They did it again: Pulling the Wool over Western Eyes (Louis Frankenthaler)

They did it again: Pulling the Wool over Western Eyes (Louis Frankenthaler)
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel and Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General

After months of following the OECD’s decision to hold the 86th Session of its Tourism Committee meeting in Jerusalem and after repeated communications with them regarding the harsh human rights reality of what is happening in Jerusalem and Israel’s illegal approach to the city, particularly to East Jerusalem I was assured by certain officials of the innocent and non-political nature of the meeting.  Furthermore these same OECD officials reassured me “that the occurrence of such a meeting is naturally without prejudice to the status of the city.”  The reality is that the decision to hold the meeting in Jerusalem has proven to have extreme political consequences.

Israel has succeeded in obfuscating its position and sanitizing its violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Jerusalem with what the OECD has billed as a “high level” meeting.  In what was an obvious slip of honesty, a few days ago Israel’s Minister of Tourism, angrily reacting to a decision by the United Kingdom and by Spain, not to attend the conference in Jerusalem later this month, said that the conference served to solidify recognition of Israel’s claim over both East and West Jerusalem.

The OECD, obviously publicly embarrassed and shocked at being pulled onto the political stage threatened to cancel the conference and perhaps would have, were it not for Israel’s better-behaved, less vociferous Likud affiliated finance minister and Prime Minister who promised to reign in their more vocal, yet ideological twinned, colleagues.   It is superfluous to add that the same Likud ministers that made these assurances ushered in yet another racist and de-democratic bill, which formed the cornerstone of the tourism minister’s political party’s platform.

So, the situation, as it continues to emerge, is that the tourism minister, from an ultra-right wing/ultra nationalist political party told the truth regarding the Israeli Government’s position on Jerusalem and the meaning of the OECD tourism conference.  The OECD, for a brief moment believed this minister and threatened to cancel the meeting.

However, a senior minister from Israel’s (equally right wing and nationalist) Likud party assured the OECD that this is not Israel’s position or, at the very least that they will keep their more vociferous and less tactful political compatriots quiet on matters of Jerusalem, at least until the end of the month.

At the same time, just in case the world has forgotten Israel’s current political composition, both parties zealously approved a new legislative initiative to force non-Jewish citizenship seekers to swear allegiance to a “Jewish and democratic” State of Israel as a condition for naturalization.  This is the real face of Israel that the OECD will confront when it comes to Jerusalem to talk about green tourism later this month.

However, this is neither the first thing nor the last thing that they will encounter in Jerusalem. While OECD delegates will be safely removed in their West Jerusalem lodgings a few short kilometers away, in Israeli occupied, annexed and settled East Jerusalem, and beyond in the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) the Occupation will continue. Palestinians families will continue to be ousted from their homes, with Judicial support, in order to make way for Jewish settlers and their tourism projects, the de-development of Palestine will continue as the separation wall continues to be built on Palestinian land and violence, including torture, will continue to be practiced.  Palestinian and Jewish peace and human rights demonstrators alike will continue to suffer the often times violent repression of their protests and, as the Israeli dissident blog, Coteret has recently noted the same Israeli minister of tourism who slipped up and told the truth about Israel’s policy on Jerusalem is also developing Israel’s tourism industry (with funding from the aforementioned finance minister),  in East Jerusalem and in the OPT, of course, for the benefit of Jews only. So, in the end, like it or not, the OECD is political and it has gone a long way towards legitimizing Israel’s Occupation policies.

Welcome to Jerusalem.