During my period as UN special rapporteur for human rights in Palestine on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council, I have been struck by the persistent efforts of Israel and its strong civil society adjuncts to divert attention from the substance of Palestinian grievances or the consideration of the respective rights of Israel and Palestine under international law. I have also observed that many, but by no means all, of those who represent the Palestinians seem to be strangely reluctant to focus on substance or to take full advantage of opportunities to use UN mechanisms to challenge Israel on the terrain of international law and morality. This Palestinian reluctance is more baffling than are the Israeli diversionary tactics. It seems clear that international law supports Palestinian claims on the major issues in contention: borders, refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, resources (water, land), statehood and human rights. Then why not insist on resolving the conflict by reference to international law with such modifications as seem mutually beneficial? Of course, those representing the Palestinians in international venues are aware of these opportunities, and are acting on the basis of considerations that in their view deserve priority. Yet, it is disturbing that this passivity on the Palestinian side persists year after year, decade after decade. There are partial exceptions: support for recourse to the International Court of Justice to contest the construction of the annexation wall, encouragement of the establishment of the Goldstone fact-finding inquiry investigating Israeli crimes after the 2008-09 attacks on Gaza, and complaints about settlement expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem. But even here, Palestinian officialdom will not push hard to have these symbolic victories implemented in ways that alter the behavioural realities on the ground, and maybe even if they did do their best, nothing would change. On the Israeli side, diversion and the muting of legal and legitimacy claims are fully understandable as ways to blunt challenges from adversary sources: seeking to have the normative weakness of the Israeli side offset by an insistence that if there is to be a solution it must be based on the facts on the ground, whether these are lawful or not, and upon comparative diplomatic leverage and negotiating skill in a framework that is structurally biased in favour of Israel. The recently exhumed direct negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and the government of Israel exemplify this approach: proceeding despite the absence of preconditions as to compliance with international law even during the negotiations, reliance on the United States as the convening intermediary, and the appointment by US President Barack Obama of an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) anointed special envoy (Martin Indyk), the latter underscoring the absurd one-sidedness of the diplomatic framework. It would seem that the Palestinians are too weak and infirm to cry “foul”, but merely play along as if they were good-natured, obedient, and frightened schoolchildren while the bullies rule the schoolyard. Such a pattern is discouraging for many reasons: it weights the diplomatic process hopelessly in favour of the materially stronger side that has taken full advantage of the failure to resolve the conflict by grabbing more and more land and resources; it makes it virtually impossible to imagine a just and sustainable peace emerging out of such a process at this stage; it plays a cruel game in which the weaker side is almost certain to be made to seem unreasonable because it will not accept what the stronger side is prepared to offer, which is insultingly little; and it allows the stronger side to use the process and time interval of the negotiations as an opportunity to consolidate its unlawful claims, benefiting from the diversion of attention. There are two interwoven concerns present here: the pernicious impacts of the politics of deflection as an aspect of conflictual behaviour in many settings, especially where there are gross disparities in hard power and material position; the specific politics of deflection as a set of strategies devised and deployed with great effectiveness by Israel in its effort to attain goals with respect to historic Palestine that far exceed what the UN and the international community had conferred. What follows deals with the politics of deflection only in the Israel/Palestine context. THE POLITICS OF DEFLECTION: Undoubtedly the most disturbing behaviour by Israel and its supporters in deflecting attention from substance in the conflict and the abuses of the occupation is to dismiss criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism or to defame the critic as an anti-Semite. This is pernicious for two reasons: first, because it exerts a huge influence since anti-Semitism has been so totally discredited, even criminalised, in the aftermath of World War II that featured the exposure and repudiation of the Holocaust; second, because by extending the reach of anti-Semitism to address hostile commentary on Israel a shift of attention occurs away from the core evil of ethnic and racial hatred to encompass the quite reasonable and highly critical appraisal of Israeli behaviour towards the Palestinian people by reference to overarching norms of law and morality. There is also the misuse of language to attack Jewish critics of Israel by irresponsible characterisations of such critics as “self-hating Jews”. Such persons might exist, but to infer their existence because of their criticisms of Israel or opposition to the Zionist project functions as a means to inhibit open discussion and debate and to avoid substantive issues. It tends to be effective as a tactic as few people are prepared to take the time and trouble to investigate the fairness and accuracy of such allegations, and so once the shadow is cast many stay clear of the conflict or come to believe that criticism of Israel is of less interest than are the pros and cons of the personal accusations. Strong