This week the South African city of Durban is host to the biggest anti-racism rally ever. Over 10,000 delegates representing virtually all members of the United Nations are present to denounce discrimination and call for human solidarity across the frontiers of race, ethnicity, culture, religion, social status and nationalism.
And yet, when the governmental portion of the event opens, two countries will be absent: Israel and the United States. Israel objects to any criticism of its policies while the US has boxed itself into illogical support for the Israeli position.
Initially, the majority of participants wanted to describe Zionism, the state ideology in Israel, as a form of racism. They agreed to change that position to please the United States. The US is still unhappy even about the new moderate, not to say bland, language proposed for the final resolution.
What does the proposed draft say?
It says that Israel is “a discriminatory state”. This is the politest way of putting things. Let us consider one hypothetical case. An Israeli citizen can immigrate to the US, and eventually get naturalized as an American citizen. An American citizen, however, cannot become an Israeli citizen unless he is born a Jew. Wouldn’t Secretary of State Colin Powell regard this as discriminatory?
Israel has a substantial number of non-Jewish citizens, Palestinians who remained in their homes when the emergence of Israel turned many more Palestinians into refugees. Everyone agrees that Israel’s non-Jewish citizens, mostly Christians and Muslims, are discriminated against. For most aspects of private and family life, they are subject to the system of “millet” developed by the Ottomans. In the public domain they are kept out of supposedly “sensitive” positions in the army, the diplomatic service, the judiciary and the state bureaucracy. Economically, their average income per head per annum is a third of that of Israel’s Jewish citizens.Worse still, the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who often live in shanty camps within less than 50 miles of their original homes are not allowed to live in what is now Israel while people who may have had a Jewish ancestry centuries ago in, say, Birobidjan 10,000 kilometers away, are brought in and given citizenship and land. Surely, Secretary Powell must recognize that this is discriminatory.
The proposed draft resolution states, equally politely, that Israel “ violates the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people.” Again this is so obvious that needs no arguments to prove it. The international system is based on the right of self-determination. So, how come the Palestinians should be the only nation denied that right even in a portion of their homeland?
The draft says Israel should pay compensation to the refugees. Is this not what Israel, backed by the US, has demanded and obtained on behalf of Jewish refugees from eastern and central Europe?
The draft says the Palestinians have the right to fight Israeli occupation. Is this outrageous? Didn’t the Americans fight for independence, freedom and dignity against the British?
Powell should go to Durban. Staying away would undermine the United States’ moral authority in other fields.
