Blaming the Victim
New York Sun Staff Editorial
July 19, 2005
Elsewhere on this page we publish a letter from the United Nations secretary-general's director of communications, Edward Mortimer, responding to an editorial suggesting that Kofi Annan heed the Anti-Defamation League's call to not send his representative to an anti-Israel conference that took place July 12 and 13 at Paris. The editorial suggested it was not an event that a secretary-general who desired to improve his organization's damaged relationship with the Jewish people would lend his authority to. Mr. Annan sent his representative anyway, and the conference degenerated as expected.
The action plan it produced called for a global campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, referred to Israel's annexationist apartheid wall, and said Israel's Gaza disengagement plan is really a ploy to legitimize Israel's annexation of wide swathes of territory in the West Bank. These are positions far outside the bipartisan mainstream of American policy and, in the case of boycotts against Israel, illegal under American law.
Rather than apologizing, Mr. Mortimer defends his boss, saying, it's an annual conference, mandated by the General Assembly, and so it is quite normal for the secretary-general to send a message to participants. Are we supposed to be comforted that Israel is attacked every year at a conference, not just at a one-off, and that every year the secretary-general lends it his support? Mr. Mortimer points to Mr. Annan's positive message to the conference, calling for building bridges of understanding and reconciliation. A fine message, but completely ignored by the participants who rehashed old grievances and slurred Israel. Instead, the message that came out from the secretary-general's involvement was that he supported the conference and its anti-Israel action plan - the plan was even circulated to the world after the conference by a U.N. information officer.
Mr. Mortimer then goes on the attack, telling us the conference would be less one-sided if more Israeli or pro-Israeli groups took part. Talk about blaming the victim. Surely, meetings of the Ku Klux Klan would be biased if more African-Americans took part. We're long past the point at which it is the responsibility of the Israelis to participate as punching bags at U.N.-sponsored Israel-bashing jamborees. Much less the point at which it is appropriate for the sponsor of the Israel-bashing jamborees to blame the Israelis for their failure to participate.
The secretary-general's communications director then accuses us of going beyond the bounds of both decency and credibility by equating anti-Israel conferences with terrorism. It's strange that a director of communications fails to see a connection between words and action. Osama bin Laden first issued a fatwa against America before his Al Qaeda henchmen perpetrated the September 11 attacks. Palestinian Arabs hear anti-Israel sermons in mosques and on Palestinian Authority television and then volunteer to blow up civilians in pizzerias. A U.N. conference vilifies Israel, comparing it to apartheid South Africa, giving people a justification to attack Jews and Israel.
If Mr. Mortimer wants to discuss decency and credibility, his own organization is a perfect topic. At the U.N., oppressive and terrorist-sponsoring totalitarian states - the likes of Iran, Syria, and North Korea - are given equal weight to democracies. Israel, the Middle East's leading democracy, cannot even become a member of the Commission on Human Rights, while Libya, a virtual police state, has even chaired it. Where is the decency and credibility in that, Mr. Mortimer?
The ADL sent another letter last week to the secretary-general, calling on Mr. Annan to support the abolition of the anti-Israel committee - the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People - that sponsored the conference. Such a move requires a General Assembly motion, but Mr. Annan's support would give it traction. In the meantime, Mr. Mortimer's letter is just one more scrap of evidence for those of us who believe the United Nations' credibility is damaged so irreparably that it is time to replace it with a new organization of free democracies.