EXCLUSIVE — Legal Coalition: U.N. Probe ‘Unprecedented Assault’ on Israel

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay gives a press conference on December 2,
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty
Deborah Brand

A global coalition of more than 25 organizations on Tuesday released a report outlining why a United Nations probe against Israel was “singularly unprecedented, unjust and completely lacking in impartiality or any legal basis,” and called for its chair, anti-Israel Navi Pillay, to recuse herself.

Pillay (pictured) was appointed in July by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to head the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into alleged Israeli human rights abuses. The commissions creation, which is the highest level of any U.N. rights investiagtion, came in the wake of the 11-day conflict with Hamas in May 2021.

Tuesday’s report, led by the International Legal Forum (ILF) and titled Fixed Inquiry: The Biased UN Commission Against Israel,  notes that at the UNHRC resolution establishing the Commission did not even mention the Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group, the 4,500 rockets launched at Israel during that war, or Israel’s right to self-defense.

The Commission, which is slated to release its findings in June, will “unjustly single out the Jewish state for condemnation, whilst giving a free pass to Palestinian terror groups, which just launched a fresh wave of violence, killing at least 18 Israelis since March this year,” the report noted.

“Moreover, the Commission will have an absurd open-ended carte blanche to investigate Israel in perpetuity, including before even its establishment in 1948,” it added.

Pillay, a vocal supporter of boycotts against Israel, has a history of hostility towards the country, referring to it as an “apartheid regime” and accusing it of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.”

Pillay has also had ties with organizations and individuals affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is designated as a terror group by the US, EU, Canada, Israel and others.

“In any civilized Court of Law, Pillay would never have been appointed as Chair, due to her extreme bias against Israel, or have had to recuse herself.

Kurt Zindulka / Breitbart News

However, at the United Nations, you get rewarded and promoted for being openly hostile and biased against Israel,” human rights lawyer and CEO of ILF Arsen Ostrovsky told Breibart.

 Navi’s appointment as chair “makes a complete farce of the UNHRC’s own rules and guidelines on Commissions of Inquiry, which require ‘a proven record of independence and impartiality’, something which Pillay demonstrably lacks, and as a result, ought to recuse herself immediately,” he said.
Calling the U.N. inquiry a “sham,” Ostrovsky said it “underscores the Human Rights Council’s deep seated, relentless and systematic discrimination against Israel, which bordered on obsessive Jew hatred.”

“There are three things certain in life: death, taxes and that any U.N. commission or inquiry against Israel will presume the Jewish state guilty from the outset,” he quipped.

As the report notes, a large number of bi-partisan Members of Congress have already written to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, expressing grave concerns about the bias of the Commission and it’s discriminatory singling out of Israel. 

“Instead of the UNHRC focusing its attention on actual pressing human rights abuses around the world, it is, yet again, squandering millions of dollars and resources to continue its relentless obsession with Israel, and in the process, undermining the Council’s own credibility, while obstructing peace in the region and only fueling further antisemitism around the world,” Ostrovsky said.

 

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