The so-called independent Commission of Inquiry (COI) was established by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Despite claims that it would be “impartial” and examine allegations from both Israelis and Palestinians, the COI opened its five days of hearings with an inflammatory statement from the Al-Haq group.
Al-Haq is among 6 organizations Israel deemed as terrorist last year.
The group’s General Director, Shawan Jabarin, denied the terrorism charge and called the closure an “arbitrary decision,” while accusing Israeli security forces of using “mafia methods” against it in a years-long harassment campaign.
“They used all means, I can say. They used financial means; they used a smear campaign; they used threats,” he said, saying his office was sealed with a metal door on 18 August.
Israel has dismissed the process overseen by the panel as a sham, and has declined comment on the specific allegations.
“This (COI) and the convening of these sham trials shame and undermine the Human Rights Council,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) declared in an earlier statement, saying the commission had an “anti-Israel” agenda.
The MFA rejected an 18-page UNHRC report released last June, entitled: “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem and Israel,” as the first of what it said will be an annual report to the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“It is a biased and one-sided report tainted with hatred for the State of Israel and based on a long series of previous one-sided and biased reports,” said the Israeli ministry, stressing that, “the report disregards years of murderous terrorism by Palestinian terrorist organizations against Israeli citizens, as well as the Palestinians’ long-standing obstinacy and the vicious and antisemitic incitement carried out by the Palestinian Authority and its networks.”
Insisting that it “ignored the real reasons that led Israel to defend its citizens against the murderous terrorist organizations that are committing a double war crime: firing at Israeli civilians from within civilian areas in the Gaza Strip,” the MFA condemned both the COI and its brief as “the result of the Human Rights Council’s extreme anti-Israel bias.”
Moreover, “the Commission members, who claim to be objective, were only appointed to their roles because of their public and well-known anti-Israel stances, in direct opposition to the rules set out by the United Nations,” stated the MFA, while emphasizing that, “The State of Israel will continue to protect its citizens in accordance with the highest international values and standards.”
No comments:
Post a Comment