Rapporteur-Cum-Raconteur

In today's Jerusalem Post, Herb Keinon writes about a report this week by John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories. Keinon's main thrust is that Dugard is hinting to a need for a binational, as opposed to a two-state, solution in his report:

"Interlocutors within both Israel and the West Bank warned the special rapporteur that with the two-state solution becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible, consideration should be given to the establishment of a binational Palestinian state. The demography of the region increasingly points to such an outcome," he wrote in a report published Monday.

The immediate Israeli response to the report is provided in Ynetnews:

“He is an extremist, and his reports are not taken very seriously.”

Isn't that an odd sort of criticism seeing that there is no shortage of extremists out there criticizing Israel? On the contrary, I imagine Dugard has no shortage of friends and that his report is taken very seriously by them.

Part of the absurdity of Dugard's job is the fact that, as he himself admits (html version) in an interview in November 2003, he only reports on human rights issues as they apply to Israel's actions, and not the Palestinian Arabs:

No, that’s not part of my mandate. In my discussions, private discussions, with members of the Palestinian Authority I obviously do raise questions of this kind because they are of concern to me as a human rights lawyer but this is not part of my mandate and I do not report on the human rights violations of the Palestinian Authority, and clearly there are human rights violations on their part. [emphasis mine]

Terrorism becomes a 'violation'--which is an outgrowth of what he actually is mandated to do:

the Commission on Human Rights has mandated me – it has created the post of Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories to look into the violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the occupying powers. So the emphasis is very much on the fact that Israel is the occupying power. That’s what gives this mandate it’s unique position. [emphasis mine]

The emphasis on Israel being an occupying power--"that's what gives this mandate it's unique position"? Now there's an understatement.

But for such an absurdly named post, the UN definitely got the right man for the job, as Keinon notes:

Dugard alleged that settler violence was on the increase, "and it seems that settlers are able to terrorize Palestinians and destroy their land with impunity." He alleged that setters have terrorized Palestinian children, poisoned wells and fields, destroyed crops and stole sheep. [emphasis mine]

Apparently no story or accusation escapes the keen eye of this raconteur.

Technorati Tag: Israel.