Zionist credentials will not insulate a Jew from such allegations, as Richard Goldstone discovered when he was vilified by the top tier of the Israeli leadership after chairing a fact-finding inquiry that confirmed allegations of Israeli war crimes in the course of Operation Cast Lead. Even the much-publicised subsequent Goldstone “retraction” did little to rehabilitate the reputation of the man in Israeli eyes, although his change of heart as to the main allegation of his own report (a change rejected by the other three members of the inquiry group) was successfully used by Israeli apologists to discredit and bury the report, again illustrating a preference for deflection as opposed to substance. Even such global moral authority figures as archbishop Desmond Tutu and former US president Jimmy Carter have been called anti-Semites because they have dared to raise their voices about the wrongs that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people, specifically identifying the discriminatory legal structures of the occupation as an incipient form of apartheid. In the unpleasant course of being myself a frequent target of such vilifying techniques, I have discovered that it is difficult to make reasoned responses that do not have the effect of accentuating my plight. To fail to respond leaves an impression among some bystanders that there must be something to the accusations or else there would be a reasoned and well-evidenced response. To answer such charges is to encourage continuing attention to the allegations, providing the accusing side with another occasion to repeat the charges by again cherry picking the evidence. NGOs such as UN Watch and UN Monitor specialise in managing such hatchet jobs. What is more disturbing than the attacks themselves is their resonance among those holding responsible positions in government and international institutions, as well as widely respected liberal organisations. In my case, these included the UN secretary-general, the US ambassadors at the UN in New York and Geneva, the British prime minister, and the Canadian foreign minister. Not one of these individuals bothered to check with me as to my response to the defamatory allegations made against me or apparently took the trouble to check on whether there was a credible basis for such damaging personal attacks. Even the liberal mainstream human rights powerhouse Human Rights Watch (HRW) buckled under when pressured by UN Watch, invoking a long-neglected technical rule to obtain my immediate removal from a committee and then lacking the decency to explain that my removal was not a dismissal when UN Watch claimed victory and proceeded to tell the UN and other bodies that if Human Rights Watch had expelled me, surely I should also be expelled elsewhere. I learned, somewhat bitterly, that HRW has feet of clay when it comes to standing on principle in relation to someone like me who has been the victim of repeated calumnies because of an effort to report honestly and accurately on Israeli violations of Palestinian rights. THE AUSPICES AND THE MESSENGER: A favourite tactic of those practicing the politics of deflection is to contend that the auspices are biased, and thus whatever substantive criticisms might issue from an organisation making criticisms should be disregarded. Israel and the United States frequently use this tactic to deflect criticism of Israel that is made in the UN system, especially if it emanates from the Human Rights Council in Geneva or the General Assembly. The argument is reinforced by the similarly diversionary claim that Israeli violations are given a disproportionately large share of attention when compared to worse abuses in other countries, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa. Also, there is the complementary complaint that some of the members of the Human Rights Council themselves have appalling human rights records that disqualify them from passing judgment, thereby exhibiting the hypocrisy of criticisms directed at Israel. It is tiresome to respond to such lines of attack, but also important to do so. First of all, in my experience the UN has always made fact-based criticisms of Israeli policies and practices, appointed individuals with strong professional credentials and personal integrity, and painstakingly reviewed written material prior to publication to avoid inflammatory or inaccurate criticisms. Beyond this, Israel is almost always given an opportunity to review material critical of its behaviour before it is released, yet almost never avails itself of this chance to object substantively. In my experience, the UN, including the Human Rights Council, leans over backwards to be fair to Israel and to take account of Israeli arguments even when Israel declines to make a case on its own behalf. Furthermore, the heightened attention given to Palestinian grievances is a justified result of the background of the conflict. It needs to be remembered that it was the UN that took over historic Palestine from the United Kingdom after World War II, decreeing a partition solution in General Assembly Resolution 181 without ever consulting the indigenous population, much less obtaining their consent. The UN approach in 1947 failed to solve the problem, consigning Palestinians to decades of misery due to the deprivation of their fundamental rights as of 1948, the year of the Nakba, a national experience of catastrophic dispossession. Through the years the UN has provided guidelines for behaviour and a peaceful solution of the conflict, most notably Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which have not been implemented. The UN has also for more than a decade participated in the Quartet tasked with implementing the roadmap designed to achieve peace, but not followed up on, allowing Israel to encroach more and more on the remnant of Palestinian rights via settlement expansions, wall construction, residence manipulations, apartheid administrative structures, land confiscations and house demolitions. The UN has been consistently frustrated in relation to Palestine in a manner that is unique in UN experience, making the