Blame it on the El Al

Dear diary,

It has become a time-honoured practice to delink anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism. Point granted. However, the two become interchangeable when different yardsticks are employed for different states. Case in point: the routine inveighing against Israel at the United Nations Human Rights Council.



Bal bal bacch jao, a wise man once counselled. It seems a myriad of states are in no mood to heed to the advice. On June 27, some of the world’s most restive states, unequivocally censured the Jewish State in Geneva.

RB assailed Israel for conspiring to occupy the Arab world, aiding terrorists and providing them with healthcare. Let the world not forget this comes from a state that was a founding member of the United Arab Republic, a proponent of Ba’athism and long harboured ambitions of dominating the Levant.

QR denounced Israel’s “violence and terrorism worldwide.” QR—you read that right—QR. The less said the better.

IR, representing the Non-Aligned Movement, rapped “Israel’s ongoing illegal colonisation.” Since when, one is pressed to probe, did colonisation ever have legal sanction? Maybe when it came to seizing the Persian Gulf islands of Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb. Are you listening, Bahrain?



A sanctimonious South Asian country—with Central Asian pretensions—accused Israel of “occupation, apartheid and colonisation.”  Occupation: ’71. Apartheid: ’74. Colonisation: no comments.

The land of the two holy mosques censured Israel for “the worst forms of terrorism, oppression and intimidation.” The exclusive preserve of a single family is said to be executing international war crimes, deliberately targeting civilians in Yemen. Recently, in a landmark move, the kingdom’s women were extended the right to obtain a copy of their marriage certificates. For the record, slavery was outlawed there in the early ’60s.

WY posited that “peace and war in the region has the Palestinian problem at its core.” A rudimentary understanding of international relations reveals that irredentism—the incongruence between state boundaries and national aspirations—is to blame for many of the challenges bedevilling the region. After all, did the Jewish State orchestrate the Iran-Iraq War? Did Israel precipitate the First Gulf War? Did Israel foment Egyptian-Saudi discord that for long remained an enduring feature of the politics of the Middle East?



Later, the Jewish State was excoriated for routinely bemoaning about being meted out step-motherly treatment by the foremost rights body of the United Nations. The broadside goes a long way to emphasise how far entrenched anti-Semitism has become across the council’s corridors. Anti-Semitism made palatable through the devious use of diplomatic doublespeak and passed-off as anti-Zionism.

The pot is calling the kettle black, as the idiom goes.

Yours truly,

Bal