Sunday, October 17, 2010
[The following, by Eamonn McDonagh, is crossposted from Z Word.]
1. Imagine you came across an interview with Pope Benedict XVI in which one of the questions put to him concerned claims that he was a Roman Catholic and practiced the rituals of that church. What would you make of that?
Let me try another example. You switch on your favorite sports channel on TV and you witness the following exchange,
Reporter: There are rumors going around that you are in fact prone to playing basketball. Our viewers would like to hear your response.
Kobe Bryant: I have no recollection of ever having played basketball but who knows? Maybe I might have done by accident and then forgotten about it. If you could show me some evidence that I've ever played basketball then I'd be pleased to look into it.
In both cases you'd wonder if you hadn't slipped down a wormhole into some some sort of parallel universe. Everyone knows that the Pope is indeed a Catholic and that Kobe Bryant is a professional basketball player, it wouldn't occur to any sane person to ask them if this was true and it wouldn't occur to either of them to deny it.
2. Now consider Mary Robinson. She's a former President of Ireland and a former UN High Commissioner for Refugees. She is also a person of outstanding intellect and was appointed to a professorship of law while still in her twenties. These days she's a member of the The Elders. This is not a folk-rock group from the 60s. It's a group of retired international politicians and civil servants which believes that it can make a contribution to the resolution of conflicts and Robinson is currently in Gaza in its behalf.
3. The Elders website quotes her as follows:
In our meetings with the authorities we raised issues of human rights violations that were reported to us. Mr Haniyeh said that if they were provided with specific allegations, they would investigate and report the outcome to us. He also said that any mistakes would be corrected.
All that intelligence and experience and she doesn't realize that asking Haniye about human rights violations is every bit as absurd as asking Pope if he's a Catholic or Kobe Bryant if he plays basketball. The very essence of Haniye and Hamas is the denial of human rights. They want to cleanse Israel of Jews and replace it with an Islamic state. They hold power in Gaza as a result of a bloody coup. They are morally and materially supported by Iran, a state whose president only a few days ago repeated his desire to kick the Jews out of Israel. They are open and frank about their beliefs and political ambitions.
And Mary Robinson raises questions of human rights with them and calmly swallows their answers.
To paraphrase Churchill's description of Russia, Mary Robinson - and so many like her - reflect a myopia wrapped in a willfulness inside a credulity.
And that's a description entirely absent of hyperbole.
Forgive the hyperbole, but I can imagine Robinson being part of an IRC delegation visiting Theresienstadt and unquestioningly accepting assurances that everyone was being treated well. (And let's not forget the accommodating role she played in the Durban antisemitic hatefest.)