Reporting on the Rapporteurs (Part 2)
How escalating rhetoric brands Israel as a criminal state
On Friday, we set out to write about Francesca Albanese. Albanese is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967. Sharp eyed readers will notice that the title of the position has changed over time and that the reference to “Occupied Arab Territories” has disappeared. The UN has aimed all along to prejudge the outcome of Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians, and the determination that all the territories occupied since 1967 are Palestinian rather than disputed is certainly part of that.
As promised, here is the second installment.
When we left off on Friday, we finished with the description of the inglorious tenure of the nominally Jewish Richard Falk. Falk was not content only to publish lengthy reports on the difficult circumstances of Palestinians living under the heel of the Hamas regime in Gaza. These reports which ignored the egregious human rights violations of Hamas, and instead blamed all bad circumstances in Gaza on Israel, which had withdrawn completely from the territory in 2005.
Israel had removed all Israelis that were living in the territory and then withdrawn its army leaving the Palestinians to do as they chose with Gaza. Gaza in 2005 was a de facto Palestinian State, in which Israel had no presence and in which it had no reason to intervene, as long as the people there did not try to do harm to Israelis. As we know, the people in Gaza did try to harm Israelis, and Israel in turn took measures to try to disrupt these efforts, and to deter them. Everything Israel did was documented by Richard Falk as violations of Palestinian human rights, in a territory which the UN insisted, against all common sense, was still occupied by Israel.
In 2014, Richard Falk ended his term as Special Rapporteur and was succeeded by Makarim Wibosono. Mr. Wibosono is a political scientist and former Indonesian Ambassador to the United Nations. Serving during the 2014 Israeli ground operation known as Operation Protective Edge, he authored a detailed report to the UNHRC on the difficult situation of Palestinians living in the coastal territory. Given his one-sided mandate his report makes no mention of the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, which sparked the Israeli ground offensive, but does mention that 66 Israeli soldiers and five civilians were killed during the ground offensive, and stated that “thousands of indiscriminate rockets were reportedly fired by armed groups in Gaza”.
Image: Makarim Wibosono, Sepcial Rapporteur from 2014 to 2016 — source UN Web Site
We also learn from the report that Israel continued to refuse the special rapporteur entry to territories under its jurisdiction. This was a continued protest of the unbalanced mandate of the special rapporteur which prevented him from examining human rights violations against Palestinians committed by Hamas. Wibosono also reported that “for reasons beyond his control”, he also wasn’t able to visit Gaza. Like Falk, his reporting was done from afar and depended on reports from Hamas, UNRWA and other unreliable sources. Commenting on the disparity between the 71 Israeli dead and the much larger number of deaths among Palestinians he wrote:
The stark disparity in casualty figures on the two sides, however, reflects the skewered balance of power and the disproportionate cost borne by Palestinian civilians, raising questions as to whether Israel adhered to the international law principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions.
This comment reveals that although Mr. Wibosono may have been well trained in political science, he lacked a clear understanding of the laws of war. As we discussed in our earlier article on the subject, imbalances in death toll reveal nothing about whether one side or the other is using disproportionate or indiscriminate force.
You can read more about that here:
A Just War
As we enter the 9th week of the Shmini Atzeret war in Israel, we have gotten used to weekly demonstrations in Ottawa and around the world in which Israel is accused of genocide and all sorts of war crimes. These accusations are false, but they are repeated so often that many people think that Israel’s guilt is an established fact. When those who call …
In March of 2016, Makarim Wibosono resigned the position of special rapporteur due to his inability to enter Israel and the territories captured in 1967. The article linked just above reports that a spokesperson for the Israeli government commented on the resignation:
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said that the mandate given to the rapporteur is “distorted and biased” and noted Mr Wibisono wasn’t the first person to resign the post.
“Israeli human rights are violated too, every day, by Palestinians and until ignoring this ends the council will not be taken seriously,” Mr Nahshon added.
