The UN's Very Selective Outrage on Occupied Territories - by Brenda Shaffer, Svante Cornell and Jonathan Schanzer

In fact, when it issued its blacklist, the UN Human Rights Office may have inadvertently opened the flood gates. In today's interconnected world, aggrieved parties are keenly aware of developments in other protracted conflicts. They will want to know why the world's most prominent multilateral organization is willing to apply sanctions in one protracted conflict, but not others. The UN Human Rights Office must now be prepared to explain why some occupations are inconsequential, but only Israel's control of the West Bank is deserving of a blacklist.

Brenda Shaffer, Svante Cornell and Jonathan Schanzer..
Pundicity.com/Real Clear World..
04 March '20..
Link: http://schanzer.pundicity.com/23885/the-un-selective-outrage-on-occupied-territories

Yesterday during remarks at the AIPAC annual conference, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred to the recent publication by the UN Human Rights Office of a database of companies that operate in the West Bank. Pompeo defined the report as "a real threat" that "only serves to facilitate the BDS movement and delegitimize Israel." Pompeo declared that the United States will take actions on behalf of the "members of our business community that are being threatened by this release."

The UN Human Rights Office on Feb. 12 published a database of 112 companies that operate in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The vast majority of the listed companies provide basic goods and services to the people living in these disputed territories.

The database was originally slated to be released in March. However, it appears the United Nations released it early as part of its effort to counter the Trump administration's new Middle East peace plan. The plan seeks to legalize Israel's control over some of the territory it conquered in the 1967 Six Day War and has controlled ever since.

As Pompeo pointed out, the release of the database is also designed to do one more thing: to give a boost to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign that seeks to wage an economic war against Israel. The database is deliberately designed to assist their efforts to deter businesses from working with Israel.

The best evidence that the UN Human Rights Council does not seek to act against foreign occupation of lands, but against Israel, is the fact that the database collects information on activities only in territories controlled by Israel, and not all territories regarded by the United Nations as under occupation. Indeed, the list does not include companies operating in Russia's occupations in five regions in neighboring countries. Nor does it include businesses in Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara, Kashmir, Nagorno-Karabakh, to name just a few. The list immediately lacks credibility because it ignores these conflicts.

The true peace incubator that the Left and the hypocrites at the UN fear so much - by Nadav Shragai

Apparently, the UN's so-called Human Rights Council is done righting the wrongs of the world and has time to focus on Judea and Samaria businesses, which only prove that Israelis and Palestinians can peacefully coexist.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
13 February '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/debunk-the-unhrc-blacklist/

The United Nations' so-called Human Rights Council on Wednesday released a "database" of 112 companies it says are conducting business beyond the Green Line and whose activities "raise particular human rights concerns."

In doing so, the UNHRC infringed on the human rights of tens of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians who worked together daily on industrial parks and businesses across Judea and Samaria and in dozens of other places across the Jewish people's ancestral homeland.

Had Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, ever bothered to visit the settlements, she would realize that, as she fears, "There is serious concern of human rights violations," but not because of the daily operations of any business there, rather as a result of the fact the UNHRC has blacklisted them.

Truth be told, the list released on Wednesday is not a blacklist at all, but a gold list. It proves that it is in Judea and Samaria and east Jerusalem – areas ostensibly subject to dispute – Jews and Arabs coexist peacefully, fostering working relations and friendships.

This is the true peace incubator that the Left and the hypocrites at the UN fear so much. It is the most successful instrument for defeating terrorism, violence, prejudice, and hatred. Here lie the foundations of true peace and coexistence – not in the ridiculous institutions the UN runs that are so very detached from reality.

If this "blacklist" and any subsequent boycotts result in Palestinian workers losing their source of livelihood then the UN could chalk up another stellar result to its name, courtesy of its double standards.

One also has to ask: Is the UN and particularly the Human Rights Council so bored that they dedicate so much of their time on targeting the myriad of businesses that serve both the Jewish and Palestinian communities? Does the UNHRC really have nothing better to do? Is it done righting all wrongs elsewhere, in places where people are persecuted for their opinions or religion, executed without a trial, and silenced for opposing the regime?

Counting Votes at the UN Human Rights Council - by Elliott Abrams

...Hat’s off to Australia, which has just joined the Human Rights Council for a 3-year term and stood with the United States. The Australians have stated their “principled opposition” to singling out Israel, and said that they would vote against all the resolutions brought under “Item 7.” Australia has similarly opposed one-sided resolutions in the General Assembly. It is shameful that the Aussies have not been joined by other democracies, but they deserve great credit for taking this stance the moment they joined the Human Rights Council.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
29 March '18..
Link: https://www.cfr.org/blog/counting-votes-un-human-rights-council

The UN Human Rights Council passed five more anti-Israel resolutions last week. This was not a great surprise, and U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley called the Council “grossly biased against Israel.” She added that “our patience is not unlimited” and again threatened to leave the Council unless its obsession with Israel ended.

