Israel refuses to work with UNHRC

ISRAEL vowed this week to cut ties with the United Nation’s human rights watchdog, after the body promised to probe the effects of the settlements on Palestinian human rights.

Last Thursday, the United Nations Human Rights Council   voted to dispatch a fact-finding mission to the West Bank. As well as boycotting the body, Israel will stop the mission from reaching Palestinian areas via its territory. It is also considering action against the Palestinian Authority, which ­initiated the probe.

“The mandate has already found us guilty and the judges are just deciding how harsh the sentence should be,” a senior Foreign Ministry official told The AJN.

But Palestinian officials said the probe will bring to light real results about the day-to-day impact of the settlements on Palestinian human rights. “It’s not about publicity but about holding the occupier responsible for its acts,” Ashraf Khatib, spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) told The AJN.

The Israeli official claimed that the Human Rights Council is overstepping the boundaries of its role by meddling in ­politics under the guise of a human rights agenda. In his view, this justifies the decision to cut ties with the body.

This is not the first time that Israel has refused to cooperate with a UN probe. In 2009, it famously gave the cold shoulder to an investigation into the Gaza war, leading the investigation’s chair, Richard Goldstone, to later suggest that Israel brought some of the report’s harsh criticism on itself by doing so.

Laura Dupuy Lasserre, president of the Human Rights Council, intimated that Israel’s noncooperation this time could have the same effect, saying in a statement that “it is in the interest of Israel to cooperate … not least so that it can explain its own policies and actions”.

But the Israeli official said that “the idea that all the information was not available to Goldstone and the commission is absurd”. He claimed that the criticism in the final Goldstone Report “vindicated” the Israeli boycott – and proves that the decision not to cooperate with the upcoming report is justified.

As the international community criticises Israel’s response to the probe, in the settlements there are claims that it has acted too mildly.

Dani Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council, the main umbrella body for settlers, told The AJN: “The Israeli response shouldn’t just be defensive, but also win the diplomatic war by responding to the diplomatic aggression of the Palestinians by applying full sovereignty [over the settlements].”