Disclaimer: This is the second in a series of posts dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Obviously, this is an extremely sensitive issue for many people back home as well as every single person living in this part of the world. It is also an incredibly complex and important issue, and needs to be given the time and full discussion that it deserves. I am hoping that this will present the conflict in terms that are easy to understand, and I fully intend to approach this from an impartial and fair point of view.
Part II - Straddling the Green Line
Moving on, we headed to a town called Tzur Hadassah – a town that residents such as Neil Lazarus and Dganit (director of OTZMA) are quick to remind us is NOT in the West Bank! Tzur Hadassah is actually right on the border of the 1967 green line, which explains why those that live there are so quick to defend its geographic location.
Our first speaker there was a foreign reporter named Gwen Ackerman, who currently works for Bloomberg News. She approached the issues discussed from a purely journalistic standpoint – no opinions of her own, just explaining how she approached the Palestinian conflict. She felt strongly that there was a disproportionate amount of attention worldwide paid to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and that, as many in the media feel, the Palestinian side provides a much more sensational story – and as we all know, misery sells papers.
One of the interesting points she made was in regards to bias in the press – some of you back home might be surprised to find that the American media really isn’t all that bad. Truth be told, they would probably report both sides if they had more access to the Israeli stories. However, it is in Europe and particularly Britain that there is a big issue with editors dictating to their reporters which way to tell a story. As Ackerman told us, American reporters and news outlets are much more likely to stick to journalistic ethos than their British counterparts. She also had an interesting take on PM Benyamin “Bibi” Netinyahu, stating that he was much more statesmanlike than his last stint as PM, he seems much more calculated in everything he says, and that he was one of the best Israeli leaders at using worldwide PR – a skill much needed by his country.
Following Ackerman, we were introduced to one of my favorite speakers of the seminar – David Segal, Chief Policy Advisor (basically Chief of Staff) to Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. For those of you who don’t know who Ayalon is, he was the one who orchestrated the meeting with the Ambassador from Turkey that led to a massive (and really dumb) diplomatic spat between the two countries. In a nutshell, Turkey was airing really anti-Semitic TV programs, so the ambassador was summoned for a meeting. At that meeting, the ambassador was seated in a much lower chair, there was only an Israeli flag present, and the two men did not shake hands. In case there was some confusion about what was going on, Ayalon pointed out to a reporter the whole thing. Got it? Good. Needless to say, I was quite eager to ask Segal about this, as it had happened about a month earlier. But we’ll get to that…
For a political junkie like me, Segal was a great speaker. He spoke quite candidly about many issues, some of which was off-the-record (Sidebar: In fact, he pointedly asked us NOT to write about some issues on our blogs. Trust me, it was nothing earth-shattering. Except for the part where he told us about [CENSORED BY THE ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES. NOTHING TO SEE HERE.] Cool, huh?). Segal started off by pointing out that while Israel has a serious PR problem in Europe to the point where government leaders run the risk of arrest there, there has been no change in public opinion in the U.S. on Israel in 60 years, and there is huge receptivity to the country in Africa and Latin America. So there’s that. Mainly, Segal discussed the highly controversial Goldstone Report. Now, if you don’t know about this, pay attention, because Goldstone will be mentioned quite a few more times in this series.
The Goldstone Report was commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council, which seems like it would be a good organization until you realize that they have spent virtually all of their time focusing on one country: Israel. Yep, not Iran, not Sudan, not any of the countries across the world suffering under brutal dictatorships. Israel. Specifically, Goldstone’s mandate was to investigate if there were human rights violations during the Operation Cast Lead, the 2008 military action by Israel that took place in Gaza following months of relentless bombing of towns like Sderot by Hamas, which originated in the region. Many felt that the report was inherently biased against Israel, leading the Israeli government to refuse to cooperate with Goldstone’s commission. More on that later, but the predictable result was a scathing attack on Israel’s alleged behavior during the conflict. I don’t care to go into details here (let’s be honest, this is long enough already and there’s a ton more to go), but feel free to peruse the report yourself. I’ll just let some internationally renowned newspapers make the case (the following is all from Wikipedia):
The Economist (UK) denounced the report as "deeply flawed" and detrimental to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, arguing that it was tainted by anti-Israel prejudice in the UNHRC. In particular, The Economist, while maintaining that allegations of Israelis committing war crimes were credible, chastised the mission's fact-finders for detecting little or no evidence in favor of the charge that Hamas endangered civilians by basing themselves around schools, mosques and hospitals, stating that the charge is supported by many reports in the public domain.
The Times (UK) criticized the report as "provocative bias" and described as dangerous and unreasonable the moral equivalence drawn in the report between Israel and Hamas. The Times praised Israel for quietly continuing to conduct its own investigation into the conflict despite the report, and concluded that Israel "is an accountable, democratic, transparent nation, and fighting to remain one amid challenges that few other nations ever have to face".
The Washington Post (US) wrote that "...the Goldstone commission proceeded to make a mockery of impartiality with its judgment of facts. It concluded, on scant evidence, that "disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians were part of a deliberate policy" by Israel. At the same time it pronounced itself unable to confirm that Hamas hid its fighters among civilians, used human shields, fired mortars and rockets from outside schools, stored weapons in mosques, and used a hospital for its headquarters, despite abundant available evidence”.
The Wall Street Journal (US) harshly criticized the report, calling it a "new low" in United Nations bias on Israel-related matters. WSJ wrote that the commission's members "were forced to make some astonishing claims of fact" in order to reach some of their conclusions. In particular, WSJ criticized the report's claim that the Gaza police force was a "civilian" agency and its inability to establish Palestinian use of mosques for military purposes despite evidence to the contrary.
So… yeah. Back to our story…
Needless to say, Goldstone has become quite the hot topic here, and tearing into him is an easy way to score points with the Israeli public. That being said, Segal took a little bit of mercy on him. He commented that really, nobody wanted the job, Goldstone forced the committee to change the mandate before he accepted it, and in truth, he probably didn’t even write the report himself. He also admitted what most sane people know – it was a big mistake for Israel to refuse to speak to the commission. To simplify the situation, a huge reason that the Goldstone Report was even possible was that no one really knew what was going on during the conflict. Israel decided to bar reporters from going inside of Gaza during Cast Lead, meaning that the only reports coming out were pretty much what Hamas wanted them to be. So how do you compete when you dig that big of a hole for yourself?
Regarding the incident with Turkey, the question was unfortunately pushed towards the end of our session and was only given a cursory and predictably empty answer. However, I was able to speak to Segal afterwards and ask him about it again, and I received a much more favorable answer. Segal told me that as Ayalon’s chief advisor, he helped him set up the meeting and was in the room for it, but it was never supposed to blow up into what it was. He asserted that a message needed to be sent to Turkey, as they had been poking Israel with a proverbial stick for some time. However, Ayalon was certainly not supposed to point this out to a reporter. According to Segal, Ayalon was talking to a reporter and forgot that, well, it was a reporter, and said a little too much. It sounded sort of like one of those situations where you see something happening across the room, you know how bad it is, but there’s no way you can get there in time to prevent it. Also, chances are Segal knows how badly this may have damaged Ayalon’s political future – unnecessary diplomatic spats are generally frowned upon when you’re the number two man in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Coming up in Part III... We head into the West Bank for Shabbat in a small Jewish community, as I attempt to put a human face on the conflict.
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