Israel has severed contact with the United Nations Human Rights Council after its launch last week of an international investigation into Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The decision means that the fact-finding team the council planned to send to the West Bank will not be allowed to enter the territory or Israel, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor. “We are not working with them any more,” Mr. Palmor said about the Geneva-based forum.
“We had been participating in meetings, discussions, arranging visits to Israel. All that is over.”
He added, “There won’t be working relations with them, conversations, passing papers, making visits, exchanging information, consulting one another, attending meetings. That’s work, and it will not take place.”
The international investigation was launched on Thursday, with the United States isolated in voting against the initiative brought by the Palestinian Authority.
Continued:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Israeli leaders swiftly condemned the UN body, saying it was hypocritical and biased toward Israel.
“They systematically and serially make all kinds of decisions and condemnations against Israel without even symbolically considering our positions,” Mr. Palmor said.
He said Israel would continue to co-operate with other UN bodies.
The president of the UN Human Rights Council Laura Dupuy Lasserre said she had seen media reports of Israel’s reaction and, if confirmed, it would be “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 said in a statement.
Asked by Reuters to comment further, she said recent history showed Israel would not stop the fact-finding mission from gathering information by deciding not to cooperate with it, even if it could not physically gain access to the West Bank or Israel.
“The most recent example of refusal to cooperate is Syria, which did not permit either the Human Rights Council mandated Fact-finding Mission or the Commission of Inquiry to enter the country.
“On the other hand, in the case of the other two Commissions of Inquiry that took place in 2011, both Libya and Cote d’Ivoire did cooperate, and allowed the Commissioners to visit.”
As in the Syrian mission, the investigation would have to resort to other sources of information if denied access.
“Unfortunately, the image of Israel would be damaged in a moment of high expectations in the peace negotiations,“ she said. ” I can’t emphasize strongly enough that it is my hope and wish we won’t come to that path.”
Last Thursday, the council passed a resolution deciding to “dispatch an independent, international, fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council, to 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.”
Critics dubbed the investigation Goldstone II — a reference to the highly controversial 2009 Goldstone Report examining the 2008-09 Gaza War.
"It means that we're not going to work with them. We're not going to let them carry out any kind of mission for the Human Rights Council, including this probe," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.
I wonder how far they'll actually go in regards to blocking the probe this time. Israel just doesn't seem to give a what anyone thinks anymore. Well, they never really did, but now they really don't seem to care. How can this be good for Israel by continuing to finger the world?
Last edited by YukonTrooper; March 27, 2012 at 01:14 AM.
Once a political decision has been reached to proceed with internal disturbances in Syria, CIA is prepared, and SIS (MI6) will attempt to mount minor sabotage and coup de main [sic] incidents within Syria, working through contacts with individuals. Incidents should not be concentrated in Damascus. [A] necessary degree of fear, [...] frontier incidents and [staged] border clashes [will] provide a pretext for intervention. The CIA and SIS should use [...] capabilities in both psychological and action fields to augment tension. [Funding should be provided for a] Free Syria Committee [and arms should be supplied to] political factions with paramilitary or other actionist capabilities. ~ Joint US-UK leaked Intelligence Document, 1957
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
Originally Posted by YukonTrooper
How can this be good for Israel by continuing to finger the world?
Maybe the world likes it. As long as it's consensual I don't see the problem.
Originally Posted by Enros
You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
I am not exactly on a side in the whole Israel affair, but i am afraid that they are trying to hide something the rest of the world is not supposed to see.
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
''Human Rights'' Council is notoriously controlled by third world Human Rights abusers, most of which are Islamic countries that make sure the focus is on Israel almost exclusively.
Hard to disagree with Israel this time.
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
Originally Posted by Basil II the B.S
''Human Rights'' Council is notoriously controlled by third world Human Rights abusers, most of which are Islamic countries that make sure the focus is on Israel almost exclusively.
Hard to disagree with Israel this time.
Nope. Israel ensures that the focus remains on itself by loudly supporting illegal settlements which piece and parcel the land that would otherwise become part of a Palestinian state. This blocking/cutting-off is an act of censorship.
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
Originally Posted by Basil II the B.S
''Human Rights'' Council is notoriously controlled by third world Human Rights abusers, most of which are Islamic countries that make sure the focus is on Israel almost exclusively.
Hard to disagree with Israel this time.
2012 Human Rights Council members are repped by these countries this year.
Bangladesh Belgium Cameroon China Cuba Djibouti Hungary Jordan Kyrgyzstan Mauritius Mexico Nigeria Norway Russian Federation Saudi Arabia Senegal United States of America Uruguay
It rotates every year but not all countries are third world countries as you can see. But the one country who has most at stake in the west bank is jordan. So I am guessing they are the ones spear heading this probe. But Israel can not pull out just because they think they are being picked on. It makes them look extremely guilty. If they have nothing to hide then let the HRC DO THEIR THING. But who knows maybe there is some violations of human rights goin on there. Like military raids or even such things as far as bulldozers crushing houses with ppl still in them but no one will ever know if there is no probe. Now in no way am I saying this stuff is actually goin on, it is all hear say. Roughly 1.7 million ppl in the west bank and only 300k are israels. The probe is for the other 1.4 million ppl.