The Council (as Haley noted) passed three resolutions on Iran and two on North Korea, making the concentration on Israel particularly grotesque. Israel is the only country whose conduct must, by Council rules (the so-called Item 7), be reviewed every time the Council meets.

Still, the vote counting is interesting. One resolution called for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights. That resolution got 25 votes, almost entirely from Muslim countries plus a few dictatorships like Cuba, Venezuela, and China. No European country voted yes. (Why Brazil, Peru, and Chile voted for it is a mystery, and when our State Department gets staffed up it might start pressuring them to change their votes.) Voting against this resolution were Australia, Belgium, Croatia, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Panama, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Togo, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States. Abstaining were the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Japan, Mexico, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Rwanda, and Switzerland. Absent was Mongolia. That means that of the members of the Council, 25 voted yes but 22 did not—displaying a good lack of enthusiasm for the proposal.

The other resolutions passed by higher margins: 27 in favor or 34 or 41, with 43 voting for “The Right of the Palestinian People to Self-Determination” while only Australia and the United States voted no (with the DRC abstaining and Mongolia absent).

That any democracy should vote for that mendacious resolution is unpardonable. Those who did include Belgium, Chile, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. It includes phrases and conclusions that are simply false, such as reference to Israel’s “forcible transfer of Palestinians”—something that does not exist. It calls upon Israel to “immediately end its occupation of the Occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem,” which is absurd. As those governments must know, there is no way safely to do that (safely for Israel, Jordan, or the Palestinians, considering the possibility that Hamas, with Iranian support, would take over). Nor should any decent country be speaking of the “occupation” of East Jerusalem, as if Israeli control of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem were some kind of scandal and crime.

We think we now have a deeper understanding of the human rights industry - by Arnold Roth

...The bright side is we think we have a better gasp now of how the human rights industry sorts out its priorities. Bringing the murderers of Israeli children to justice does not rank all that high up, it turns out. We're very surprised by that. If we're wrong, we hope Prince Zeid (in case he's reading this) or one of his staff people will still get back to us. But to be really frank, we're not holding our breaths.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
13 June '17..

When it comes to politicians, being the parents of a child murdered in the name of a political ideology can make a person, trust us, something of a cynic.

We're more sensitive now to how public figures like to get up on their soap-boxes and preach to others about what they ought to be doing. When they do, our strong inclination is to take a look behind the scenes and see whether the values of the speaker match the high rhetoric of the speechifying.

Take the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein as an example.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Another BBC failure to give audiences the full story in UNHRC article - by Hadar Sela

...Yet again we see that despite the fact that it not infrequently quotes and promotes UN produced material, the BBC refrains from providing its audiences with the full range of information necessary for understanding of the story of the UN’s endemic bias against Israel.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
08 June '17..

The BBC has a long history of failing to properly report the UN Human Rights Council’s institutional bias against Israel and has never addressed the issue of why that frequently and overtly displayed prejudice exists.

In an article specifically referring to that bias, one would nevertheless have expected BBC audiences to be provided with the relevant factual information in the BBC’s own words. However, the report titled “US warning over its UN Human Rights Council role” which appeared on the BBC News website’s ‘US & Canada’ and ‘Middle East’ pages on June 6th presents the subject in equivocal language.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Evidently UK government’s UNHRC statement not newsworthy for the BBC - by Hadar Sela

...Despite an extensive search, we have to date been unable to locate even one BBC report on that UK government statement across the wide variety of BBC platforms.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
28 March '17..





A former BBC anchor once described the corporation’s approach to the United Nations as follows:

“Whatever the United Nations is associated with is good — it is heresy to question any of its activities. The EU is also a good thing, but not quite as good as the UN.”

As has been documented here on numerous occasions over the years, in spite of its ‘public purposes’ remit, the BBC has continuously failed to provide its audiences with information that would enhance their understanding of anti-Israel bias at UN bodies such as the Human Rights Council and UNESCO. Rather, the corporation has found fit to provide uncritical amplification for assorted predetermined reports and resolutions.

