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A Lesson in Demonization

(Jerusalem Post) Editorial - UK Ambassador Matthew Gould's righteous indignation last Tuesday over supposed new Israeli building projects in Jerusalem was uncommonly instructive. Subsequently it emerged that no new plans had been announced. What's enlightening is the exceptional opportunity he afforded Israelis (and fair-minded observers everywhere) to peek into the actual mechanisms of demonization. By rushing to judgment, Gould (followed a day later by France, although the farce had already been exposed) showed all and sundry precisely how Israel is condemned, facts notwithstanding. Israel can apparently only do wrong - even when it does nothing. This episode, as in other cases in which Israel is besmirched, was instigated by an Israeli NGO which reportedly enjoys EU/British financial largesse. Its word alone sufficed to trigger a harsh rebuke of Israel. Presumably, checking up on the NGO's claims was not warranted, to say nothing of the fact that Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its unified capital under its sovereignty. Gould's knee-jerk eagerness to scold Israel powerfully indicates an undeniable pattern: first comes the stern admonishment and only later - perhaps - an unenthusiastic examination of whether the upbraiding was justified. We may be forgiven for doubting that this is the order of things when Britain approaches other countries and other conflicts. Since an overwhelming Jewish majority has existed in Jerusalem since the first 19th-century census, plain decency should command the British envoy to at least portray eastern Jerusalem as disputed territory rather than as outrightly occupied. After all, it was the Arab Legion in 1948 - under British leadership and active assistance - that conquered it, expelled its Jews, and occupied it for 19 years in brazen contravention of the 1947 UN Partition Resolution.
2012-01-06 00:00:00
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