Israel’s envoy on the UN can’t deal with the reality about its human rights violations – Center East Monitor

The UN Normal Meeting held a particular session on Friday to current the annual report of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to all member states. The report broadly and clearly condemned the various Israeli human rights violations in opposition to the Palestinian residents of Israel and the Palestinians within the occupied territories.

The UNHRC condemned Israel for constructing the Separation Wall throughout the occupied West Financial institution and Jerusalem, which was deemed unlawful by an Worldwide Courtroom of Justice ruling issued in 2004. It reaffirmed “the precept of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by power” and expressed “deep concern on the fragmentation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, together with East Jerusalem, by way of settlement actions and different measures.”

Including its “grave concern” at Israel’s “critical human rights violations and grave breaches of worldwide humanitarian regulation, together with attainable struggle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity,” the UNHRC additionally stated that it was “gravely involved that long-standing impunity for worldwide regulation violations has allowed for the recurrence of grave violations with out consequence.”

Explicit condemnation was reserved for the “persevering with and adverse penalties of the conflicts in and across the Gaza Strip, together with all casualties, significantly amongst Palestinian civilians, together with kids, and ongoing violations of worldwide regulation.” The council referred to as for “full respect for worldwide humanitarian and human rights regulation and for the ideas of legality, distinction, precaution and proportionality.”

READ: What if the Palestinians agreed to live under occupation? 

All of this drove Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, to face on the rostrum of the UN Normal Meeting and specific his anger on the report. As an alternative of addressing the problems raised, he tried to divert the world’s consideration by saying that the UNHRC has “attacked and condemned Israel in 95 resolutions in comparison with 142 resolutions in opposition to the remainder of the world.” Affordable individuals would conclude that this truly served to focus on its violations and the diploma of Israel’s contempt for worldwide regulation, however not Erdan. As he tore a duplicate into items, he claimed that the report was “distorted and one-sided” and its place “is within the dustbin of anti-Semitism.” Allegations of “anti-Semitism” are, in fact, resorted to by Israeli officers and supporters every time the info can’t be challenged.

How correct is Erdan’s declare that the UNHRC report is filled with lies and an “assault” in opposition to Israel? Can anybody actually deny that Israel commits crimes in opposition to the Palestinians every day? And that the self-declared “Jewish state” is allowed to behave with impunity by the worldwide group, which empowers it to proceed its violations of human rights and worldwide regulation?

The UNHRC is just not the primary physique to sentence Israeli violations, together with the wanton killing of Palestinian civilians, together with kids. Human Rights Watch, for instance, seemed into three Israeli attacks concentrating on the Palestinians “in violation of the legal guidelines of struggle that killed 62 civilians and injured dozens extra” in the course of the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip between 10 and 21 Might this yr.

HRW identified that one of many Israeli assaults killed eight Palestinian civilians, together with six kids, and wounded 18 others in the course of the Might offensive. The organisation discovered that, with a view to justify its assault, Israel adopted unclear and contradictory narratives. “On 11 Might,” stated HRW, “the Israeli information web site Ynet reported that the Israeli navy had stated that six kids in Gaza had been killed by ‘failed launches’ by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

Nevertheless, it added, “On 16 Might the Israeli navy revealed on social media a poster that includes males they stated had been Palestinian ‘activists’ whom Israeli forces had killed within the Gaza Strip since 10 Might. These included ‘Mohammed Ali Mohammed Nusseir’, one of many males killed within the strike. The poster didn’t say when and the place that they had died.”

Human Rights Watch continued: “The identical day, an article by the Israeli information web site Walla reported that the Israeli navy stated that it had killed eight ‘activists’ from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, together with Nusseir, once more with out saying when and the place that they had been killed.”

The difficulty is just not solely the premeditated killing of Palestinian civilians, but additionally the manufacturing of false narratives to justify the brutal assaults carried out by the Israeli occupation forces.

In keeping with the Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), throughout its navy offensive on Gaza in Might, Israel killed 261 Palestinians, together with 40 girls and 16 aged individuals, in addition to 67 kids. Erdan is aware of this very nicely. He additionally is aware of that the UNHRC doesn’t goal Israel to the exclusion of another nation; that the info converse for themselves; and that Israel is an entity working a brutal navy occupation beneath which Palestinian lives haven’t any worth.

Erdan criticised the UNHRC for together with representatives of “dictatorships and oppressive” regimes. “How are you going to sleep at night time when the worst human rights violators are the supposed defenders of human rights?” he requested.

READ: ‘Shared values’ allow Israel to act with impunity

Once more, this was merely an try to divert consideration from his nation’s human rights violations. Israel is making each effort to normalise relations with a few of these “dictatorships and oppressive” regimes within the Arab world. He did not point out this in his newest tirade on the UN.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt are among the many worst human rights violators within the Center East — certainly, on the planet — and but Israel has had a peace treaty with Egypt for the reason that Nineteen Seventies and normalised relations with the UAE and Bahrain final yr. The nation which Erdan represents on the world stage is clearly not averse to dictatorships and oppressive regimes. Furthermore, it’s doing all it may possibly to show its secret hyperlinks with Saudi Arabia — a state which imprisons and tortures political opponents, and murdered a Washington Publish columnist in 2018 — into an official and really open relationship. Certainly, solely final week, an Israeli flight landed in Riyadh for the very first time, a day after a flight from Saudi Arabia landed in Tel Aviv.

Erdan’s speech on the UN Normal Meeting was a blatant try to whitewash Israeli crimes in opposition to the Palestinians, and the racist, apartheid state’s violations of worldwide regulation. He tried to solid Israel because the sufferer, when it’s something however. Israel is a settler-colonial entity intent on finishing the ethnic cleaning of Palestinians from their land which Zionist militias began within the Forties. Because the UNHCR report illustrates, Israel’s lackeys within the West could also be ready to show a blind eye to the truth on the bottom in occupied Palestine, however the remainder of the world is not. Ambassador Gilad Erdan simply cannot deal with the reality.

The views expressed on this article belong to the writer and don’t essentially replicate the editorial coverage of Center East Monitor.