Last week, as the UNHRC went about its usual business of passing anti-Israel resolutions, something rather unusual happened.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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This Council has not, does not and will not contribute to peace in our region

"...This Council has never cared for the human rights of Israelis; This Council has lost its bearings; This Council needs a moral compass; This Council has an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder regarding Israel; This Council has not, does not and will not contribute to peace in our region.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA..
14 June '16..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=70819






Israel statement at 32nd session of UN Human Rights Council
14 Jun 2016

Statement delivered by Ambassador Eviatar Manor, Permanent Representative of Israel to the UN in Geneva

Mr. President,

This is my final Human Rights Council session. I will leave you with these observations:

- This Council’s priorities are wide off the mark. An agenda item specifically dedicated to my country when the tragedies of Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, to name but a few, are unfolding and producing a tsunami of refugees about to engulf Europe? And you expect us to take you seriously?

- Politicized debates, biased resolutions, preposterous reports, discriminatory conduct and unfounded accusations characterize the attitude of this Council and of the OHCHR towards Israel. In its latest press release, following a terror attack in which 4 Israelis were murdered and dozens wounded, the OHCHR expressed deep concern on the cancelation of 83,000 permits granted to West Bank and Gaza residents to travel to Israel during Ramadan. It characterized the move as quote “amounting to prohibited collective punishment” unquote.

Mr. President, the right to regulate entry of non-citizens into a country is an integral part of sovereignty which all states enjoy. Furthermore, the terms of existing bilateral Israeli-Palestinian agreements specifically affirm Israel's right to prevent or limit entry of persons into Israel from the West Bank and Gaza for security and safety considerations. Just one of many examples of double standards regarding Israel.

Mr. President,

What BBC audiences aren’t told, but should be told about the UNHRC - by Hadar Sela

...information which BBC audiences obviously need to know in order to be able to put statements such as the one ... from Bryant into their correct context and its inclusion in the BBC’s profile of the UN would be a good place to start.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
24 May '16..

Readers may recall that in February 2016 the BBC’s UN correspondent Nick Bryant told listeners to BBC World Service radio that:

“The Israelis always believe that they are victimized at the UN; that they are singled out unfairly; that they are isolated…”

Bryant did not however provide BBC audiences with any relevant factual information which would enable them to understand the reality behind his portrayal of what Israelis “always believe”.

(Continue Reading)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter.

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UN Council for Terrorist Rights. Beyond bias. It’s obsessive. It’s insanity. - by Yair Lapid

...Alon Bakal was shot to death in Tel Aviv. He was 26. A volunteer in a humanitarian organization. He was what they call a ‘human rights activist.’. And how does the UN Human Rights Council respond when a human rights activist was murdered? They support the murderer. The treatment of Israel by the Council is far beyond bias. It’s obsessive. It’s insanity.

MK Yair Lapid..
Times of Israel..
21 March '16..

We stand here, Jews and non-Jews. From Israel and from across Europe, to protest the fact that instead of doing what they’re supposed to do, the United Nations Human Rights Council is encouraging murder, encouraging terror, encouraging injustice.

And we are not willing to remain silent anymore.

That is not a Council for Human Rights. Instead, it has become a Council for Terrorist Rights.

In the past decade the Council has passed 55 resolutions regarding human rights violations throughout the world: the entire globe. With all of its endless conflicts. In the same decade, in the same ten years, the Council has passed sixty two resolutions against Israel. Seven resolutions more about Israel than about the entire rest of the world.

During that decade, Israel was constantly under attack from terrorists who set out to kill civilians: women, children, the elderly.

Our enemies mock the core concept of what it is to be human, while at the same time we are trying to protect a democratic state while adhering to the highest standards of international law.

We face fundamentalist Islamic terror organizations who want to murder Jews just because they are Jews.

We face Iran and its terror subcontractors, which has declared again and again that its goal is the total destruction of Israel.

And we face sixty two resolutions by an organisation which deceives the world by calling itself a Human Rights Council.

Four hundred thousand murdered in Syria, tens of thousands murdered in Iraq, in Libya, in Afghanistan — and the Council condemns Israel.

Women are raped in Rwanda, Sudan and all across the Middle East — and the Council condemns Israel.

People are beheaded and women are forced into slavery in Iraq — the Council condemns Israel.

Three million people are displaced in Syria — the Council condemns Israel.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only ranked forty-ninth in the number of casualties in conflicts across the world. But there is only one country – only one – which the rules of Human Rights Council dictate has a special agenda item.

Let me introduce you to Agenda item 7, which states that every time the Council is in session it has to discuss – even if nothing happened, even if no evidence has been presented — the human rights situation in Israel.

Why?

