Two of three members of the UN commission to blame Israel for everything wrong in the Middle East were in Ottawa on Monday to do just that
OTTAWA — No life can entirely escape irritation or boredom. But you don’t generally expect them at the same time, though involving international bureaucrats shortens the odds against. Especially if they combine pontificating about international law with pervasive anti-Israel sentiment.
Take the event sponsored by four University of Ottawa associations on Monday … please. It featured two of three members of the UN commission to blame Israel for everything wrong in the Middle East, a.k.a., the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. One of whom, a former UN high commissioner for human rights, was recently dropped from an international law conference in New York for her “demonstrably discriminatory agenda against the Jewish people and the State of Israel.” Though her tendency to self-satisfied droning would also have been sufficient grounds.
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The event predictably began with the usual hypocritical pieties about how it was taking place on “traditional” and “unceded” land that the speakers had no intention of returning. Apparently some occupations are more equal than others. And at proudly bilingual U of O, the only two sentences in French were one welcoming questions in French and another apologizing for answering in English anyway. Apparently praising inclusion is a lot easier than practising it.
I concede that I’m easily unimpressed by vacuous presentations involving reputable clichés. For instance ones about “international law” that studiously overlook the critical point that nobody would give a hoot what any court said if there were no police enforcement and there are no international cops. And that we would not respect even rulings we feared if laws and judges were not widely regarded as legitimate, and there are no international elected legislatures. Instead you get tendentious vapouring like one panellist’s denial that customary international law includes a legal right of self-defence against non-state actors. Bosh.
It was pleasantly dull that there were no chanting crowds or air of menace; the security theatre of bag inspection was quite unlike boarding, say, El Al. But beneath the soporific surface the gathering seethed with anti-Israeli assumptions and silences that reeked of antisemitism. This panel with a mandate as long as a UN delegate’s speech said that the basic problem is “the occupation” of Gaza (which Israel left in 2005) and of “the West Bank including east Jerusalem.” Naturally it made no mention of Israel’s legitimate security concerns. Or indeed of antisemitism.
I did submit a written question asking, roughly, “Isn’t another ‘root cause’ the refusal of Hamas and many of Israel’s neighbours to acknowledge its right to exist within any borders, and their periodic attempts to kill all Jewish Israelis?” But naturally the moderator, former head of a venerable Canadian “civil libertarian” outfit that per O’Sullivan’s law has become just another tiresome left-wing noisemaker, didn’t find time to ask it, though he kept us late to read one about Canada’s “complicity” in the Israeli “offensive.”
To be fair, he did convey a less pointed one about Israel’s neighbours, to which one panellist said they hadn’t gone back to Israel’s founding to see if “the 1947 resolution” was a root cause. Note that he didn’t suspect that the refusal of Israel’s neighbours to accept it, instead launching an immediate genocidal assault, might be problematic. No. His concern focused on the refounding of Israel on its people’s ancestral, traditional and unceded land as a sanctuary after the Holocaust.
As to the other wars, he said the last one ended in 1973, so it’s ancient history. No need to discuss Israel’s neighbours trying to wipe it out since long before this famous “occupation” supposedly started the entire problem, when Israel successfully pre-empted a murderous 1967 invasion. Evidently “Death to Jews” isn’t an issue for them.
They did admit Hamas committed some war crimes. But just as the worst bores don’t know they’re dull, the worst zealots don’t know they’re narrow-minded. The panellists made no reference to Israel’s legitimate security concerns. Or terrorism, Islam or Judaism. Instead one denied that “stone-throwing young children,” who he later conceded were teen boys, could possibly kill or do serious bodily harm so Israel had no right to use dangerous force on them.
Any sane person, or perhaps just sane pedant, would have said the Balearic slingers beg to differ. And David, if you knew the ancient history of Israel from which the Jews were later driven. Also, if you don’t deal firmly with rocks, won’t it escalate?
I grant that opinions can differ. But the big problem isn’t that these clods didn’t share mine. It’s that they either don’t know contrary views exist or scorn to acknowledge them. The result was classic “polite” antisemitism, where the really ugly stuff didn’t need to be said aloud because the really important stuff wasn’t said at all.
The result was infuriatingly tedious, and tediously infuriating.
National Post
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31.10.2023
Two of three members of the UN commission to blame Israel for everything wrong in the Middle East were in Ottawa on Monday to do just that
OTTAWA — No life can entirely escape irritation or boredom. But you don’t generally expect them at the same time, though involving international bureaucrats shortens the odds against. Especially if they combine pontificating about international law with pervasive anti-Israel sentiment.
Take the event sponsored by four University of Ottawa associations on Monday … please. It featured two of three members of the UN commission to blame Israel for everything wrong in the Middle East, a.k.a., the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. One of whom, a former UN high commissioner for human rights, was recently dropped from an international law conference in New York for her “demonstrably discriminatory agenda against the Jewish people and the State of Israel.” Though her tendency to self-satisfied droning would also have been sufficient grounds.
Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.
Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.
Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.
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The event predictably began with the usual hypocritical pieties about how it was taking place on “traditional” and “unceded” land that the speakers had no intention of returning. Apparently some occupations are more equal than others. And at proudly bilingual U of O, the only two sentences in French were one welcoming questions in French and another........
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