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The politics of relaxed morality
Aref Assaf
October 2, 2009
Last week, I heralded my return to
political activism by sharing with you my
piece on the UN’s Fact Finding Mission to Gaza, known as the
Goldstone Stone Report. Curiously, there is another interesting
side to the story which in hindsight is as worthwhile sharing.
The impetus for my urge to write the piece
was my reading of a guest column in the Sunday edition of the
Daily Record. Written by a pro Israeli pundit, the well placed
op-ed was an abashedly rehearsed defense of Israel and its
practices vis-à-vis the Palestinians. The gist of the column was
that Israel is the victim of Palestinian (Muslim) terror just
the US has been. Deductively, thus, he argues Israel and this
share a common an unrelentingly violent enemy.
As my response was submitted to the Daily
Record's editor, several important developments emerged. First,
the US in almost about face, agreed with the UN Report’s
recommendation that Israel and Hamas should investigate their
actions during the war. This meager demand was a setback for
AIPAC and other pro Israel groups who had lobbied the Obama
Administration to condemn the Report as biased and anti-Semitic.
The Second development was more startling and sadly could
usher a return to US political decisions being closely
coordinated with Israel. As the Report was being discussed at
the UN Human Rights Council, the US led the call urging the
Palestinian Authority not for a UN Human Rights Council
resolution on the Goldstone report alleging war crimes in Gaza.
According to the
Aljazeera.net,
a senior US official
acknowledged that Washington engaged in “intense diplomacy” to
convince the Palestinian leadership that pursuing the resolution
would harm the peace process. And according to the Israeli
newspaper Ha’aretz, Israel tightened economic screws against the
PA in threatening to nix a $700 million mobile phone deal for
the telecommunications company, Wataniya Palestine, if the PA
continued to push the Goldstone report. Despite recent
disagreements over Israeli settlement activities, this suggests
a return to the sort of US/Israeli coordination that led former
US Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller to write in the
Washington Post in 2005 that “For far too long, many American
officials involved in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, myself included,
have acted as Israel's attorney, catering and coordinating with
the Israelis at the expense of successful peace negotiations.”
The continuation of this level of US/Israeli coordination is
troubling. The real threat to the peace process is in pressuring
the weaker party to abandon the pursuit of justice. And as
Richard Goldstone himself commented, “The lack of accountability
for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached
a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any
hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an
environment that fosters violence.”
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