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Forum Post: Israel Ends Relations With The UN Human Rights Council

Posted 11 years ago on March 29, 2012, 10:18 p.m. EST by Reneye (118)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Israel ends contact with UN Human Rights Council

The Palestinians have demanded an end to Israeli settlement building as a prerequisite for peace talks.

Israel has cut working relations with the UN Human Rights Council, officials say, after it decided to investigate Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The foreign ministry has reportedly told its envoy in Geneva not to co-operate with the council or with UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay.

It will also prevent a UN team entering Israel to assess the effects of settlements on Palestinian rights.

Last week, Israel said the decision to establish the probe was "surrealistic".

Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on a two-state solution stalled in late 2010 after a dispute over settlement construction.

About 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.

'Superfluous and extravagant' Last Thursday, the Human Rights Council voted by 36 to one, with 10 abstentions, to send an independent international fact-finding mission to look into the issue.

The council said the mission would "investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem".

"It is in the interest of Israel to co-operate with the Human Rights Council on this investigative mission, not least so that it can explain its own policies and actions ”

Laura Dupuy Lasserre , President, UN Human Rights Council

The council also called on Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to co-operate fully with the mission.

But on Monday, senior Israeli officials said their country's representative at the UN in Geneva had been ordered to cut off contact immediately with the council, and also to ignore calls from the human rights commissioner.

Members of the council will also not be permitted to visit Israel.

"The secretariat of the human rights council and Navi Pillay sparked this process by establishing an international investigative committee on settlements, and we will thus not work with them any more and will not appear before the council," one official told the Haaretz newspaper.

Israel is reportedly also considering sanctions against the Palestinian Authority in response to the Human Rights Council decision.

The president of the Human Rights Council, Laura Dupuy Lasserre of Uruguay, said Israel's decision was "most regrettable".

"I have no doubt that it is in the interest of Israel to co-operate with the Human Rights Council on this investigative mission, not least so that it can explain its own policies and actions to the independent commissioners once they are appointed," she added.

Last week, Israel's foreign ministry launched a withering attack on the council, saying the decision to investigate settlements was "surrealistic".

"While all over the Middle East human rights are violated in an unprecedented scale, the HRC ridicules itself by dedicating its time and resources to establish a superfluous and extravagant body," it said.

It added that the "sole purpose" of the inquiry was "to satisfy the Palestinians' whims and to harm future chances to reach an agreement through peaceful means".

The US meanwhile said the investigation would "do nothing to promote a just and lasting peace" and only serve to "push parties apart".

The Israeli authorities also did not co-operate with the fact-finding mission set up by the council following the conflict in Gaza in 2009.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17510668

20 Comments

20 Comments


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[-] 4 points by toukarin (488) 11 years ago

Right. So its not okay for Iran to refuse to cooperate with the UN... buts its okay for Israel to pull this kind of stunt?

[-] 3 points by Demian (497) from San Francisco, CA 11 years ago

I'm suprised that they ever had relations with the human rights council.

[-] 1 points by vaness (20) 11 years ago

This may be interesting for you. They show Hillel Neuer emphasizing over and over again, the UN's bias and affiliation with Israel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhWgZu6tcZU&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNCyNiPHB7E&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR2o7sU4dsQ&feature=relmfu

[-] 0 points by Umong (0) 11 years ago

I would be interested to know why in 2 cases where the government entrusted the job of eavesdropping on ordinary Americans in their telephone conversations not only was this to private companies but how did these two private companies both just happen to come from Israel? I mean don't the other 195 countries in the world have similar skills ?

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/21/exposed_inside_the_nsas_largest_and

[-] 0 points by Reneye (118) 11 years ago

Good reveal, thanks!

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[-] -2 points by TheMisfit (48) 11 years ago

Saudi Arabia, Russia, Mexico, Cuba and China being able to make decisions on the "Human Rights" council is reason enough to not have anything to do with them.

[-] 1 points by Mowat (164) 11 years ago

Distract from the real issue being discussed. Nice try.

You're from Tel-Aviv. Right?

Tel-Aviv used to be called Haifa before the Jews invaded Palestine in 1948 with the help of Russia and Britain. For money - of course.