Runs on hypocrisy, anti-Semitism and begins with the letters UN - by Jonathan Tobin

...At the same time that it works overtime attacking Israel, the UNHRC hasn’t done much that is effective about a real human rights catastrophe next door in Syria where hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions made refugees. To the contrary, as with most UN efforts, it has failed the people of Syria. The argument for staying in the UNHRC has always been that the U.S. could accomplish more by staying in it than by boycotting it. But the systematic bias against the one Jewish state on the planet is not an exception to an otherwise fine record but actually key to understanding why it does little to advance human rights. By diverting the UN’s attention to an embattled democracy that tries to save the lives even of its foes, the UNHRC does more to harm that cause than to help it. Moreover, by giving it the imprimatur of U.S. participation, the administration has legitimized the very anti-Semitism that it says it wishes to oppose.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
04 March '16..

Earlier this week, the United States signaled that once again it would seek a term on the United Nations Human Rights Council. Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken addressed the UNHRC to note all of America’s human rights concerns, speaking of abuses by Russia, Egypt, South Sudan, Venezuela, Cuba, China, as well as a strong statement about North Korea. He also complained about what he correctly termed the council’s “persistent bias” against the state of Israel. But while the UN body has done little good in recent years and much harm with respect to undermining the already minimal chances for peace in the Middle East, he also said that the U.S. faith in the institution was still strong.

While there was merit to many of the concerns Blinken’s address pointed toward, the decision about American intentions it highlighted sums up just about everything it that is wrong with the Obama administration’s attitude toward the United Nations and international diplomacy. No matter how squalid the UN’s failures, their ideological blinders require them to not merely acquiesce to its continued abuses but to substantially aid and abet them.

The U.S. has pulled out of the UNHRC before. But it eventually returned and, under the current administration, it has dug in its heels and ceased even to threaten to abandon this travesty.

To understand the depths of this problem, you need to understand that the UNHRC runs on two commodities: hypocrisy and anti-Semitism.

Light at the End of the Tunnels - by Dr. Michael Curtis

...Hamas never stops its war against Israel....Sometimes the truth seeps out, even from terrorist leaders. At the funeral service in the Great Omari Mosque in Gaza City on January 29, 2016 for seven Hamas operatives who were killed when the tunnel on which they were working collapsed because of rain and flooding, Ismael Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, spoke truth.

Dr. Michael Curtis..
American Thinker..
14 February '16..

On July 8, 2014 the Israeli air force began to deal with rocket fire coming from Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip. In the preceding three weeks, Hamas had fired 250 rockets capable of reaching Israeli population centers. Many of those rockets were intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome system, but Israel soon found that confronting it was a new and challenging menace, a labyrinth of highly sophisticated tunnels built by Hamas.

For years Hamas had been using building materials and an estimated 600,000 tons of concrete to build tunnels similar to, though much more skillfully constructed than, the Viet Cong tunnels dug in South Vietnam. The U.S. forces, the so called “tunnel rats” had to dispose of them using simply a pistol and a flashlight. Israel, between July 17 and August 5, 2014 using more advanced methods, disposed of 33 tunnels, 14 of which crossed into Israel, and one of which was 66 feet deep and 1.5 miles long.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has long been laughable. Its absurdity reached a zenith with the 284-page report on June 22, 2015 of its Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Gaza war chaired by the American jurist, Mary McGowan Davis who had replaced the discredited William Schabas. The Commission found there was no indication the Hamas tunnels were constructed to attack Israeli civilians. It did not say the tunnels were used as playgrounds for recreational purposes or for sightseeing trips, but it did say that it could not “conclusively determine the intent of Palestinian armed groups with regard to the construction and use of the tunnels.”

Yet the evidence to the contrary is abundant. Everyone was aware that Hamas had built tunnels in Sinai for smuggling people and communities between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. More important they had been built for both defensive and offensive purposes in connection with the State of Israel. Defensively, Hamas used the tunnels to store rockets, launchers, and explosives, and as military command centers. Offensively, they were built to attack Israeli civilians, or to kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians. Hamas had done this in June 2006 when it kidnapped Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, and held him in prison until October 2011.

The UNHRC disregarded the Hamas violations of human rights and indeed war crimes by its construction of tunnels under civilian homes, among other violations. The Institute for Palestinian Studies recorded that Hamas between 2007 and 2012 had caused 160 Palestinian deaths in building the tunnels: by August 2014, 400 had died. The UNHRC also seemed unaware of the Hamas plot to use Rosh Hashanah, September 24, 2014, as an opportunity to initiate a mass attack on Israel. It had begun rebuilding some of its tunnels that been destroyed and planned to use a dozen of them to carry 200 heavily armed fighters into Israeli territory.

