Beyond the appalling consequences of the Gaza war Netanyahu’s full scale attack on the credibility and legitimacy of the UN and its institutions is in danger of inflicting lasting damage by instilling a Western moral exceptionalism.
That attack has intensified following the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu – an attack which is drawing a concerning level of support from governments that matter. Biden has echoed Netanyahu’s description of the arrest warrant saying it was ‘outrageous’. The French and German governments have caved in saying they would not arrest Netanyahu. Along with a number of other western governments Australia has ducked the issue making no commitment one way or the other.
Netanyahu’s vitriolic response to the ICJ’s charges of genocide – “outrageous” – and to the ICC’s arrest warrant – “antisemitic” – carries no studied refutation. Defence of the indefensible is delivered in the classic form of a vitriolic attack on the accusatory institution. An investigation by The Guardian newspaper reveals Mossad has for a number of years been running surveillance, pressure, and alleged threats against ICC officials, including the current Prosecutor General Karim Ahmad Khan – all part of Israel’s efforts to derail investigations into the allegation of Gaza war crimes. In public, Netanyahu has accused the International courts of running a political campaign against Israel and of being driven by antisemitism. As for Amnesty International and its forensic 300 page report charging the Israeli Government with genocide – the Israeli foreign ministry bothers only to describe the organisation as “deplorable and fanatical”. The charges are subject to summary dismissal as antisemitic, “…entirely false biased and predetermined to vilify Israel”.
Netanyahu’s war on the UN extends to destroying UNWRA accusing it of fostering incitement and promoting anti-Israel sentiment among Palestinians. The banning of UNWRA from operating in Israel including Gaza – based on this nowhere proven claim – has, of course, much to do with Israel’s opposition to UNWRA’s recognition of Gazans as refugees and therefore having the enduring right of return for refugees. The war is now also being waged through a Facebook campaign running anti UNWRA claims viz. “paychecks for terrorist or humanitarian aid?” and is assumed to be of Israeli origin.
The widening of the attack on UN institutions to the UN itself reveals Israel’s sense of vulnerability in a forum which lays bare its refusal to recognise a Palestinian state and the illegality of its colonisaton of the Westbank. The attack has been vicious with the use of rabid, inflammatory and offensive language. Netanyahu has chosen a frontal assault describing the UN as a “swamp of anti-Semitic bile”. His decision to declare the UN’s secretary general as persona-non-grata in Israel is unprecedented – as is the Israeli UN representative’s shredding of a copy of the UN Charter in front of the UN General Assembly in response to a resolution supporting full UN membership for Palestine. No less contemptuous has been the Israeli ambassador’s charge of “diplomatic terrorism” to describe the General Assembly’s overwhelming adoption of a resolution welcoming the ICJ’s ruling and denouncing Israel’s “continued and total disregard” of previous UN resolutions and obligations under the UN Charter.
The Murdoch press have been avid accomplices to Israel’s denigration of the UN and the promotion of an Israeli moral exceptionalism. In this, Alex Downer has become a compliant foot soldier. In an opinion piece in The Australian, Downer asserts that the UN has for 20 years acted as a “…battering ram against Israel……The present feckless Secretary-General never lets up in his denunciation of the Israelis and their government”. Downer then proceeds to follow Netanyahu in widening the East –West divide and promoting Western moral exceptionalism by charging that the UN had devolved into a forum for governments and non-government organisations to relentlessly attack the West and in particular the US and its allies. This was rendering the UN as “…. a meaningless talking shop for left wing activists and NGOs..” For those of us who, like Downer, have worked in and around the UN for decades, These assertions are abhorrent.
The wider consequences of this onslaught against the UN and its agencies are worrying. NZ’s former PM Helen Clark and head of the UNDP, in referring to Israel’s attack on the ICC, warns that “Member states seeking to undermine the ICC are damaging the international rule of law. They are undermining accountability in other contexts, including in the context of Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine. This must stop”. And as the Brooking Institute observes, the US‘s unqualified support for Israel is undermining the UN’s credibility by legitimising a selective adherence to international laws based on strategic alliances rather than universal principles.
Netanyahu has sought to reinforce a dual morality along East-West lines by portraying Israel as a “…beacon of democracy in the Middle East ” and, being subject to the rule of law, Therefore (somehow) should not subject to the charges of genocide (this, a slick inversion of the surely more legitimate view that if a country is indeed a democracy than makes charges of genocide all the more serious and unacceptable).
Netanyahu deepens this notion in his recent deranged verbal assault on the Australian government in reaction to its support for a two state solution and for Israel’s departure from occupied territories. The establishment of a Palestinian state he asserts, would be unacceptable given it would be “ ……in the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland and cradle of civilisation…” – no doubt alluding to an even higher level of moral exceptionalism embodied in the Jewish notion of being a ‘chosen people’.
The US has enhanced Israel’s attachment to moral exceptionalism by its persistent support of Israel in the UN. Most notable is the US’s inaction on the Security Council’s adopted Resolution 2334 (passed due to a US abstention) – which declares that Israel’s settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank constituted a “flagrant violation under international law” and that Israel must “immediately and completely” cease all settlement activity. That has been reinforced by the US continually vetoing any Security Council resolution calling for a two state solution.
With the impending Trump presidency there is the disturbing prospect that Israel’s promotion of Western/Jewish moral exceptionalism, with US help, will take further hold and further deepen an East – West divide. If there is a change of government in Australia, Dutton has signalled we would fully embrace this morally objectionable development.
Dr Webb is a former diplomat with postings in Indonesia, South Korea, Paris and New Zealand. In a former career as a journalist he was the economics writer for the Bulletin Magasine and Assistant Editor of Rydges Business Journal. He currently carries out research in the field of environmental economics at the Queensland University of Technology.