05 April, 2005
NGOs TARGET ISRAEL AT
UNCHR MEETING
The 61st Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, which took place in Geneva
from 14 March to 22 April 2005, was again characterized by intense political
attacks focused against Israel, despite the warnings of UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan and UN
Human Rights High Commissioner Louise Arbour. The UNCHR, however, continued
the past practice of singling out "Israel and the Palestinian
territories" as a separate
agenda item ("Question of the violation of human rights in the
occupied Arab territories, including Palestine") in addition to Agenda Item 5 - "The
right of peoples to self-determination and its application to peoples under
colonial or alien domination or foreign occupation". The UNCHR's failure to condemn
Palestinian terror and its assaults against Israel were analyzed in detail by
UN Watch.
In the process, the NGO network was particularly active, and its biased
reports and rhetoric was echoed in the Commission's discussions and
resolutions. The Palestinian NGO Al-Haq, a
participant at the 2001
Durban conference, joined with the International Federation for Human Rights
(FIDH) and the World
Organization Against Torture (OMCT) to condemn "numerous forms of
collective punishment", the "devastating system of checkpoints and
other movement restrictions", and the "construction of the Annexation
Wall". This submission criticizes
only Israel while failing to acknowledge Palestinian violence. The
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) also continued its anti-Israel
emphasis, criticizing "excessive use of force, indiscriminate killing of
civilians" and the security barrier. The ICJ, did, however, condemn
Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians, marking a change for
this NGO.
Save the
Children, while refraining from using intemperate language to criticize
Israel, failed to acknowledge Israeli security concerns when referring to
restrictions on movement and protection of children's rights. Similarly,
ignoring the context behind Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip, the highly
partisan Habitat
International Coalition and Al-Mezan
(a recipient of Swiss and Dutch governmental funding) condemned
"Israel's systematic and aggravated violations of Palestinian civilians'
right to adequate housing" while endorsing the standard Palestinian
political demand "for the immediate deployment of an international
protection force in the region". Israelis, in these reports, appear to
have no human rights.
Demonstrating an amoral equivalence between Palestinian terrorism and
Israeli self-defense operations, Medecins du
Monde called on both Israel and the PA to prevent attacks against
civilians. This NGO also referred to the "mental
and physical suffering of Palestinians" caused by Israel's security
barrier and checkpoints, while ignoring Israeli suffering in the face of terrorist
acts.
Employing the language of extremism and demonization, the International Organization for the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD) referred to
Israel's "war crimes", "ethnic cleansing policy", and
"Jenin massacres", while claiming that the "apartheid
practiced against the Palestinian people is worse than the former South African
one".
Major NGOs such as Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch
did not participate in this session of the Commission's activities, instead,
questioning the credibility of the UNCHR as a whole. Amnesty referred to "The selectivity and
double standards that characterize the Commission's approach to addressing
country situations", while HRW expressed "the need to
scrap the Commission and replace it with something new and better".
HRW also called on the UNCHR to halt the neglect of "abuses by Palestinian
armed groups" (i.e., terrorists), to actively condemn "deliberate and
indiscriminant [sic] attacks on civilians" and to demand that the
Palestinian Authority "undertake all efforts consistent with international
human rights standards to curb these attacks". However, HRW's
position was highly inconsistent, and included contentious language used to
describe Israeli anti-terror policy.