Following, Mr Wibosono’s resignation, the UNHRC appointed Canadian Michael Lynk to the role. Lynk earned a Masters of Law at Queens University in 1981 and has lectured on labour law and human rights. His appointment in 2016 drew harsh criticism from Canadian Jewish groups, and by Canada’s foreign minister, Stephane Dion. According to the article from Times of Israel linked above B’nai Brith Canada wrote:
Lynk will be assuming “the mantle of chief propagandist for some of the world’s worst human rights violators.” The group said Lynk has “a long history of comparing Israel to the Nazis and promoting anti-Israel campaigns,” adding that the Human Rights Council “has demonstrated its intent to continue its ongoing agenda of demonizing the world’s only Jewish state.”
Lynk had his defenders, including the notorious Israel hater, Dmitry Lascaris, who was foreign affairs critic for the Green Party at the time.
Image: Michael Lynk, special rapporteur from 2016 to 2022 — Source University of Western Ontario
Not surprisingly, Lynk wrote a series of hostile reports. In October of 2019, he called the international community to enforce sanctions on Israel over what he called illegal settlements. In 2021 he wrote that the differential application of law in the captured territories was “apartheid-like”. In March of 2022 his report declared that Israel was guilty of the Crime of Apartheid.
This is another example of Israel being denounced as a criminal regime for doing something that other countries do without controversy: in this case extending privileges to citizens which are not given to non-citizens. The determination that this is illegal is predicated on prejudging the outcome of the stalled peace negotiations. This sort of double standard applied to Israel has been identified as a place where so-called antizionism crosses the line into antisemitism.
According to the Wikipedia article linked above, Lynk has frequently denounced Israel’s “illegal occupation”. However, a plain reading of the laws of war will reveal that an occupation cannot be illegal. Occupation is well defined in international law as the situation that exists when a nation occupies a population as a result of armed conflict. The occupation ends when a peace agreement is signed or when the invaders are driven out. Until one of those things happen it is simply a reality, neigher legal nor illegal. Calling an occupation illegal shows a misunderstanding of the the legal definition of occupation itself, which is disappointing coming from someone who is supposed to be an expert in the law.
Lynk served out a full six year term, departing in 2022.
On May 1, 2022, Lynk was replaced by Francesca Albanese. Like Falk and Lynk before her, she came to the position with a history of outspoken anti-Israel activism. From the Wikipedia article linked just above:
Her appointment generated some controversy due to comments she made criticising the US and Europe during the 2014 Gaza War. Albanese described the United States as "subjugated by the Jewish lobby" and Europe by a "sense of guilt about the Holocaust", arguing that both "condemn the oppressed" in the conflict.
Not surprisingly, these antisemitic comments led to criticism of the appointment, both by Israel and by the United States. In a textbook example of the “Livingston Formulation” as defined by David Hirsh, Albanese denied being antisemitic and insisted that she was just criticizing Israel due to the occupation of the Palestinian territories. For more on David Hirsh and the Livingston Formulation, click the links above.
The 2022 report of the special Rapporteur can be read here. If you do read it, you will see that much of it is a polemic recasting the history of the region back to the nineteenth century as a settler colonial assault on the people of Palestine. The war of independence is dealt with in the following sentence:
Soon after, the creation of the State of Israel in most of the territory of Mandate Palestine was accompanied by massacres and the mass expulsion, wholesale denationalization and dispossession of most of the Arabs of Palestine. They continue to be deprived of their right to self-determination, together with their descendants, the refugees further displaced in 1967 and other non-refugee Palestinians.
The report utterly delegitimizes the Oslo process and insists that Israeli withdrawal from the territories captured in 1967 should be immediate and unconditional. The report examines and dismisses other ways of looking at the history and finds that the rights of the Palestinians cannot be realized in any other way.
The fact that Israelis are frequently subject to violence committed by the Palestinians appears nowhere in the report, except indirectly as it suggests that there is a right of resistance, including by violence, enshrined in international law. All Israeli actions over the course of its history are examined only insofar as they affect Palestinian human rights and any legitimate goals or interests Israel might have had in taking those actions are utterly erased.
Furthermore, according to the report, the very existence of the occupation should be considered an act of aggression, implicitly justifying any and all actions Palestinians might take to end it.
Given this background it should come as no surprise that her public pronouncements regarding the Gaza war are singularly focused on finding fault with Israel and unmoved by any claims Israel might have as a result of the atrocities committed on and after October 7th, 2023. According to the Times of Israel she was quick to suggest that the October 7th attacks might have been justified.