issue a litmus test of UN credibility to promote global justice and overcome the suffering of a dispossessed and occupied people. Usually, the attack on the sponsorship of a critical initiative is reinforced by a scathing screed directed at anyone prominently associated with the undertaking. The attacks on Edward Said, for example, the one Palestinian voice in America that could not be ignored, were vicious, often characterising this most humanist among public intellectuals as the “professor of terror”. The most dogmatic defenders of Israel never tired of trying to make this label stick by showing a misleadingly presented picture of Said harmlessly throwing a stone at an abandoned guard house during a visit to southern Lebanon not long before his death as if it were a heinous act of violence against a vulnerable Israeli soldier. This effort to find something, however dubious, that could be used to discredit an influential critic disregards the ethics of fairness and decency. In my case, an accidentally posted cartoon with an anti-Semitic angle has been endlessly relied upon by my most mean-spirited detractors, although any fair reading of my past and present scholarship, together with the blog post in which the cartoon appeared and in which Israel is not even mentioned, would conclude that the sole purpose of highlighting the cartoon was to defame, and by so doing, to deflect criticism. In like manner, the use of the label “terrorist” has been successfully manipulated by Israel in relation to Hamas to avoid dealing with its presence as the elected governing authority in Gaza or in responding to its offers of long-term coexistence provided the blockade of Gaza is ended and Israeli forces withdraw to the 1967 borders. The Hamas demands are really nothing more than a call for the implementation of international law and the UN Security Council resolutions, and thus they are highly reasonable from the perspective of fairness to both sides. But Israel is not interested in such fairness, and hence it avoids responding to the substance of the Hamas proposals by insisting that it is unwilling to respond to a terrorist organisation. Such a stubborn position is maintained, and supported by the United States and EU, despite the successful participation of Hamas in an electoral process, its virtual abandonment of violent resistance, and its declared readiness for diplomatic accommodations with Israel and the United States. If the messenger delivering the unwelcome message lacks prominence or the campaign of vilification does not altogether succeed, then at governmental levels Israel, and the United States as well, will do its best to show contempt for criticism for the whole process by boycotting proceedings at which the material is presented. This has been my experience at recent meetings of the Human Rights Council and the third committee of the General Assembly where my reports are presented on a semi-annual basis and Israel and the United States make it a point to be absent. There is an allocation of the work of deflection: at the governmental end, substance is often evaded by pretending not to notice, while pro-Israeli NGOs pound away, shamelessly repeating over and over again the same quarter truths, which often are not even related to their main contention of biased reporting. In my case, UN Watch harps on my supposed membership in the ranks of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, an allegation that I have constantly explained to be contrary to my frequently articulated views on the 9/11 attacks. It makes no difference what I say or what are the facts of my position once the defamatory attack has been launched. DIPLOMATIC DEFLECTION: The entire Oslo peace process, with its periodically revived negotiations, has served as an essential instrument of deflection for the past 20 years. It diverts the media from any consideration of Israel's expansionist practices during the period that the parties are futilely negotiating, and it succeeds in making critics and criticism of Israel's occupation policies seem obstructive of the overarching goal of ending the conflict and bringing peace to the two peoples. Although not solely motivated by the goals of deflection, the bellicose focus by Israel on Iran's nuclear programme has seemed so dangerous for the region and the world that it has made Palestinian grievances appear trivial by comparison. It has also led outside political actors to believe that it would be provocative to antagonise the Israeli leadership in relation to Palestine at a time when there are such strong worries that Israel might attack Iran or push the United States in such a direction. To a lesser extent, the preoccupation with the effects of the Arab upheavals, especially in Syria and Egypt, has had the incidental benefit for Israel of diminishing still further regional and global pressures relating to Palestinian grievances and rights. This distraction, a kind of spontaneous deflection, has given Israel more time to consolidate its annexationist plans in the West Bank and Jerusalem, which makes the still-lingering image of a two-state solution a convenient mirage, no more, no less. Overall, the politics of deflection consists of a repertoire of techniques used to shift the gaze away from the merits of a dispute. Israel has relied on these techniques with devastating effects for the Palestinians. The purpose of my analysis is to encourage Palestinians in all settings to do their best to keep the focus on substance and respective rights. Perhaps it is time for all of us to learn from the brave Palestinian hunger strikers whose non-violent defiance of Israeli abuse in detention has operated with laser-like intensity to call attention to prison and administrative injustice. Unfortunately, the media of the world has been silent, including those self-righteous liberal pundits who have for years urged the Palestinians to confront Israel non-violently, and then sit back and find satisfaction in the response from Tel Aviv. Waiting for Godot is not a matter of patience, but of ignorance. The writer is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
