This is the UN's worst attack on Israel ever
13 January 2022

The UN Human Rights Council’s recent creation of a permanent “Commission of Inquiry” (COI) into Israel, and the General Assembly's decision to fund it, attack the very existence of the Jewish State in a way we have never witnessed. This is the worst and most violent assault by the United Nations against the sovereignty of any UN member state. It is an outrage, and must be challenged. 
 
Ever since their last failed military attack on Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Arab/Islamic world has been - purposefully and openly and in concert with Soviet/socialist countries  - manipulating the UN system to undermine the secure existence of the Jewish State of Israel. They have two primary weapons: the allegation that "Zionism is racism", and the demand for creation of a State of Palestine within the "1967 lines". 
 
To be clear – this is not about human rights of Palestinians. Many Palestinians do not want to live in an undemocratic, Islamist State of Palestine – at least not one that is at constant war with Israel. They simply want a safe and dignified life. Their voices are ignored. Time and again, since 1920 the radical Palestinian political leadership has rejected proposals that could have created a Palestinian state. The simple fact is that they refuse to accept any proposal that includes the existence of a sovereign, Jewish State. 
 
In 2012, the Arab/Islamic/Socialist world managed to procure a resolution in the UNGA granting Palestine UN “non-member observer state” status. This technical decision proved a watershed. It has been used to launch a massive campaign to demand Palestinian statehood - without agreement, conditions or limitations – covering the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, as well as the right of all 5 million so-called Palestinian refugees around the world to “return” to Israel (a non-existent right that is not claimed by any other refugees). Israel insists on the cessation of terror, and a negotiated agreement in which its security is ensured. 
 
The 2012 resolution was the basis upon which last year (2021) the International Criminal Court in The Hague decided it has power to investigate and prosecute Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the so-called Palestinian territories - even though Israel is not a part of the ICC system, and Palestine is not a state. This was a highly controversial decision; many members of the legal community saw this as a massive overreach of the Court’s mandate. 
 
The UN Human Rights Council, an organ established by the UNGA in 2006, has had an anti-Israel bias (the infamous “Agenda item 7”). There are 47 UNHRC members. Membership rotates, but at any given time most of them are not Western democracies, many of them members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). 
 
In May 2021, Hamas launched rockets on Israel, including Jerusalem. Israel responded by attacking Hamas military targets in Gaza Strip. Pakistan (on behalf of the OIC) called on the UNHRC to hold a special session to investigate Israel’s breaches of international human rights law. No mention of investigating Hamas’ blatantly illegal attacks on Israel, its use of human shields, etc. 
 
On 27^th May 2021, the Council adopted a resolution that has been described by one commentator as one of the “most outrageous ever adopted by the United Nations”. 
 
The resolution was adopted by a vote of 24 in favor – with nine against, and 14 abstentions.  More than half of the states voting in favor were Islamic states. Not a single Western democracy voted in favor of the resolution. Twenty-two of the 24 states voting in favor of the resolution are not even considered to be “fully free” democracies on the Freedom House scale.
  
The Council resolution established a permanent Commission of Inquiry that will investigate all alleged Israeli violations of international law. It has the mandate to look into all aspects of the State of Israel, including the root causes of the tensions. Perhaps most dangerously, this means it will entertain the allegation that Israel is an apartheid state – a claim made by anti-Semites like Bishop Desmond Tutu and most vociferously advanced in recent years by Human Rights Watch and supported by a myriad anti-Israel organisations and States and non-State actors. In its essence this claim questions the legitimacy of the existence of a Jewish state, by claiming that Judaism is a race, and thus a Jewish State structurally discriminates against non-Jews. 
 
The Commission has a massive budget and staff – $12 million in its first three years, and $5 million per year thereafter - and 18 permanent staff members, including a legal team – far exceeding any other inquiry or committee.
 
All the Committee’s three members have a demonstrated bias against Israel. The Chairwoman Navi Pillay from South Africa is a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who has a history of promoting anti-Israel campaigns, including her role in promoting Durban. She has stated that she believes Israel practices apartheid. 
 
Evidence obtained by the Commission will be fed through to the ICC, which may use it in taking proceedings against Israeli leaders.     
 
Of course, Israel is subject to international law and should be held accountable for violations of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law. But so should all states. It is unacceptable to consistently select one state and pick on it, while ignoring major violators of international law. What about China in Tibet, Turkey in Northern Cypress, or Russia in Ukraine? 
 
All of this means that only 24 of the total 193 UN Member States – most of them anti-Western - have managed to establish and obtain UN funding for a star chamber that will pillory and condemn Israel, a fellow UN member State, for its very existence. That is unacceptable.
 
The UN system is flawed. It is time for the Western world to realize that the system they established after WWII to promote world peace and security has been hijacked by the enemies of Western democracies. Western states should respond by withdrawing their funds from the UN Human Rights Council. 
 

Prof. Anne Bayefsky writes at JCPA: “The UN Human Rights Council has launched the most hostile anti-Israel inquisition in UN history. It is headed by the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, South African Navi Pillay, notorious for her antipathy to Israel throughout her tenure. The new “Commission of Inquiry” has a pre-determined outcome.”

The escalating international war against Israel

 
Caroline Glick writes at JNS: Israel has no choice but to fight the U.N.’s new permanent inquisition against it, and any business, government or judge that uses its reality-free reports. Israel must ensure that the antisemitic propaganda the commission puts out does not turn into “law” through the actions of radical justices and government attorneys. And Israel must reconcile itself to the fact that the E.U. bureaucracy and much of Europe is waging a war against it, and launch a vigorous counter-assault.