UN Flotilla Report Lacks Credibility and Transparency

NGO Monitor
29 September '10

JERUSALEM – The UN Human Rights Council’s (HRC) report on the May 31, 2010 flotilla violence is based on secret and unverifiable allegations, is highly biased, and is therefore no more than hearsay, finds NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institution. The HRC-appointed “fact-finding mission” submitted the report to the HRC during the Fifteenth Session currently underway in Geneva.

“This so-called fact finding mission met with numerous political advocacy NGOs and interviewed hundreds of witnesses from different countries, but it refuses to disclose these names or their statements,” says Professor Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. “The UNHRC and their latest ‘report’ indicting Israel have no legitimacy if the sources of the allegations and narrative are hidden. Unfortunately, this is indicative of the general lack of transparency surrounding the role of NGOs in the exploitation of human rights and international law.”

The “Free Gaza” flotilla violence involved the IHH, a Turkish-based organization with a history of links to terror, as well as the ISM, whose virulent incitement against Israel is also well documented. But instead of focusing on these organizations, the mission, chaired by Karl Hudson-Phillips, former justice on the International Criminal Court in The Hague, interviewed some participant-witnesses as well as ambassadors in London, Geneva, Amman, and Istanbul. News reports show that interviews in Jordan included members of the Muslim Brotherhood and those involved with anti-normalization campaigns with Israel. In addition, the panel spoke to MK Hanin Zoabi, a member of the Balad party, which rejects the idea of a Jewish state. Zoabi has also spoken in support of Iran's fierce hostility to Israel, and was on the boat involved in this violent incident. But the sources of other testimony remain secret.

(Read full report)

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