Hamas never stops its war against Israel. Since the beginning of 2016 there have been five incidents when tunnels being built by Hamas in the Gaza Strip have collapsed with Palestinian operatives being killed in them. On February 9, 2016 one operative, a member of the military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassan Brigades died in the tunnel near Khan Younis. He was repairing a tunnel that had been damaged by Egyptian authorities because it was being used to smuggle arms and fighters for affiliates of ISIS in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.

(Video) Is the UN Human Rights Council Obsessed with Israel?

The New York Times makes an editorial comment stuck in the middle of an article that undermines the Israeli Prime Minister’s claim that the United Nations Human Rights Council is “obsessed” with Israel. But the facts are on the Prime Minister’s side and the comment is harmful and misleading.

Yarden Frankl..
Honest Reporting..
01 July '15..





Statistics on the UNHRC from UN Watch.

The article that I’m discussing can be found here.

You can contact the Times Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan here.

Link: http://honestreporting.com/video-is-the-un-human-rights-council-obsessed-with-israel/

More at Honest Reporting - Defending Israel From Media Bias

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 

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(+Video) Col. Kemp tells UNHRC it’s become “tool of Hamas’ murderous strategy”

...Mr. President, during the 2014 Gaza conflict, Hamas, to its eternal shame, did more to deliberately and systematically inflict death, suffering and destruction on its own civilian population, including its children, than any other terrorist group in history.

UN Watch..
29 June '15..

Address of Colonel Richard Kemp to the United Nations Human Rights Council Debate on report of the UNHRC Commission of Inquiry into the 2014 Gaza Conflict - Geneva, 29 June 2015

Mr. President, I fought in combat zones around the world during 30 years’ service in the British Army. I was present as an observer throughout the conflict in Gaza.

Mr. President, during the 2014 Gaza conflict, Hamas, to its eternal shame, did more to deliberately and systematically inflict death, suffering and destruction on its own civilian population, including its children, than any other terrorist group in history.

Hamas deliberately positioned its fighters and weapons in civilian areas, knowing that Israel would have no choice but to attack these targets, which were a clear and present threat to the lives of Israel’s own civilian population.


Col. Kemp's visit was hosted by UN Watch & NGO Monitor. He spoke on behalf of Amuta for NGO Responsibility. Video is copyright of UN Watch (c) 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuasVo6Dxu4

While the IDF made efforts, unprecedented in any other army, and exceeding the requirements of the laws of war, to save Palestinian civilian lives, including warning them to leave target zones, Hamas forced them to remain in those areas.

Unable to defeat Israel by military means, Hamas sought to cause large numbers of casualties among their own people in order to bring international condemnation against Israel, especially from the United Nations.

How the UN Human Rights Council report shot itself and human rights in the foot

...This latest UNHRC inquiry and report is only as reliable as its sources of information. When these are overwhelmingly unreliable political NGOs, as well as those who support and facilitate terrorism, any true champions of human rights cannot take its findings seriously.

It is unclear whether the Commission of Inquiry 
was aware of Gilbert’s views and was 
unconcerned by them, or whether it 
failed in its basic due diligence.

Gerald Steinberg..
i24 News..
30 June '15..

The report from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on the 2014 Gaza conflict has no surprises: it is another pseudo-legal and immoral case of Israel-bashing. Like the discredited Goldstone Report and virtually every other UN “inquiry” on Israel, political NGOs (non-governmental organizations) provide the basis of the investigation and findings. In the UN report, NGOs appear on almost every page: B’Tselem is cited 69 times; Amnesty International, 53; Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), 50; and Human Rights Watch (HRW), 22. To anyone familiar with the political agendas of these NGOs, the UN’s latest “findings” – namely, condemnations of Israel – come as no surprise.

Like the NGO publications, the Commission of Inquiry report on the Gaza war is filled with unverifiable accusations based on the testimony of nameless witnesses. Although the Commission recognized that testimony from Gaza is unreliable, acknowledging “fears by Palestinian witnesses of reprisal by armed groups and local authorities,” in practice, the report relies extensively on such anonymous allegations. For instance, in the section discussing attacks on houses, witnesses are quoted on the most essential legal and moral questions, apparently without concern for intimidation or lying to prevent self-incrimination: “According to the witnesses, all of those killed were civilians”; “they insisted that there had been no military activity in the building.”

