From Durban to the Goldstone Report: the centrality of human rights NGOs in the political dimension of the Arab–Israeli conflict

Abstract

Disproportionate and unsubstantiated allegations of human rights violations, war crimes and racism have been employed as a form of political warfare designed to isolate Israel internationally. This strategy, based on the model used to defeat the apartheid government in South Africa, was adopted in 2001 at the NGO Forum of the UN-sponsored Durban Conference on racism, in which 1500 organizations participated. Since then, as demonstrated in this article, many human rights NGOs have consistently supported the political agenda of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), whose members dominate the UN Human Rights Council. In the decade following the Durban conference, the NGO network has issued frequent condemnations of Israel based on false or unverifiable allegations of human rights abuses and ‘war crimes’. The NGO campaigns, led by international groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, are central in this process, from Jenin (2002), through the UNHRC's Goldstone Report on the Gaza war (2009). Journalists, academics, diplomats, political leaders, and legal officials in liberal Western democracies frequently cite these generally unsubstantiated allegations in condemning Israeli policies, reflecting the ‘soft power’ of these NGOs acting to reinforce the Palestinian narrative and the objectives of the OIC.

Keywords:

• Israel
• NGOs
• Goldstone Report
• Durban
• de-legitimization
• Tutu

Notes

 1. Richard Goldstone, “Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and War Crimes,” Washington Post, April 2, 2011.

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 3. Ali Abunimah, “Gaza, Goldstone, and the movement for Israeli Accountability,” in The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict, eds. Adam Horowitz, Lizzy Ratner and Philip Weiss, (New York: Nation Books, 2011), 392.

 4. Goldstone, “Reconsidering.”

 5. UN World Conference Against Racism NGO Forum Declaration, September 3, 2001, http://www.eyeontheun.org/assets/attachments/documents/durban_ngo_declaration_2001.pdf (accessed June 15, 2011).

 6. Paul Lungen, “Iran Tries to Exclude CIJA from Durban II Conference,” The Canadian Jewish News, April 24, 2008, http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option = com_content&task = view&id = 14521&Itemid = 86 (accessed June 15, 2011).

 7. William Korey, Taking on the World's Repressive Regimes: The Ford Foundation's International Human Rights Policies and Practices (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 251.

 8. William Korey, Taking on the World's Repressive Regimes: The Ford Foundation's International Human Rights Policies and Practices (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 249.

 9. Donna Robinson Divine, “Introduction,” in Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israel Conflict, ed. Philip Carl Salzman and Donna Robinson Divine (Oxford: Routledge, 2008), 4–5.

10. UN World Conference Against Racism NGO Forum Declaration.

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12. Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England (London: Oxford University Press, 2010), 456.

13. Korey, Taking on the World's Repressive Regimes, 250.

14. The IDF entered the Jenin refugee camp following a long string of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. In response, Palestinian officials such as Saeb Erakat alleged that Israel had killed 500 people and committed ‘war crimes’. Dore Gold, Tower of Babble: How the United Nations has Fueled Global Chaos (New York: Crown Forum, 2004), 212–18. See also Dr David Zangen, “Seven Lies about Jenin,” IMRA, November 8, 2002 (translated from Maariv).

15. Martin Seiff, “Analysis: Why Europeans Bought Jenin Myth,” UPI, May 20, 2002. http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2002/05/21/Analysis-Why-Europeans-bought-Jenin-myth/UPI-34731022008462/ (accessed June 15, 2011).

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