Israeli Ambassadors: The Farcical Face of
Modern Apartheid
Israel sees the UN as hostile territory. How apt that it sends
ambassadors committed to annexation, whose stock answer to criticism
is the claim of 'anti-Semitism'.
By Vijay Prashad
August 21, 2015 "Information
Clearing House"
- Israel's government is not keen on
the United Nations. A common sign in the illegal settlements
reads, "UNwelcome".
Israel sees the UN as hostile territory. Its ambassadors behave
on a war footing. Ron Prosor, the former ambassador, routinely
attacked senior UN officials when he didn't agree with them,
calling many "anti-Semites".
Israel has now sent a new ambassador to the UN. Danny
Danon follows Prosor - both are brash and farcical. Danon is the
envoy of the settlers, a fierce advocate of "Greater Israel".
In a New York Times opinion piece in 2011, Danon wrote
that the Israeli government "should annex the Jewish communities
of the West Bank, or as Israelis prefer to refer to our historic
heartland, Judea and Samaria."
The two-state solution is a senseless idea to Danon, who is
firmly committed to the full annexation of Palestinian lands.
Danon has written that early Zionist leaders acted with total
disregard for international opinion and law, and that
"diplomatic storms soon blew over as the international community
moved on to other issues".
The disdain shown for international law and the UN is the
essence of what in Israel is called 'Danonism'.
Danon has been an irritant to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu - he ran against him for Likud's leadership, and
despite being appointed three times to senior positions by
Netanyahu, continues to belittle him.
It is likely that Netanyahu has sent him to New York to get him
out of Israel.
His close links to Christian Zionists in the US indicate that he
will ignore the establishment and strengthen ties to friends
such as Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. The Christian
Zionists and the Israeli settlers are the real base of men such
as Danon.
Danon is not the only envoy of the settlements. Dani Dayan, the
former head of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea and
Samaria, is to be ambassador to Brazil. Brazil has been a
consistent critic of Israel's settlement policy and recalled its
ambassador from Tel Aviv during the 2014 bombing of Gaza.
Israel has hoped to appeal to Brazil's growing
Pentacostal movement, which has within a strong strain of Christian
Zionism. Sending an unapologetic settler such as ambassador snubs
Brasilia as Israel reaches out to this section of the population.
Prosor's farewell gift
Israel's outgoing ambassador, Prosor, left the UN with a gift. On 5
March and 7 April of last year, he sent strongly worded letters to
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemning Rima Khalaf, a former
Jordanian cabinet minister who is the head of the UN's Economic and
Social Commission of West Asia.
Khalaf's agency had released a powerful report, Arab
Integration, which was sharply critical of the direction of
development in all of West Asia and North Africa. In one section,
the report indicated that Israel's claim to being a "Jewish State"
was racist.
Prosor wrote that there was "far more fiction than fact" in Khalaf's
report, which "alleges that Israel is reviving the concept of 'state
ethnic and religious purity'."
The evidence supports Khalaf's team. Bills from Yariv Levin, of
Likud, and Ayelet Shaked, of Jewish Home, called for Israel to
directly call itself a "Jewish State". Israel, these politicians
argue, needs to be open about its apartheid character. Both
politicians are now ministers - Shaked for justice and Levin for
tourism.
Khalaf's report, Prosor argued, represented "the epitome of modern
day anti-Semitism". He accused her of "demonising Israel".
The UN secretary general's office has rejected his claims. It
renewed Khalaf's tenure as the head of her group. Farhan Haq, from
Ban Ki-moon's office, told me: "The secretary general continues to
support Rima Khalaf and he has full confidence in her work."
As the door closed behind him, Prosor decided to toss out more
canards against her. This July, in New York, Khalaf raised the
question of Israel and its violation of international law.
Khalaf is quoted as saying that the Israeli response to humanitarian
flotillas trying to break its blockade of Gaza, "is like the violent
abductions carried out by pirates at sea, in the air and on land,
which the world does not hesitate to call terror".
Khalaf also said: "In Palestine, international indifference not only
allowed the Israeli occupation to keep on grinding for half a
century, but spread instability in the region. This eroded the faith
in global justice and pushed some people to take justice into their
own hands."
Prosor responded to this speech with the same old cliched
complaints. Khalaf's comments were, he said, "pronouncements...
seeped with anti-Semitism".
Prosor approached Carman Lapointe, the UN under secretary general
for Internal Oversight Services and demanded a formal investigation
of Khalaf. When asked about the investigation, Lapointe said it
never discussed complaints with external parties.
Israel's cavalier attitude toward international law and the UN is
enabled by the carte blanche it receives from the US. Despite the
daylight between US President Barack Obama and Netanyahu over the
nuclear deal with Iran, the US has never threatened to call Israel
to account for its violations of international law.
The US has neither the will nor the probity to do so. After all, if
the US took international law seriously, it would have to call
itself to account for its criminal war against Iraq.
Vijay
Prashad is a columnist at Frontline and a senior research fellow at
AUB's Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International
Affairs. His latest book is The Poorer Nations: A Possible
History of the Global South (Verso,
2014 paperback).
Copyright
al-Araby al-Jadeed,
