UNHRC to debate boycotting Israeli settlements

Lapid to call for end to council funding at Geneva rally

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Updated: MARCH 21, 2016 02:11
THE OPENING of the 24th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. (photo credit: (ERIC BRIDIERS/US MISSION GENEVA))
THE OPENING of the 24th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
(photo credit: (ERIC BRIDIERS/US MISSION GENEVA))
The UN Human Rights Council is set to debate on Monday a resolution that, in its initial draft, called on its member states to boycott Jewish communities over the pre-1967 lines in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
The resolution would include halting the exportation of products to UN member states as well as creating a database of all Israeli businesses over the pre-1967 lines.
This is one of five anti-Israel resolutions that the UNHRC in Geneva will discuss as part of its 31st session that ends March 24.
Four of the resolutions, including one that calls on Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria, have already been posted on the UNHRC website. The fifth one on the topic of settlements has yet to be published, however the nongovernmental group UN Watch posted a draft of the resolution.
It urged all states “to ensure that they are not taking actions that either recognize or assist the expansion of settlements or construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem.”
In the draft, the UNHRC explained that member states should be “preventing any products originating in settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem from entering their markets, consistent with their obligations under international law.”
The Foreign Ministry had no response to the UNHRC debate.
It will be held under Agenda Item 7, which mandates a debate on Israel at every council session. Israel is the only country for which there is such a mandate.
Israeli officials have refrained from addressing the UNHRC during the Agenda Item 7 debate.
But this year, a coalition of pro-Israel NGOs plan to rally outside the UNHRC building in Geneva while the debate is taking place. It includes Stand- WithUs, the World Zionist Organization, the Israel Allies Foundation and the World Union of Jewish Students.
Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid plans to address the rally and to call on UN member states to stop funding the human rights body.
“The UNHRC lost its legitimacy long ago,” he said on Sunday, as he noted that the body of 47-member states was marking its 10th anniversary this year.
“Tomorrow, the council will meet to discuss a series of anti-Israel resolutions and we will stand opposite with a show of force of hundreds of people from across Europe. We will make our voices heard.
“We will be the voice of Israel, of our soldiers, of the victims of terrorism and their families – because we cannot be silent any longer,” he said.
“In the past decade the council has condemned Israel more times than all the other countries of the world combined; that’s hypocrisy. It is an anti-Semitic organization which no longer even pretends to act according to the facts,” he said.
A spokesman for the Yesh Atid party said that since the council’s inception it had issued 62 resolutions against Israel, but only 55 for other countries around the globe.
During the March session, the UNHRC had only one resolution on Syria and one on Iran.
Lapid noted that this year, the anti-Israel resolutions were being debated amid a wave of terrorism, in which Palestinians were executing almost daily attacks against Israelis.
“The UN is giving backing to the murders instead of the victims.
I’m traveling to Geneva because I believe that we should stand up of our rights. I believe that we have every reason to be proud of Israel and our soldiers,” he said.
But the five resolutions on Israel and the Palestinians, filed by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, spoke of Israel as the aggressor and the Palestinians as the victim.
The resolution draft on the settlements called on Israel to reverse its settlement policy in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. New settlers should not be allowed to move to the West Bank nor should natural growth be permissible, the resolution stated.
It added that the UNHRC did not recognize the Israeli status of “state land” in the West Bank and called on it to stop expropriating Palestinian property and to stop dumping “waste materials in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and the occupied Syrian Golan.”
Any construction plans for the unbuilt area of the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement, known as E-1, should be discarded, and “all [business] operations that aid in the establishment or maintenance of settlements” should be suspended, it said.
In addition, it stipulated that the database on settlement businesses should be updated annually.
Another resolution called on Israel to halt its demolitions of unauthorized Palestinian structures and homes, particularly in the South Hebron Hills, the Jordan Valley and the areas around Jerusalem. It also said Israel should “facilitate the return of those Palestinian communities already subjected to forcible transfer or eviction to their original dwellings and to ensure adequate housing.”
The UNHRC on Monday will also hears reports on Israeli actions over the pre-1967 lines compiled by the UN secretary- general and the high commissioner for human rights.
Gil Hoffman contributed to this report.