, the Council released its report at a press conference in Geneva. It states that Isreal must cease all of its settlement activity  "without preconditions" and  "must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers", or face prosecution before the International Criminal Court. Sources in Geneva tell me that Israel`s threats of boycott aimed to derail the Council`s fact-finding mission`s report. Failing to do that, Israel unilaterally withdrew from its Universal Periodic Review all together.

This is not Israel`s first attack on the UN. It has cited bias in the past in response to the UN`s critique of its human rights violations, specifically after the World Conference Against Racism (2001); the International Court of Justice proceedings on the route of the Separation Barrier (2004); denial of entry to Special Rapporteur to the OPT, Richard Falk (2008); and its refusal to cooperate with the Human Rights Council`s fact-finding delegation to Gaza in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead (2009). 

Israel is unique for its boycott, which evidences the tenuous nature of the voluntary compliance process. In fact, human rights advocates and governement officials worry that Israel will open the door to non-cooperation by other states. The battle for accountability continues even in the UN. Despite its acceptance of international law & human rights norms, even within the multilateral human rights body, the last word on human rights matters is political.