Kenneth Jacobson
Times of Israel, Oct. 21, 2022
“Israel will surely reject this report for what it is: a continuing of counterproductive, anti-Israel propaganda by an arm of the UN that has a long history of bias against the Jewish state.”
There was nothing surprising in the recently released report by the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) about Israel’s role in the Palestinian Territories. The past history of bias toward Israel of the UN Human Rights Council and the makeup of the three-person commission assured that this report would be outrageously one-sided. And it lived up to expectations.
None of which is to suggest that there are not legitimate issues of ongoing concern in the territories, whether speaking to settlement issues, discrimination of Palestinians, settler violence or certain Israeli circles calling for annexation of parts of the West Bank.
What remains so stark, however, about this report is the near complete absence of any context for this difficult situation or any role or responsibility for it by the policies, attitudes and behavior of the Palestinians. The few references to anything of the sort appear in several spots where the COI cites Palestinian violence and Israeli security concerns as factors in the reality they are describing. These references are merely paying lips service to these issues. The report then goes on even further to dismiss the relevance of Palestinian violence and Israeli security concerns by describing them as mere excuses for Israel doing what it always allegedly wanted to do— install a permanent occupation and engage in annexation of territory, de facto if not de jure.
What is missing from this report as context for this difficult environment is startling. Not a word about Palestinian rejectionism for decades. Not a word on Israeli steps that completely contradict the narrative that Israel is all about permanent occupation and annexation.
Not a word about Israeli efforts to make Palestinian life better, despite Palestinian rejection and terrorism in the form of thousands of Palestinian workers making a decent living working in Israel every day. Not a word about the anti-democratic forces and corruption at work in Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, which have greatly contributed to the ills of the Palestinian people. Not a word about an educational system in the Palestinian community, which preaches and teaches hatred of Israel and Jews and the virtues of violence against the Jewish state. …SOURCE