The latter claim is augmented by statements given by the same witness to PCHR, asserting “that no family member belongs to the ‘Palestinian resistance.’” Reading between the lines, we see that the eyewitnesses themselves were likely selected by NGOs, such as PCHR, and delivered to the UN investigators.

The NGOs cited by the UNHRC also lack expertise and access to crucial information. These shortcomings are exemplified by the “fact-finding mission” of the Israeli organization, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I), produced in collaboration with the Palestinian NGOs Al-Mezan, Gaza Community Mental Health Program and the PCHR. The PHR-I investigators “did not have access to [relevant] UNRWA facilities…They could therefore investigate neither the public health impact of displacement in these facilities, nor the allegations made by the Israeli government regarding the abuse of such facilities for military purposes.” Similarly, they had “no access to evidence regarding the conduct of Palestinian armed combatants within Gaza.” Yet, the UNHRC deemed PHR-I’s investigation credible enough to cite its findings 16 times.

These and other unreliable claims are found throughout the report. But it is the prominence given to the notorious Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor solicited as an “expert” on Gaza health, which discredits the UNHRC on a deeper level. Gilbert has a well-documented history of abusing his position as doctor to promote hate and conspiracy theories, and is known to have blamed the 9/11 terror attacks on the “policy that the West has led during the last decades,” asserting that “the oppressed also have a moral right to attack the USA with any weapon they can come up with.”

Tying the West’s Hands, Fabricating Israeli War Crimes and Destroying International Law

...In short, it’s impossible for any country to comply with the laws of war when fighting terrorists, because it will be presumed guilty unless proven innocent, and the only evidence acceptable to prove its innocence is by definition unobtainable. And lest anyone miss the point – or labor under the delusion that this precedent won’t be applied to other countries as well – Davis underscored it in a subsequent interview with Haaretz. Asked what solution international law does offer “to a situation in which regular armies of democratic countries fight against terror organizations in the heart of populated areas,” she replied scornfully, “My job is not to tell them how to wage a war.”

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
26 June '15..

In the four days since the UN Human Rights Council published its report on last summer’s war in Gaza, commentators have pointed out numerous ways in which it is bad for Israel, the Palestinians and the prospects of a two-state solution. But focusing solely on the local consequences obscures the fact that this report is part of a broader campaign with much more ambitious goals: depriving the entire West of any conceivable weapon – military or nonmilitary – against terrorist organizations and thereby leaving it no choice but capitulation. And though the UN report captured all the attention, the assault on nonmilitary means was also active this week.

On the military side, the goal was already clear last week, thanks to an interview by Israel’s Channel 2 television with international law expert William Schabas, who headed the HRC’s Gaza inquiry until being forced out in February over a conflict of interests. “It would be a very unusual war if only one side had committed violations of laws of war and the other had engaged perfectly,” he declared. “That would be an unusual situation and an unusual conclusion.”

In other words, it’s virtually impossible for any country fighting terrorists to avoid committing war crimes, however hard it tries, because as currently interpreted by experts like Schabas, the laws of war are impossible for any real-life army to comply with. Thus, a country that wants to avoid international prosecution for war crimes has no choice but to avoid all wars; its only option is capitulation to the terrorists attacking it.

The report ultimately issued by Mary McGowan Davis, who took over the inquiry after Schabas resigned, achieved his goal through a neat trick: replacing the presumption of innocence – the gold standard for ordinary criminal proceedings – with a presumption of guilt. As Benjamin Wittes and Yishai Schwartz noted in their scathing analysis for the Lawfare blog, despite admitting that Hamas routinely used civilian buildings for military purposes, the report nevertheless concluded that any attack on a civilian building is prima facie illegal absent solid proof that the building served military purposes.

But as the report itself admits in paragraph 215, in a quote attributed to “official Israeli sources,” such proof is virtually impossible to produce, because “forensic evidence that a particular site was used for military purposes is rarely available after an attack. Such evidence is usually destroyed in the attack or, if time allows, removed by the terrorist organisations who exploited the site in the first place.”

In short, it’s impossible for any country to comply with the laws of war when fighting terrorists, because it will be presumed guilty unless proven innocent, and the only evidence acceptable to prove its innocence is by definition unobtainable. And lest anyone miss the point – or labor under the delusion that this precedent won’t be applied to other countries as well – Davis underscored it in a subsequent interview with Haaretz. Asked what solution international law does offer “to a situation in which regular armies of democratic countries fight against terror organizations in the heart of populated areas,” she replied scornfully, “My job is not to tell them how to wage a war.” The claim that “international law needs to develop standards that more accurately deal with military operations” is unacceptable, she asserted; the only acceptable changes are “to make protection of civilians stronger” and thereby make waging war even more impossible.

