B'Tselem's disgraceful appearance at the UN
Op-ed: The UN has become a backward body plagued with non-democratic nations that initiate and supports anti-Israeli resolutions. B'Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad's appearance at the UN Security Council did nothing to promote the fight against the settlement enterprise, or peace for that matter. If anything, it played into the enemy's propaganda.
My position regarding the settlement enterprise is more similar to that of B'Tselem than to that of the Israeli government. In fact, it is a position shared by most of Israel's powerful friends in the world—both Jews and non-Jews. With that in mind, B'Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad's appearance before the UN Security Council
was more than disgraceful.
Why? Because the UN—with all of its different agencies—has become a backward body with a guaranteed majority of non-democratic nations.
Only last week UNESCO, one of the UN's more important agencies, adopted a resolution that will go down in history as disgraceful. The entire world is not against us. None of the Western countries supported the resolution on Jerusalem. But the countries that initiated the discussion the B'Tselem representative participated in all belong to a bloc that regularly votes against Israel.
B'Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad speaking at the UN Security Council.
One of them is Venezuela, still controlled by the successors of the anti-Semite Hugo Chávez, whose citizens are suffering from starvation. Or Malaysia, which for many years was ruled by Mahathir Mohamad, who declared himself a proud anti-Semite. So B'Tselem’s claims that they are trying to save Israel from itself are becoming absurd. The backward majority at the UN suits them fine, but Israel in their opinion is not democratic. It appears there's no limit to the absurd.
It's the same story in all of the UN's agencies. The UN Human Rights Council ignores 99 percent of human rights violations in the world. The great majority of the council's condemnations are against Israel.
The World Health Organization, in its last meeting, saw fit to adopt only one resolution of condemnation. Not for the millions who suffer and starve in Nigeria, Somalia, Syria and other places because of crimes against humanity perpetrated by global jihad and its proxies. No way. The only resolution adopted was against Israeli control over the Golan Heights.
And all UN institutions put together have adopted more resolutions against Israel than against all other countries in the world combined.
This doesn't justify the settlement enterprise. But cooperating with backward institutions does not help promote peace, reconciliation, or an accord. On the contrary, appearing before a UN forum only serves to encourage the anti-Israel sentiment.
UN Security Council (Photo: AFP)
After all, there is no Palestinian civic body that would appear before the UN and explain, for example, that it's Palestinian intransigence that perpetuates the conflict. And there is no Palestinian body that would talk about how the violations of human rights perpetrated by the Palestinian leadership—both Hamas and the PA—is ten times bigger than what is attributed to Israel. And there is no Palestinian body that would appear there and say that the incitement against Israel and Jews and the encouragement of terrorism push any chances of reconciliation further away.
But there is a representative from B'Tselem to go there and give a shot of encouragement to the backward majority. A representative of Americans for Peace Now, Lara Friedman, presented data on the expansion of the settlements, while expressing concern for the future and prosperity of the State of Israel. Her appearance was reserved. El-Ad, meanwhile, only fueled the poisonous propaganda against Israel.
This wasn't an error or a one-time slip-up. For B'Tselem, much like for Breaking the Silence, this is the way and these are their methods. After all, these organizations cooperated with and provided incriminating information to the UN Human Rights Council. They knew that it was Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Libya who were dictating the line there. They knew they were serving the Hamas propaganda machine. Despite that, they cooperated.
The executive director of B'Tselem does not represent the left wing, and most of the supporters of a more dovish position have reservations against the anti-Israeli activity of this loud section of the left wing—because this is the way to bolster the right wing, which is turning the binational state vision into reality. This is the way to turn the left wing into a pariah. This is a way that disgraces the Israeli democracy, while relying on the backward majority at the UN.
The B'Tselem representative did nothing to help the fight against the settlements. He only contributed to the propaganda of incitement and hatred against Israel, which has nothing to do with peace.
