(August 2, 2022, Washington, DC) EMET offers its sincere and profound thanks to Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) and his 23 colleagues on their bipartisan letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken regarding antisemitic statements by a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry (UNHRC COI) and is proud to have supported the writing of this letter.
 
The representatives who signed this letter are: Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Gus M. Bilirakis (R-Fla.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Kat Cammack (R-Fla), Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), Ben Cline (R-Va.), Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla), Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), Neal P. Dunn (R-Fla), Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), Ronny L. Jackson (R-Texas), Fred Keller (R-Pa.), Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), Brian J. Mast (R-Fla), Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), Carol D. Miller (R-W.Va.), Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), W. Gregory Steube (R-Fla), Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.)
 
Last week, Miloon Kothari of the UNHCR COI stated, “we are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by – whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs, a lot of money is being thrown in to trying to discredit us,”  parroting ancient antisemitic tropes. 
 
Pointing out the inherent, pervasive bias in the COI, the members of Congress state in the letter, “the resolution for the COI makes no mention of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad – U.S. designated terrorist organizations, and makes no allusion to or mention of Israel’s inherent right to defend itself and its citizens.”
 
The COI is a kangaroo court with an unprecedented budget, scope and lack of oversight created in the aftermath of Hamas’s May 2021 war on Israel and produced a highly biased and flawed report last month and will do so semi-annually forever.
 
To make matters worse, this commission will operate in perpetuity and can go back indefinitely, namely to the very founding of the State of Israel, which Israel’s enemies refer to as the “Nakba” (Arabic for “catastrophe”). Not one Western democracy voted for the resolution.
 
“Rather than focusing on specific incidents in 2021, the COI is empowered to take actions such as accusing Israel of war crimes and, amazingly, claiming that Israel is also responsible for Hamas’ war crimes through a convoluted framing of a legal case. The COI is further empowered to consider, as Mr. Kothari puts it, how to ‘tackle this issue of how far you can take antisemitism.’ No matter which way you interpret that statement, this constitutes flagrant discrimination against the plight of the Jewish people,” the members wrote.
 
Never in UN history has so much money been appropriated indefinitely with so few guidelines – $10 million to start and $4-5 million per year in perpetuity has been allocated for this program.

Said EMET Founder and President Sarah Stern, “EMET would like to express our profound gratitude to Representative Doug Lamborn and 23 of his colleagues for having the moral clarity to take this highly principled stance. It is nothing short of an outrage that Israel, and Israel alone, is being held under a microscope for exercising its right to self-defense, which is in full accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter, the very institution that they claim to represent. I was in Israel in May of 2021, when more then 4,000 rockets were raining down on Israeli cities and communities. I know the fear first-hand of having 60 seconds to run into a sealed room with my children and grandchildren."

Fatah and Hamas were scheduled to have an election, the first in 15 years, and when Fatah looked at the polls, they realized that Hamas would win in a landslide and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cancelled the election. Unfortunately, Hamas knew that starting a  war against the Israeli population would enhance its popularity.

Continued Ms. Stern, "It is beyond outrageous that this report barely mentions Hamas or Fatah, yet mentions Israel 157 times, and is led by such serial human rights abusers as China and Venezuela. Thank you, Congressman Doug Lamborn, as well as 23 of your bipartisan colleagues, for this beautiful example of moral courage and intellectual clarity and for exemplifying what it truly means to be an American.”