Would the public of any country stand for its leaders adopting such a policy?

...Has any country actually adopted such a policy? Would the public of any country stand for its leaders adopting such a policy, exposing the country’s own population to attack while their own military stands down?

David Bernstein..
Washington Post/The Volokh Conspiracy..
23 June '15..

Mary McGowan Davis, who headed the U.N. commission that investigated last summer’s Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, tells Ha’aretz (paywall): “We wanted to make a strong stand that the whole use of explosive weapons in densely populated neighborhoods is problematic and that the policy needs to change…. Because it is not OK to drop a one-ton bomb in the middle of a neighborhood.”

Of course, one shouldn’t gratuitously drop a one-ton bomb or any bomb in the middle of a neighborhood. But Davis’s critique doesn’t seem limited to gratuitous bombings, but includes the bombing of military targets located in civilian neighborhoods.

If the rule was “you may never bomb [use “explosive weapons”] in a residential neighborhood if civilian casualties may result, regardless of the value of the military target,” it’s pretty obvious what would happen — enemy forces would simply plant themselves in residential neighborhoods knowing they would be immune from attack.

So, for example, Hamas could launch all the missiles it wanted at Israel from the middle of Gaza City, and use apartment buildings, schools, etc. as staging grounds and headquarters, and Israel would be helpless to respond.

United Nations Report on Gaza Scores Points for Barbarism

...The report, though, will probably be ratified by the Human Rights Council and, later, by the UN General Assembly, and increase the general atmosphere of recrimination toward Israel. It represents then, another win for barbarism, with the West again cooperating in the war against its own values.

P. David Hornik..
FrontPageMag.com..
24 June '15..

In the 21st century, barbarism has gained ground at the expense of civilization. Democracy has been in sharp decline. Terrorism increased by 35 percent in 2014. ISIS’s latest video is the most horrific yet.

If civilization can still prevail, it first has to be able to distinguish between civilization and barbarism. Civilization has had a notoriously hard time doing that. It signed a peace agreement with Herr Hitler and declared “peace in our time.” It may be on the verge of signing an agreement with Iran that leaves its nuclear program intact and ensures it will get—for starters—$150 billion worth of sanctions relief.

The inability to morally distinguish between Israel and its barbaric enemies is, of course, a key part of the malaise. The UN Human Rights Council’s report on last summer’s war in Gaza, released this week, is a further symptom of a disease that appears incurable.

The 47 members of the council, based in Geneva, include human rights stalwarts like Algeria, Cuba, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Not surprisingly, with such a membership, the council’s overriding purpose is to vilify Israel: 80 percent of its resolutions condemn it. As Benjamin Netanyahu noted on Tuesday, the council

has passed more resolutions against Israel than against Syria, North Korea and Iran combined. In fact, it has passed more resolutions against Israel than against all the countries of the world combined.

Yet democratic countries sit on the council, too—France, Japan, the Netherlands, the United States, and others; they participate in its votes and never threaten to leave it en masse unless it stops being a blatant Israel-defaming kangaroo court. The current “fact-finding mission” on the Gaza war was first headed by a Canadian academic, William Schabas; and now, Schabas having stepped down when it turned out he had been in the Palestinians’ pay, by U.S. jurist Mary McGowan Davis.

If this latest report is somewhat less extreme than one of its predecessors, the infamous 2009 Goldstone Report on the 2008 war in Gaza, it’s because it puts Israel on the same moral footing as Hamas—unlike in the Goldstone Report where Israel was a ruthless killer and Hamas almost irrelevant. It’s hardly comforting, of course, when Israel is portrayed—at best—as equivalent to Hamas instead of much worse.

New York Times Plays 'Fair' in Mideast Reportage

“It is unrealistic to expect Hamas, which the United States and other countries consider a terrorist group, to comply with international law or police itself. But Israel has a duty and should have the desire, to adjust its military policies to avoid civilian casualties and hold those who failed to do so accountable.” The same editorial writer before and during World War II probably would have put greater onus on Churchill than on Hitler in being held responsible for protecting civilians. After all, it would have been “unrealistic” to expect the Nazis to “comply with international law.”

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
24 June '15..

The headline tells it all when it comes to New York Times coverage of the UN Human Rights Council report on the 2014 Gaza war (“Both Sides In Gaza War Are Faulted by U.N. Panel” June 23, page A4.)

For every Hamas terrorist action, Times correspondents Jodi Rudoren and Somini Sengupta are quick to juxtapose some malfeasance on Israel’s part.

How much fairer can you get?

