UN report on murdered Palestinians advocates for oblivion

While Israel perseveres in its brutal elimination of Palestinians, the UN attempts to illustrate further solidarity with Palestinians by dismissing murder as an incident and urging the settler-colonial state to comply with futile recommendations – a strategy that induces nothing but oblivion.

The recent Nakba commemorations were marked by the murder of two Palestinian minors by Israeli soldiers. Mohammed Mahmoud Odeh and Nadim Seyam Nawara were shot just outside Ofer Prison in the West Bank. Both were taking part in a protest which commemorated the suffering endured by Palestinians since the Nakba, as well as professing solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike. A video posted on YouTube by Defence for Children International (Palestine Section) is a clear testimony to the fact that both Odeh and Nawara posed no threat at the time they were shot.

Displaying absolute hypocrisy as part of the proclaimed International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People conjured by the UN, human rights chief Navi Pillay expressed “very serious concerns” with regard to this shard of endless history. As is evident in the report published on the UN website, murder has once again been manipulated into a trivial occurrence by the alleged guardians of human rights.

The report by the spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Cécile Pouilly endorses the common tactic of mellowing atrocities into isolated incidents dispersed within a vacuum that retains no relevance to Israel’s macabre violence. By using language that distorts the severity of recurring murder, Pouilly’s brief report emphasises conformity to imperialist dictates as prevailing over the magnitude of Israel’s sanctioned state terror.

An excerpt from the report states: “On 15 May, Israeli security forces allegedly shot and killed two Palestinian minors taking part in a demonstration in Beituniya, in the West Bank, commemorating the 66th anniversary of what Palestinians call ‘Nakba Day’.” As on previous occasions, the UN is particularly meticulous in using vague terminology such as “allegedly” every time Israeli soldiers display their routine brutality. The report also fails to identify the Palestinians, preferring to relegate their memory to indifferent oblivion rather than document the lives of people committed to resistance.

The most duplicitous use of language is reserved for the stated ambiguity with regard to the Nakba, revealing the insidious manipulation of what constitutes genocide, as well as attempting to shed doubt upon Palestinian memory with regards to the implementation of the Zionist settler-colonial project. Pouilly’s choice of words, “what Palestinians call” in reference to the Nakba undermines the necessity to ingrain the genocide and displacement which Palestinians sustained at the hands of Zionist paramilitary forces, at an international level.

Exerting international influence, the UN ascertains the dissemination of the dominant narrative with regards to genocide while casting doubt upon Palestinian history, invalidated continuously through the resolutions that uphold Israel’s settler-colonial state to the detriment of Palestinians.

Pouilly’s report, therefore, is an exercise in normalising violence and advocating for the disappearance of history. Concluding with a series of ineffective admonishments to Israel which include a call to render investigations public, as well as for Israeli security forces to abide by the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms, it is evident that the UN has no intention of overstepping the boundaries that limit criticism of Israel to chastisement, despite its professed solidarity with the Palestinian people.

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