[-] -1 points by TheMisfit (48) 11 years ago

The REAL issue is that the "human rights" council is an example of hypocrisy. When many of its member nations have some of the most abysmal human rights records in the world, they have no right to tell others what is the right thing to do; and the fact that you would support them shows your obvious antisemitism. When the "human rights" council addresses real atrocities in the world instead of simply being an anti-Israel body, maybe they will have some credibility. Until then, they can just keep ignoring the real human rights violations in the world to further their own (and apparently your) agenda.

As for Haifa/Tel-Aviv, I don't really care. Wars change borders all of the time. It is what happens when nations and people fight for land. When you lose, you either suck it up or try and take the land back, but the Palestinians are little more than the useful idiots of the Arab world as they are nothing more than cannon fodder for the Imams.

[-] -1 points by Mowat (164) 11 years ago

You are right. The "U.N." is a hypocrite. They allowed the formation of this illegal entity called Israel and ethnic-cleansed Palestine from the "non-human" Palestinians (only Jews are human you would suggest).

They should shut down the worthless, useless agency called "Human Rights" council for good.

[-] 1 points by TheMisfit (48) 11 years ago

How is Israel an "illegal entity" when they won the land, fair and square? And the Palestinians certainly weren't "ethnically cleansed" when they continue to infect the region and attack the Israelis nearly every day. All the Israelis want is their tiny slice of land while the Arabs Muslims don't really care about that land at all and just want to murder every living Jew. That's what you support, true ethnic cleansing, yet somehow you feel righteous in supporting those who would murder every living man, woman and child who happens to be Jewish. You are one sick mother fucker.

[-] 1 points by Mowat (164) 11 years ago

Profanity is your style. It fits you and the likes of you!

[-] 1 points by JesseHeffran (3903) 11 years ago

really. lol. You sound like you are reading a script for a made for television mini series. Remember all confrontations have two guilty parties. Your cry for me Argentina narrative could only exist in the land of make believe. You ever thought about working for Hollywood? lol

[-] 0 points by Wondrous (37) 11 years ago

The maps tell the true story. Hard to refute this!

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/mapstellstory.html

How does a defensive action result in the total conquest of someone else's lands? The answer is that it does not. Israel is the aggressor. The maps of Israel then and now prove it.

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[-] -2 points by Kirby (104) 11 years ago

Maybe when the so called Palestinians quit sending missiles into Israel for an extended period of time, like say 6 months, or better yet a year, maybe they'll feel like it is a worthy club to join up with again. How many missiles would any other country, like the U.S. put up with before we utterly annhilated them?

[-] 3 points by EricBlair (447) 11 years ago

Okay lemme get this straight:

Qassam rockets kill people (sometimes innocent non-combatants) in Israel.

Therefore,

Israeli war-crimes and genocide is justified.

Huh. I would say that this is Tu quoque fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

However, this doesn't even rise to the level of absurd or fallacious.

It's not even remotely comparable.

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[-] -1 points by Kirby (104) 11 years ago

Someone fucks with your eternity, you're gonna fuck Them hard in the ass back. Am I right?

[-] -2 points by Kirby (104) 11 years ago

That's right.

[-] 1 points by EricBlair (447) 11 years ago

I suppose that's a logical position to take then.

I can see why you would want Israel to refuse the jurisdiction of the UN human rights counsel and International law generally.

If we applied the same legal standards to this idea of yours that we applied to the Nazi war-criminals at Nuremberg---you would be hung from the gallows.

[-] -1 points by Kirby (104) 11 years ago

The UN is a phony block of power setup in the rampant fear days after wwwII. The world should douche it now. It is a piece of trash.

[-] 1 points by EricBlair (447) 11 years ago

Right. I got it the first time. As an advocate of imperialism you resent barriers to empire and aggression.

That's an understandable position to take---if we applied the Nuremberg code in response to Kirby's proposed course of action, Kirby would be sentenced to death.

Or, rather, I should say that someone doing what Kirby advocates would be executed. Kirby is just an internet tough guy, and lacks the means or fortitude to act on his violent fantasies and macho posturing.