Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Israel’s occupation: Who is most “out of touch with reality”?

Israel’s occupation: Who is most “out of touch with reality”?
Posted on March 30, 2012 by n
 
By Alan Hart- If more proof was needed (some of us think it isn’t) that 
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu lives in a fantasy world that exists 
only in his own deluded mind, his latest verbal assault on the UN Human 
Rights Council for its decision to appoint and despatch an independent 
international fact-finding mission “to investigate the implications of 
the (illegal) Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, 
social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the 
Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” is it.
 
The Council, Netanyahu said in his fury, has “an automatic majority 
against Israel”, is “hypocritical” and “out of touch with reality“. He 
added that “It should be ashamed of itself.”
 
There is, in fact, some substance to the charge that the UN Human Rights 
Council is hypocritical. There are many abuses of human rights in many 
countries which it does not investigate because the African, Asian and 
Latin American majority on the 47-member Council say “No”. So there is 
most certainly a case for saying that this particular UN body is 
hypocritical, even out of touch with some realities and, in that 
context, appears to be obsessed with Israel-Palestine.
 
But does that mean the decision of the UN Human Rights Council to set up 
an independent investigation of the implications of Israel’s on-going 
colonization of the West Bank including East Jerusalem should be treated 
with contempt and not taken seriously?
 
Netanyahu claims that it does.
 
In my opinion that Netanyahu claim deserves the judgement delivered 
about a different matter in a recent article by economist Paul Krugman 
for the New York Times. He was commenting on the claim by the Republican 
leadership in general and frontrunner Mitt Romney in particular that the 
high and rising price of gasoline in America is “thanks to an Obama 
administration plot.” Krugman wrote:
 
“This claim isn’t just nuts; it’s a sort of craziness triple play – a 
lie wrapped in an absurdity swaddled in paranoia.”
 
Netanyahu’s purpose was, of course, to encourage other powers led by 
America to use their influence to kill the UN Human Rights Council’s 
initiative before it takes on real life. And the early signs are in his 
favour. The U.S. ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Betty King, said the 
Council’s decision “harmed efforts to restart negotiations between 
Israel and the Palestinians.”
 
That has to be a joke given that there is no prospect of re-starting 
real and serious negotiations as long as Israel continues to consolidate 
its occupation of the West Bank, and as long as Netanyahu’s position is, 
in effect, that negotiations must end with the Palestinians surrendering 
on Israel’s terms.
 
I think it’s reasonable to imagine that when Ambassador King made her 
statement, she was aware that the Obama administration would be required 
by the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress to bully and intimidate 
the Human Rights Council into aborting its investigation.
 
While Netanyahu waits to see if the Obama administration will do his 
dirty work on this occasion, his government has cut all contact with the 
UN Human Rights Council and announced that it will prevent the Council’s 
team of independent investigators entering Israel or the occupied West 
Bank from Jordan.
 
Whichever way you look at it, the signs are that this particular mission 
of the UN Human Rights Council will be more than D.O.A. (Dead On 
Arrival). It will most likely be D.B.A (Dead Before Arrival)
 
In that event one of the questions in my mind will be this.
 
Will any mainstream Western media institution have the balls to offend 
Zionism by giving space or airtime to voices expressing outrage at 
Israel’s continuing immunity from what honest investigation would 
describe as crimes against humanity?
 
Contrary to what Netanyahu seems to think, the Palestinians are human 
and do have rights. And they, not Jews, are the victims in the true 
story of the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine 
that became Israel. (As I have written previously, Israeli and many 
other Jews need to feel they are the victims because victimhood is, it 
seems, what gives them meaning).
 
As for the answer to my headline question… Nobody is more out of touch 
with reality on the ground in the occupied West Bank than Netanyahu.
 
Footnote
 
Of the 47 rotating member states of the UN Human Rights Council, 36 
voted in favour of the decision to investigate Israel’s illegal 
settlement activities and 10, including the Czech Republic, Romania, 
Hungary, Poland, Costa Rica, Italy and Spain abstained. The United 
States was the only country to vote against it. (As golfers say, par for 
the course)
 
http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/israels-occupation-who-is-most-out-of-touch-with-reality/
 
-- 
Sostieni Rete ECO
 
http://rete-eco.it/it/sostienici.html
 
 

 Sostieni Rete ECO
 
anche loro " need to feel they are the victims because victimhood is,
it seems, what gives them meaning"?