Summary
Falk’s term, in “Israel’s Politics of Deflection” (September 30, 2013) in Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, for a repertoire of techniques Israel and its supporters use “to shift the gaze away from the merits of a dispute” — diverting attention from the substance of Palestinian grievances and from respective rights under international law.
Details
- Overall characterisation: “the politics of deflection is a repertoire of techniques used to shift the gaze away from the merits of a dispute. Israel has relied on these techniques, with devastating effects for the Palestinians.” Falk’s purpose is to encourage Palestinians in all settings “to do their best to keep the focus on substance and respective rights”, taking the hunger strikers’ laser-like nonviolent focus as the model (PDF p.229).
- Falk also observes the Palestinian side: many (not all) Palestinian representatives seem “strangely reluctant to focus on substance” or use UN mechanisms to challenge Israel on international law and morality — “more baffling” than Israel’s tactics, since international law supports Palestinian claims on borders, refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, resources, statehood and human rights. Partial exceptions: the ICJ wall case, the Goldstone fact-finding inquiry, and complaints about settlement expansion — but even these symbolic victories Palestinian officialdom will not push to implement (PDF p.221-222).
- The modes, under the subsection “The Specific Dynamics of the Politics of Deflection”:
- Anti-Semitism: “Undoubtedly the most disturbing behavior by Israel and its supporters is to deflect attention from the substance of the conflict and the abuses of the occupation by dismissing criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism or defaming the critic as an anti-Semite.” It is pernicious because anti-Semitism has been totally discredited and even criminalized since the Holocaust, and because extending its reach shifts attention from ethnic and racial hatred to reasonable critical appraisal by norms of law and morality. Jewish critics are dismissed as “self-hating Jews”; even strong Zionist credentials do not insulate — Richard Goldstone was vilified by the top tier of Israeli leadership after chairing the Cast Lead inquiry, and even his subsequent “retraction” did little to rehabilitate him in Israeli eyes, though it was used to discredit and bury the report. Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter have been called anti-Semites for identifying the occupation’s discriminatory legal structures as an incipient form of apartheid (PDF p.223-224).
- Personal vilification of critics: Falk describes his own experience as a frequent target — NGOs such as “UN Watch and UN Monitor” [names as printed] “specialize in managing such hatchet jobs”; accusations reached the UN Secretary-General, the U.S. ambassadors in New York and Geneva, the British prime minister and the Canadian foreign minister, none of whom checked with him or for a credible basis; even Human Rights Watch “buckled under pressure from UN Watch, invoking a long-neglected technical rule to obtain my immediate removal from a committee”, then failed to clarify it was not a “dismissal” — “Human Rights Watch has feet of clay when it comes to standing on principle”. Detractors relied on an accidentally posted cartoon with an anti-Semitic angle and UN Watch harps on his supposed membership in the ranks of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, contrary to his articulated views. “It makes no difference what the target says or what the facts are once the defamatory attack has been launched.” (PDF p.224-225, p.227)
- Auspices–Messenger: contending that biased auspices (especially the Human Rights Council in Geneva or the General Assembly) invalidate substantive criticism, that Israeli violations receive disproportionate attention compared to worse abuses elsewhere (especially sub-Saharan Africa), and that Council members’ own records disqualify them. Falk answers that in his experience the UN makes fact-based criticisms, appoints credentialed individuals of integrity, and “bends over backward to be fair to Israel”, giving it opportunities to review material before release which it almost never uses. Heightened attention is justified: the UN took over historic Palestine from Britain after World War II, decreed partition in General Assembly Resolution 181 “without ever consulting the indigenous population, much less obtaining their consent”; its 1947 approach failed, and its guidelines since (Resolutions 242, 338; the Roadmap through the Quartet) have not been implemented, making Palestine “a litmus test of this body’s credibility” (PDF p.225-227).
- The “terrorist” label for Hamas: Israel has “successfully manipulated the use of the label “terrorist” in relation to Hamas to avoid dealing with its presence as the elected governing authority in Gaza” or its offers of long-term coexistence — demands that are “really nothing more than a call for the implementation of international law and UN Security Council resolutions” — despite Hamas’s electoral participation, “its virtual abandonment of violent resistance, and its declared readiness for diplomatic accommodations” (PDF p.227-228).
- Governmental boycott: Israel and the United States “make it a point to be absent” from Human Rights Council and Third Committee meetings where Falk presents his semiannual reports — an allocation of the work of deflection: governments pretend not to notice “while pro-Israeli NGOs pound away, shamelessly repeating over and over the same quarter-truths” (PDF p.228).
- Diplomatic Deflection: “The entire Oslo peace process, with its periodically revived negotiations, has served as an essential instrument of deflection for the past twenty years”, diverting media from expansionist practices during negotiations and making critics seem to obstruct peace (PDF p.228).
- Geopolitical Deflection: Israel’s bellicose focus on Iran’s nuclear program has made Palestinian grievances appear trivial and discouraged antagonizing Israeli leadership on Palestine; the Arab Spring upheavals in Syria and Egypt have incidentally further diminished pressures — “a kind of spontaneous deflection” giving Israel more time to consolidate annexationist plans, making the two-state image “a convenient mirage—no more, no less” (PDF p.228-229).
- An earlier Part 6 instance: in the Cairo speech, Michael Oren’s statement that “Israel was not confronting Gaza, but Iran” and that the attack was a “rehearsal” for engaging Tehran is presented as an extreme example of the politics of deflection — diverting attention from Gaza to Iran, and “tantamount to a public confession by a high Israeli official to commit crimes against humanity” (PDF p.214-215).
Related pages
Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, Politics of fragmentation, Legitimacy struggle, Hamas, Richard Falk, Richard Goldstone, Goldstone report, Human Rights Watch