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
Originally Posted by xUSAxNattador
2012 Human Rights Council members are repped by these countries this year.
Bangladesh Belgium Cameroon China Cuba Djibouti Hungary Jordan Kyrgyzstan Mauritius Mexico Nigeria Norway Russian Federation Saudi Arabia Senegal United States of America Uruguay
I think you’ve sort of proved Basil’s point. Cameroon, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Jordan, the Russian Federation, and Saudi Arabia all have terrible human rights records. Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Nigeria, and Senegal aren’t so great either.
Originally Posted by Enros
You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
Originally Posted by xUSAxNattador
2012 Human Rights Council members are repped by these countries this year.
Bangladesh Belgium Cameroon China Cuba Djibouti Hungary Jordan Kyrgyzstan Mauritius Mexico Nigeria Norway Russian Federation Saudi Arabia Senegal United States of America Uruguay
It rotates every year but not all countries are third world countries as you can see. But the one country who has most at stake in the west bank is jordan. So I am guessing they are the ones spear heading this probe. But Israel can not pull out just because they think they are being picked on. It makes them look extremely guilty. If they have nothing to hide then let the HRC DO THEIR THING. But who knows maybe there is some violations of human rights goin on there. Like military raids or even such things as far as bulldozers crushing houses with ppl still in them but no one will ever know if there is no probe. Now in no way am I saying this stuff is actually goin on, it is all hear say. Roughly 1.7 million ppl in the west bank and only 300k are israels. The probe is for the other 1.4 million ppl.
This is essentially a matter of how facts are presented. Media that oppose Israel (generally the left-wing oriented) will omit the composition of the Council to make Israel look bad and mislead the public.
But then again, people who follow those media probably already have a negative opinion about Israel and it's not going to change much. For anyone with an unbiased opinion on the matter, reading that Israel disagrees at being condemned on human rights issues by China and Saudi Arabia would look quite reasonable instead.
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
Originally Posted by eidius
so because there are some worse countries out there lets not do anything about it? yea that sounds really productive.
No one knows what you're talking about.
------
Pagins:
America's presence in the UNHRC hasn't stopped the following from happening (from Le Wiki):
As of 2010, Israel had been condemned in 32 resolutions by the Council since its creation in 2006. The 32 resolutions comprised 48.1% of all resolutions passed by the Council.[42]By April 2007, the Council had passed nine resolutions condemning Israel, the only country which it had specifically condemned.[43]*Toward*Sudan, a country with human rights abuses as documented by the Council's working groups, it has expressed "deep concern.".[43]The council voted on 30 June 2006 to make a review of alleged human rights abuses byIsrael*a permanent feature of every council session. The Council's special rapporteur on the*Israeli-Palestinian conflict*is its only expert mandate with no year of expiry. The resolution, which was sponsored by*Organisation of the Islamic Conference, passed by a vote of 29 to 12 with five abstentions.*Human Rights Watch*urged it to look at international human rights and humanitarian law violations committed by*Palestinianarmed groups as well. Human Rights Watch called on the Council to avoid the selectivity that discredited its predecessor and urged it to hold special sessions on other urgent situations, such as that in*Darfur.[44]
Israel has no reason whatsoever to believe anything good for them would come from an organization obsessed with condemning them.
Last edited by s.rwitt; March 28, 2012 at 12:11 PM.
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
Israel shouldn't boycott thing's like this, it just makes them look worse. Perhaps not people who realise the UNHRC might not be all it seems, but to most people on the street, it has the words Human rights in, and therefore must be a good thing.
Now Israel will have no real defense against any false claims made by the UNHRC, and they can just claim Israel never showed the case to be otherwise. In an alternative situation they could say, 'well, we showed you wrong, here, here and here'. Now they have to remain stocily silent.
90% of teens would die today if facebook was destroyed. if you are one of the 10% that would be laughing, copy and paste this to your signature.
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
america's support can only go so far. and they day will come when even america will have enough of them.
the problem with israel is that in its current iteration it is practically a terrorist state. it should either be reformed along more democratic principles or disbanded, or whatever the israeli citizens think is best. but the status quo is becoming intolerable for a lot people and if not corrected it might lead to future backlash against all jews, not just their despotic politicians.
Last edited by florin87; March 27, 2012 at 03:35 AM.
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
Originally Posted by florin87
the problem with israel is that in its current iteration it is practically a terrorist state. it should either be reformed along more democratic principles or disbanded, or whatever the israeli citizens think is best.
You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.
Re: Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
Originally Posted by Sir Pignans
Israel shouldn't boycott thing's like this, it just makes them look worse. Perhaps not people who realise the UNHRC might not be all it seems, but to most people on the street, it has the words Human rights in, and therefore must be a good thing.
So they should just bend over to the BS and thats going to make it better. The only people who would think this looks bad already have made up their mind.
Originally Posted by MathiasOfAthens
Israel is so stupid.
See?
"When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like Fidel Castro, not screaming in terror, like his victims."
Israel cuts all ties to United Nations Human Rights Council; attempts to block fact-finding mission into occupied territories
what anyone thinks anymore. Well, they never really did, but now they really don't seem to care. How can this be good for Israel by continuing to finger the world?
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Surgeon
