07/02/2022
ALERT from CAMERA (COMMITTEE FOR ACCURACY IN MIDDLE EAST REPORTING AND ANALYSIS)
Israel Needs Your Support at the UN Now
February 7, 2022
The UN Human Rights Council is once again targeting Israel — but you can help.
After the eleven-day war initiated by the terrorist organization Hamas in May of 2021, the UNHRC created an open-ended “Commission of Inquiry” (COI), with unprecedented resources and staffing and an indefinite mandate. The resolution creating the COI was organized by states known to be hostile to Israel, and the investigatory body is comprised of individuals known to be biased.
Worse, the COI’s mandate calls for an examination of the “root causes” of the conflict. Considering the three commissioners appointed to the COI are known anti-Israel activists, the conclusion is all but written in stone, and it is widely believed that the report, expected in June of this year, will delegitimize the Jewish State and seek to re-litigate the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their indigenous homeland. It is also expected that the COI will take advantage of recent slanderous reports from groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem to label Israel as an “apartheid” state.
The COI has put out a “call for submissions,” expecting that the usual anti-Israel organizations and individuals will provide it with the language and libels to aid in its effort to slander the Jewish State. But anyone, from professionals to students, individuals to large organizations, is allowed to make such submissions — including you!
Further information from CAMERA about the bias of the Commissioners will be forthcoming. For now, we ask all of our friends and supporters to make submissions to the COI following the guidelines below.
The purpose of sending submissions is to publicly expose the nature of the COI as a “kangaroo court.” This is why, for example, we strongly encourage you to send us copies of your submissions. We can add them to public repositories, which will be used to demonstrate to the world the evidence and information the COI refused to consider. While not required, we also encourage you to add in your introductory paragraph language explaining that you consider the COI process to be inherently flawed, illegitimate, and political.
Please create your own submission rather than forwarding this Alert to the COI.
Please prepare a short submission to the UN’s COI – using the guidelines below – and encourage your friends, family members, and synagogue Israel-action groups to do the same. Then turn in your submission to the four places designated below. While the COI isn’t expected to release its report until June, for practical reasons, we encourage you to have your submissions sent by February 28.
Guidelines: The COI states that submissions can be made on one or more of five topics. The three most relevant for our purposes are listed here. Ensure that at the beginning of your submission, you clearly identify which of the topics your submission fits under.
• “Underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict in and between the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel; as well as systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity.”
• “Facts and circumstances regarding alleged violations of international humanitarian law and alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since 13 April 2021.”
• “Identification of those responsible.”
Below we’ve provided a number of articles that you can simply copy and paste into your submission with attribution – simply add an introductory paragraph at the top identifying yourself and briefly explaining the relevance of your submission. Beyond the suggested articles, feel free to select other articles, reports, books, photos, maps, or other documentary evidence. Any length is acceptable, even just one page.
• Sheikh Jarrah: The Facts, by Alex Safian, PhD, May 13, 2021 (Topic: Underlying root causes of recurrent tensions).
• Understanding the Current Sheikh Jarrah (Jerusalem) Property Dispute, by Professor Avi Bell, May 9, 2021 (Topic: Underlying root causes of recurrent tensions).
• Backgrounder: New Hamas Platform, by CAMERA, June 9, 2017. (Topic: Underlying root causes of recurrent tensions).
• How Many Gaza Palestinians Were Killed by Hamas Rockets in May? An Estimate by Alex Safian, PhD, June 27, 2021 (Topic: Identification of those responsible).
• Tweet by Defense for Children International, Palestine, reports two children and six adults killed by “a homemade rocket fired by a Palestinian armed group.” (Topic: Identification of those responsible).
• Hamas, Not Israel, Violated International Humanitarian Law, by Samuel Estreicher and Julian G. Ku, June 10, 2021 (Reprinted here.) (Topic: Alleged violations of international law).
• Media Must Improve Conflict Coverage, by Geoffrey Corn, July 9, 2021 (Topic: Alleged violations of international law).
You may want to include a sentence about the legitimacy of the process. Here is some sample language to consider:
The creation of this Commission of Inquiry is based on flawed and politicized processes and serves as a bigoted attack on the Jewish State, applying standards not used for any other Member State. Provided below is evidence that contradicts the predetermined conclusions of this Commission and the Human Rights Council.
WHERE to send your submissions: It is important to send your submissions to four places.
• Email a copy to the UN Secretariat at [email protected]
• Upload your submission to the UN COI’s “cloud” at https://owncloud.unog.ch/s/eYqkCWdqgMUqFTs
• Send us a copy at [email protected]
• Send a copy to Human Rights Voices at [email protected]
More detailed instructions on submissions can be found here. For any questions, please contact David Litman at [email protected]
To forward this Alert to friends and family
Please don’t forward using the forward button in your email client, which could result in your being inadvertently unsubscribed from this list. Instead use this link to forward the Alert to friends and family. Using the link will not give CAMERA access to your contacts’ email addresses or add them to our list.
In the wake of Operation Guardian of the Walls, according to the Times of Israel, the UNHRC passed a resolution calling “for the creation of a permanent ‘Commission of Inquiry’ – the most potent tool at the council’s disposal – to monitor and report on rights violations in Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It would be the first such COI with an ‘ongoing’ mandate.”
The resolution, according to the Times of Israel, was organized by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a group whose 57 members include the states of Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Qatar, and of course, the “State of Palestine.” The draft of the resolution that was adopted on May 27, 2021 had been submitted by Pakistan, a country in which both Christians and the Ahmadi Muslim minority are persecuted.
Other states that are members of the Council include China, Cuba, and Venezuela – hardly exemplars of human rights.
At the time the resolution was adopted, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet admitted that Hamas fired rockets at Israeli civilians, from within densely populated areas in Gaza. Yet, the Commission almost certainly will focus mainly on Israel.
Even the Austrian ambassador, Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger, “said the session ‘continues the regrettable practice of singling out Israel for criticism in the Human Rights Council.’”
The goal, of course, is to further tie Israel’s hands and to make it even more difficult for Israel to defend itself and protect its citizens. As Anne Bayefsky, President of Human Rights Voices, wrote in JNS, “the resolution doesn’t mention Hamas, or rockets, or any civilians but Palestinians. Instead, it sets up a mechanism to destroy the modern Jewish state by criminalizing its self-defense and ravishing its economy.”
At the end of December, the UN General Assembly voted to fully fund the Commission – though notably, a bipartisan group of US Congresspeople have already urged defunding it. The make-up of the Commission shows that it cannot be independent or impartial. The head of the COI is Navi Pillay, who during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, referring to Israel’s Iron Dome, complained that “no such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling.” The absurd statement ignored that Hamas had spent tens of millions of dollars or more on subterranean tunnels but used those tunnels to protects its weapons and its leaders, while leaving its people in harm’s way. As also noted above, CAMERA will provide further background about her and the other Commissioners shortly.
In his preface to the paperback edition of his book, Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel, Joshua Muravchick wrote that in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, Israel’s enemies learned to use their numerical advantage to turn the UN into “the world’s most bully pulpit for the vilification of Israel and the engine room of anti-Israel campaigns.” We are now watching how these efforts will play out in real time, and we can’t allow them to succeed.
This is why as many submissions as possible are needed. Despite the bias of the Commissioners, the strong evidence and arguments in Israel’s favor must be put into the public record so that those who seek the truth may learn it.
You can make a difference here and now!
With thanks,
Karen Bekker
Assistant Director
Media Response Team
David Litman
Research Analyst
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