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PortugueseYet another UN agency issues a biased and false report, this time accusing Israel of establishing an apartheid regime.
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon condemned a report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) that accuses Israel of establishing an “apartheid regime.”
The report, titled “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid: Palestine and the Israeli Occupation,” was produced by Princeton Professor Emeritus Richard Falk, the UN’s former Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Palestine, and American political scientist Virginia Tilley of Southern Illinois University.
Both have a long history of anti-Israel activism. “The world is slouching towards nothing less than a Palestinian Holocaust,” Falk said in 2013.
The report “concludes, on the basis of overwhelming evidence, that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid, and urges swift action to oppose and end it.”
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, when asked about the report, said it was published without any prior consultations with the UN Secretariat and its views do not reflect those of the secretary-general.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said the US is outraged by the report and suggested it be withdrawn.
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon tweeted the report should not be read “without anti-nausea pills.”
‘A Blatant Lie’
“The attempt to smear and falsely label the only true democracy in the Middle East by creating a false analogy is despicable and constitutes a blatant lie,” Danon charged.
ESCWA, based in Beirut, is currently under the leadership of Rima Khalaf, a Kuwait-born Jordanian diplomat who former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor has accused of “modern-day anti-Semitism.”
In the summer of 2015, Prosor met Carmen Lapointe, head of the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services, calling for a disciplinary hearing against Khalaf, AP reported at the time. Prosor told Lapointe that “Khalaf has abused her position in order to promote an anti-Israel agenda in a flagrant violation of UN obligations and principles.”
“It comes as no surprise that an organization headed by an individual who has called for boycotts against Israel and compared our democracy to the most terrible regimes of the 20th century would publish such a report,” Danon stated. “We call on the secretary-general to disassociate the UN from this biased and deceitful report.”
Report Negates Facts
In a region of dictatorships and theocracies, Israel has established one of the most robust and free democracies in the world, safeguarding the rights of Jews, Muslims and Christians, and ensuring that its Arab citizens enjoy full and equal rights before the law.
Anyone living in Israel knows Arabs are employed by and receive service at all government offices. They study at all universities, including Ariel University in Samaria, and serve as judges, IDF officers, and parliamentarians.
Consider an ordinary act, such as traveling on an Israeli public bus. The bus driver is very likely to be an Arab and many of the passengers as well, and there is a high chance an Arab will in line for a snack at any random eatery or corner store.
Approximately 20 percent of Israel’s eight million citizens are Arabs. According to the Israeli Democracy Index of 2014, 65 percent are proud to be Israeli.
By: United with Israel Staff
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