Published on December 21, 2008
Moshe Feiglin, the man who was cheated out of his 20th spot on the Likud list for the Knesset, declared recently that he favored the withdrawal of Israel from the United Nations. With regard to foreign policy, Israel is rapidly approaching the realization of this Feiglinite aspiration.
Last week, Israel banished the Jewish-American law professor Richard Falk, who was appointed this year by the UN to examine the state of human rights in the Occupied Territories. His first task in the country ended abruptly. After being detained at the airport for 30 hours, he was deported and flown back to the USA.
In recent years, deportations from Israel have become a matter of routine.
Visitors of Arab descent, peace and human rights activists, and journalists who have been critical of Israel have been deported regularly. Now an official representative of the UN has been added to the list.
Such actions do not serve Israel’s interests. Relations with the UN are tense, partly because of UN resolutions calling on Israel to change its policies in the Occupied Territories, but the solution does not lie in cutting off contact, particularly at a time when Israel is doing its best to persuade the UN to impose sanctions on Iran in order to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power.
With about three million Palestinians living under occupation investigations into conditions in the territories cannot be prevented. They have been carried out in the past and will continue in the future. Various reports, including some authored by official Israeli bodies, describe clear violations of the rights of Palestinians in all spheres. Thus it is natural that international bodies, particularly those specializing in the field of human rights, should show interest in investigating the situation.
Such investigations have been carried out over the years by the United Nations, the European Union, the Quartet, and a number of states and civil rights organizations. We have long dealt with the problems of occupation in the light of their reports.
The new approach of shutting the mouths of our critics that is gaining momentum is a dangerous step in the wrong direction. It seemed for a while that we had left the old attitude of denigration of the UN (“UM Shmum” in local parlance) behind us and come to understand that it was preferable to open up to the outside world, to explain our problems, and attempt to deal with them, in cooperation with outside actors. However, it seems that panic has gripped the Foreign Ministry and the spirit of Feiglin haunts its corridors.
The deportation of Professor Falk brought on Israel a severe reprimand from the Secretary General of the UN. The continuation of this policy will lead to our isolation. It is true that in the present situation disagreement with the positions taken by representatives of the international community are unavoidable, but this cannot be a pretext for preventing their entry. Such actions put Israel in the dubious company of that group of nations, among them Burma and North Korea, which deny human rights experts access to their territories.
Deportations of this sort damage our image and lead others to wonder what we have to hide. Moreover they hurt us internally, as they are in conflict with the basic tenets of democracy, especially the right to freedom of speech. This right embodies within it the right of exposure to the points of view of others, even when these views are upsetting and exasperating.
It is clear that allowing access to the Occupied Territories to international bodies opens the door to criticism of Israel. However, this is the essence of adopting certain principles – to allow those principles to guide us when faced with tough decisions. The attempt to turn Israel and the Occupied Territories into a region into which only those who agree with Israel’s policies are permitted to enter is in conflict with our declared principles and is thus self-destructive.
Tali Nir is a lawyer at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