Answer: Plenty.

By putting equivalence above everything else, the Times and the UN report fail to give readers the real crux of what actually happened. They ignore the fact that it was Hamas, not Israel, that triggered the 50-day summer war with incessant rocket barrages on civilian populations in Israel. Had Hamas desisted, there would have been no war.

The Times’ coverage of the Gaza War, with its repeated stretches to treat each party equally, is as if the Allies in World War II had been as culpable as the Japanese and the Germans.

Surprise! EU and New Israel Fund NGOs Central to UNHRC Lawfare Attack

...European government funding enables these NGOs, as does funding from private foundations such as the New Israel Fund (NIF). Without the financial support and public backing from their donors, these fringe advocacy organizations would not have a platform to disseminate their propaganda.

NGO Monitor..
22 June '15..

The report of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the 2014 Gaza War, headed by William Schabas and then Mary McGowan Davis after the former’s resignation over his undisclosed paid work for the PLO, quotes extensively from biased and unreliable political advocacy non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Although these groups lack credibility and do not employ professional fact-finding standards, the COI repeated the NGOs’ unverifiable factual claims and allegations of Israeli “war crimes.”

European government funding enables these NGOs, as does funding from private foundations such as the New Israel Fund (NIF). Without the financial support and public backing from their donors, these fringe advocacy organizations would not have a platform to disseminate their propaganda.

An initial review of the “Report of the detailed findings of the independent commission of inquiry established pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution S-21/1” shows that the unverified claims of NGOs were referenced, cited, and quoted at a high volume, in contrast to accepted international fact-finding standards:

(Read Full Report)

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A Report That Leaves No Room for Israeli Self-Defense

...In the end, the UNHRC report does nothing to clarify how nations should conduct wars. But it does tell us everything we need to know about the need for civilized nations to cease supporting an agency that purports to speak in the name of human rights but instead bolsters hate.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
22 June '15..

After months of anticipation, the report by the United Nations Human Rights Council about last summer’s Gaza war is out today and its contents are no surprise. While the UNHRC acknowledged that Hamas’s indiscriminate firing of rockets and missiles at Israeli cities and towns were acts of terrorism, it concentrated most of its fire on Israel’s attempts to defend its territory and citizens. The UNHRC not only described Israeli actions as “disproportionate and indiscriminate” but also considers the blockade of Gaza to be a violation of Palestinian human rights and should be investigated by the International Criminal Court. But while the toll of Palestinian civilian deaths was a tragedy, the UN Gaza war report is predictably skewed not just in terms of its mischaracterization of what were, in fact, highly restrictive rules of engagement that often put Israel Defense Forces personnel in danger, but also seeming to grant Hamas impunity to wage a terror war against Israel’s existence. In effect, what the UNHRC is doing is to create rules that allow Hamas to hide amid a civilian population, using them as human shields, and then to claim those trying to stop terror are the real criminals. The United States must not only reject this dangerous precedent, but it ought to withdraw from a biased UN agency that seems to exist largely to single out the Jewish state for unfair treatment.

The UNHRC takes the view that the large number of Palestinians who were killed by Israeli fire around or in their homes is, almost by definition, proof that the IDF misbehaved. Just as wrongheaded is the claim that Israel’s efforts to warn Palestinians to leave specific areas or even specific structures is insufficient to ward off charges of war crimes. But as this feature by Willy Stern published this month by the Weekly Standard shows, the legal process by which IDF strikes are approved is geared toward saving civilian lives goes beyond any notion of what international law requires. Indeed, the Israeli rules, which often endanger Israeli soldiers and allow terrorists to escape simply because of the possibility that civilians might be harmed, are such that they go well beyond the practices what other Western nations, including the United States in its conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq observe.

But when one boils down the UN report to its essentials, it comes to this: The only sort of Israeli action in Gaza that might pass the HRC’s test would be if Israeli soldiers knocked on every door and politely asked if there were any terrorists there and then left if they were told there weren’t. The fact that Hamas deliberately fires its rockets amid and from civilian structures places those in those buildings in harm’s way. Israel tries to warn civilians to leave and even goes to extreme measures such as firing duds at buildings in order to get noncombatants to evacuate them. But Hamas made it clear to civilians that those fleeing the fighting would be considered collaborators if they didn’t stay put. That’s a death threat that Gazans rightly treat as more worrisome than the prospect of being caught in a firefight involving the Israelis. The UNHRC standard is damaging to Israel, but it also hurts the Palestinians since it effectively leaves them at the mercy of the Islamist tyrants that have seized control of Gaza.