Image: Francesca Albanese accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza at the UNHRC — Source: Times of Israel
This article on the UN web site describes how, in her latest report, presented on March 26, Albanese pronounced herself convinced that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. She claims furthermore that this genocide is a foreseeable consequence of the world’s failure to enforce international law as she sees it against Israel.
She calls on the world to enforce the recent Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire and demands that an arms embargo be imposed on Israel. There is no mention of the clause in the resolution calling for the release of the hostages. The article does give a bit of space to Israel’s response:
“The very attempt to level the charge of genocide against Israel is an outrageous distortion of the Genocide Convention. It is an attempt to empty the word genocide of its unique force and special meaning; and turn the Convention itself into a tool of terrorists, who have total disdain for life and for the law, against those trying to defend against them,” the release said.
Israel said its war is against Hamas, not Palestinian civilians.
“This is a matter of explicit government policy, military directives and procedures. It is no less an expression of Israel’s core values. As stated, our commitment to uphold the law, including our obligations under international humanitarian law, is unwavering.”
The article reports on the remarks of the representative for “Palestine” who endorsed the special rapporteur’s call for an arms embargo on Israel.
There is a report on other developments in Judaea and Samaria, including a problematic upsurge in violence by Israelis living in the territories since the beginning of the war.
The Times of Israel covered the report here. This article reports at greater length on the response of the Israeli delegation to the UN Human Rights Council.
The Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva, where the council is based and is currently in session, said the report “brings shame” on the 47-country rights body and blasted Albanese for a “campaign of delegitimizing the very creation and existence of the State of Israel.”
“Since the war, she has continued this campaign unabated, excusing and legitimizing the attacks of October 7, dismissing their antisemitic nature and dismissing any concrete evidence of acts of savagery that were perpetrated on that day,” the mission said.
“It is clear from the report that the Special Rapporteur began with the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide, and then tried to prove her distorted and politically-driven views with weak arguments and justifications,” it added.
The Times of Israel article links to this earlier article which documents Albanese’s history of antisemitic pronouncement.
Thus even as Israel fights to free the hostages and defeat the perpetrators of the October 7 obscenities, we are also faced with a concerted and vicious campaign of defamation driven and financed by the UN itself.
This review of the history of the UN Special Rapporteur position is intended to put the response of the UN to the atrocities committed in Israel on October 7 in its proper historical context. Many of us are bewildered that in the face of unspeakable acts of barbarism, cruelty and inhumanity, the world’s reaction is rage against Israel rather than against our attackers.
What we see here is that the approach of ignoring or justifying all Palestinian violence, and criticizing all Israeli acts in response to violence, has become entrenched over a long period of time. The vocabulary we are hearing at pro-Hamas demonstrations, and at anti-Israel events in the community, on campus and on line is the vocabulary we read in these increasingly strident, distorted and unbalanced reports.
Israel’s decision not to engage with the special rapporteur on the fatally unbalanced playing field created by the mandate, has itself been used to ensure that only a demonic view of Israel’s behaviour and motivations is propagated in many domains. The appointment of people who are already convinced that Israel is guilty by definition has ensured the steadily increasing vitriol that informs the official account of the conflict. In many settings, Israel loses the information war because no Israeli voice is ever heard.
Thus a picture of every Israeli act as malicious, and the very existence of Israel as criminal, has come to pervade the public discourse in much of the world. What we are seeing is an aggressive promotion of that narrative, which has become dominant at our universities, in the news media, in the high schools and even, as we have seen, in Canada’s Parliament.
The shocking behaviour of many of our fellow Canadians has been fueled by this long process of delegitimization, which has now come to dominate the way the story of the current war is being told. While understanding this may explain what’s happening, that won’t by itself reverse the damage or tell us what to do in response.
The first step is to understand this narrative. The second is to understand and expose its flaws and stand up for the right to tell Israel’s story from Israel’s point of view. That is the mission of Canadian Zionist Forum. Thank you for being part of it.
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To everyone, thank you for reading Canadian Zionist Forum
Thanks for your work uncovering the background of these 'rapporteurs'.
When there is such a mandate, of the special rapporteur directed to investigate only Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights, there is no legitimate place to turn, especially when the Rapporteur is biased against Israel, from the start. Shame, shame, shame on the United Nations.