{"id":3817,"date":"2013-01-30T09:38:08","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T09:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=3817"},"modified":"2013-01-30T09:38:08","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T09:38:08","slug":"israel-ignores-un-human-rights-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=3817","title":{"rendered":"Israel ignores UN human rights review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Israel has boycotted the UN human rights forum over fears of scrutiny of its treatment of residents of the occupied territories. Israel is now the first state in history to win a deferment of the periodical review of its human rights record.<\/p>\n

Tel Aviv has refused to send a delegation on Tuesday to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva for the Universal Periodic Review procedure where UN member states have their human rights record evaluated every four years.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s cooperation with the council stopped last March after the UN set up a committee to inspect the effects of the Israeli settlements on Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Israel which earlier accused the United Nations of anti-Israel bias reiterated its stance, recalling that the council has passed more resolutions against Israel than all other countries combined.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a series of votes and statements and incidents we have decided to suspend our working relations with that body,\u201d <\/em>Yigal Palmor, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, told the Financial Times. \u201cI can confirm that there is no change in that policy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been more resolutions condemning Israel than the rest of the world put together,\u201d<\/em> an Israeli government official said on Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019s not a fair game \u2013 it\u2019s not even a game.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Following the Israeli decision, the council has decided to postpone its review until no later than November.<\/p>\n

The Council president has also called on the body to adopt a draft response to an unprecedented move by Israel.<\/p>\n

Egypt\u2019s representative meanwhile has warned that a \u201csoft\u201d approach would create a dangerous precedent and leave \u201ca wide-open door for more cases of non-cooperation,\u201d<\/em> the AFP quoted.<\/p>\n

Activist groups lash out against Israel\u2019s disregard for international law.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy not participating in its own review, Israel is setting a dangerous precedent,\u201d<\/em> Eilis Ni Chaithnia, an advocacy officer with al-Haq, a human rights organisation based in Ramallah has told the FT. \u201cThis is the first time any country has made a determined effort not to attend.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Others thought that the council\u2019s decision to delay gives Tel Aviv the opportunity to make amends. Eight Israeli human rights organizations issued a statement saying, \u201cIsrael now has a golden opportunity to reverse its decision not to participate,\u201d<\/em> adding “it is legitimate for Israel to express criticism of the work of the Council and its recommendations, but Israel should do so through engagement with the Universal Periodic Review, as it has done in previous sessions,”<\/em> JTA quotes.<\/p>\n

The investigation into Israel\u2019s Human Rights record began in 2007, but last year the UN started to pay particular attention to Israel\u2019s activities in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

The probe at the time prompted an angry response from the country\u2019s leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a hypocritical council with an automatic majority against Israel,\u201d<\/em> Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.<\/p>\n

Senior Israeli officials announced last month that Israel does not intend to cancel plans to accelerate settlement construction.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu himself said in an interview with Israeli Channel 2 last month that the disputed area \u201cis not occupied territory\u201d <\/em>and that he \u201cdoes not care\u201d<\/em> what the UN thinks about it.<\/p>\n

Around 500,000 Israelis and 2.4 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, areas that, along with Gaza, the Palestinians want for a future state.<\/p>\n

The United Nations regards all Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal. Tel Aviv last attended the human rights review in 2008. Israel is not a member of the Council, which is comprised of 47 UN member states. – RT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israel has boycotted the UN human rights forum over fears of scrutiny of its treatment of residents of the occupied territories. Israel is now the first state in history to win a deferment of the periodical review of its human rights record. Tel Aviv has refused to send a delegation on Tuesday to the United … Continue reading “Israel ignores UN human rights review”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[164,178,1415,2484,2485],"class_list":["post-3817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-apartheid","tag-israel","tag-un","tag-united-nations-human-rights-council","tag-universal-periodic-review"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/israelworld.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3817"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3820,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3817\/revisions\/3820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}