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Foreign Minister Liberman joined Prime Minister Netanyahu in lashing out against the UN Human Rights Council for showing anti-Israel bias.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman stated on Monday that the United Nation Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a political body dominated by countries that are hostile to Israel and that violate human rights in their own countries on a regular basis. The Commission of Inquiry set up by the Council to examine the alleged war crimes committed by Israel during Operation Protective Edge is a committee guided only by its own hypocrisy and the slandering of Israel, he declared.
Liberman made the statement during a meeting with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Al-Hussein of Jordan, at UN headquarters in New York.
Liberman and Zaid discussed the working relationship between Israel and the Commission. The Israeli foreign minister said there is a fundamental difference between the conduct of the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) and that of the Human Rights Council, adding that Israel would not cooperate with the politicized and anti-Israel UNHRC.
“Its conclusions are known in advance; they are not related to any reality. The Commission is headed by William Schabas, who has no interest in the study of truth, but only in the defamation of Israel,” Liberman said.
Israel is prepared to cooperate with any fair and professional UN committees and is willing to present the pertinent facts, he explained. However, with regard to the current committee, working with them “is pointless.”
Motivated by the World’s Oldest Prejudices
PM Netanyahu shows UN members a news photo proving Hamas’s use of human shields. (Photo: Avi Ohayon/GPO)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced harsh criticism of the UNHRC earlier on Monday during his address at the UN General Assembly. “By investigating Israel rather than Hamas for war crimes, the UN Human Rights Council has betrayed its noble mission to protect the innocent. In fact, what it’s doing is to turn the laws of war upside-down. Israel, which took unprecedented steps to minimize civilian casualties, Israel is condemned. Hamas, which both targeted and hid behind civilians – that a double war crime – Hamas is given a pass.”
Netanyahu further stressed that through its conduct, the Human Rights Council condones the use of civilians as human shields. “By granting international legitimacy to the use of human shields, the UN’s Human Rights Council has thus become a Terrorist Rights Council, and it will have repercussions.”
It’s an issue of universal values, said Netanyahu, “It’s not just our values that are under attack. It’s your interests and your values.”
To prove how biased the UNHRC is, Netanyahu pointed out that nearly half of the UNHRC’s resolutions focus only on Israel and are directed against the Jewish state, while they completely ignore war, strife and atrocities committed around the globe.
“The Council’s biased treatment of Israel is only one manifestation of the return of the world’s oldest prejudices,” he declared, alluding to anti-Semitism.
Kangaroo Court
The UNHRC established an International Commission of Inquiry into human rights violations and war crimes allegedly committed by both Israel and Hamas during Operation Protective Edge in mid-August. The commission is headed by William Schabas, who is well-known for his anti-Israel stance. He had previously called for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former president Shimon Peres to stand trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes.
Israel dismissed the inquiry as a “kangaroo court” and said it will not cooperate with the investigation.
Author: Aryeh Savir
Staff Writer, United with Israel
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