Is Europe Planning Seal of Approval for Israeli Settlers?
by Jonathan Cook
Monthly Review
8 March 2010
An exclusive club of the world's most developed countries is
poised to admit Israel as a member even though, a confidential internal document
indicates, doing so will amount to endorsing Israel's illegal occupation of
Palestinian and Syrian territories.
Israel has been told that its accession to the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is all but assured when the 30
member states meet in May.
But a draft OECD report concedes that Israel has breached one of
the organization's key requirements on providing accurate and transparent data
on its economic activity.
The information supplied by Israel, the report notes, includes
not only the economic activity of its citizens inside its recognized borders but
also Jewish settlers who live in the occupied territories of East Jerusalem, the
West Bank, and the Golan in violation of international law.
Israel's accession to the OECD on such terms threatens to
severely embarrass many of the organization's member states, especially those in
the European Union that are publicly committed to avoiding collusion with the
occupation.
The OECD report proposes that these legal difficulties may be
circumvented by asking Israel to produce new statistics within a year of its
accession excluding the settler population -- even though, an OECD official has
admitted, Israel would have the power to veto such a demand after it becomes a
member.
"The OECD seems to be so determined to get Israel through its
door that it is prepared to cover up the crimes of the occupation," said Shir
Hever, a Jerusalem-based economist.
Israel has been lobbying for nearly 20 years to be admitted to
the OECD, founded in 1961 for wealthy industrialized democracies to meet and
coordinate economic and social policies. It includes the United States and most
of Europe.
"The financial privileges are relatively modest, but there is
great prestige to being accepted," Mr. Hever said. "Israel has worked so hard
to gain admission because it believes accession will confer international
legitimacy on its occupation."
Several countries with a lower development level than Israel have
already been accepted, including Turkey, Mexico, and the Czech Republic.
Israel's past rejections, it is widely assumed, were because many
states were uncomfortable about admitting Israel while it was occupying the
Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank and the
Syrian-owned Golan Heights.
However, Israel was formally invited to begin discussions about
membership in 2007 after intense lobbying by Stanley Fischer, the governor of
the Bank of Israel. Membership is expected to bring financial stability to
Israel's economy, attract investment, and reduce the country's risk premium.
The OECD's secretary general, Angel Gurria, visited in January,
after a review of Israel's economy, and suggested that admission this year was a
certainty.
However, a leaked draft report by the OECD's committee on
statistics, produced last month after the review, shows there are major problems
with the data presented by Israel.
According to its rules, the OECD takes account of economic
activity outside a candidate state's recognized borders in very limited
circumstances, such as remittances from migrant workers.
But given that this status does not apply to the illegal settlers
living in the occupied territories, the OECD committee argues that either the
settlers be excluded from the data or everyone living in the territories --
including Palestinians -- should be factored in.
"Israel has been caught out because it has always refused, even
in its own internal data, to differentiate between Israel and the occupied
territories," Mr. Hever said. Both East Jerusalem and the Golan have been
annexed by Israel in violation of international law.
"The OECD is treating Israel as though it has seven million
citizens when, in reality, it has 11 million subjects, of whom four million are
Palestinians living under occupation," Mr. Hever said. "If they were included
in the figures submitted to the OECD, Israel would have to be refused accession
because of the enormous disparities in wealth."
Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of
Jerusalem, noted recently that there was a 20:1 ratio in the difference in gross
domestic product per capita between an Israeli and a Palestinian living in Gaza.
But rather than conclude that Israel has failed to meet the
organization's entry criteria, the committee proposes a workaround: Israel can
be accepted to the organization and given a year to submit new data excluding
the settlers.
Tim Davis, an OECD official with the statistics committee in
Paris, said he could not comment on the report because its contents were
confidential but agreed that there was nothing to stop Israel reneging on such a
commitment in the future. "In a case like that, nothing could be done in
practice. We work on the basis of co-operation, not pressure."
Israel is reported to have failed other entry conditions,
including on corruption and copyright violations.
The OECD has required member states to crack down on corrupt
practices since it approved a convention against bribery in 1997. Israel,
however, was ranked in 32nd place in a major index on corruption last year, with
much of it relating to the country's $6 billion arms industry.
European and US defense firms have threatened to derail Israel's
OECD bid if it does not clean up its act.
Israel is also believed to be violating intellectual property
rights, again in breach of OECD rules. US and Swiss firms have accused Israel
of failing to regulate the international marketing of drugs produced by its
largest pharmaceuticals company, Teva.
Israel's bid for OECD membership has been opposed by the leaders
of its Arab minority, one-fifth of the population. Last month the Higher
Follow-Up Committee, the minority's main political body, petitioned the OECD to
reject Israel.
It has pointed out that half of Israel's Arab citizens are living
below the poverty line, a rate three times higher than among Israeli Jews, and
that on average Arab citizens earn salaries that are one-third less than Jews.
Mohammed Zeidan, head of the committee, blamed the disparities in wealth on what
he called Israel's "racist and discriminatory polices."
Another OECD report, published in January, showed that, even on
the basis of Israel's figures excluding the Palestinians, Israel would still
have the widest social gaps of any member state if it were accepted.
A shorter
version of this article appeared in the Abu-Dhabi-based National newspaper
Share this Article
Here is your
chance to help this article to be read by thousands more people by sharing it on your favourite social networking site. You can also email the
article from here.
