Forty-one Jewish organizations wrote to U.N. Security General António Guterres and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet demanding an end to the “one-sided farce” of a probe by the U.N. Human Rights Council’s International Commission of Inquiry (COI) into Israel.
The letter, spearheaded by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, notes that the COI, which was established by the Human Rights Council as a result of a special session in Resolution S-30/1 of May 27, 2021, is designed to “provoke disproportionate criticism of Israel and to drive the commission it creates to conclude that Israel has violated international law.”
Additionally, the letter denounces the resolution for not naming Hamas—the Palestinian terror group that launched 4,000-plus rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israeli population centers for 11 days last May, arguing that it encourages “commission members to determine that Israel is engaged in ‘systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity.’”
It also slammed the COI’s open-ended mandate, which it says will provide an opportunity for nations to “engage in repeated denunciations of Israel at the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly.”
The COI’s three members, according to the letter, also fail to meet the “fundamental requirement of impartiality.”
“Navi Pillay, Christopher Dominic Sidoti and Miloon Kothari each have made public statements and engaged in activities that reflect a pre-existing and biased view of Israel,” wrote the organizations.
CEO of the Conference of Presidents William Daroff called the probe a “one-sided farce” that “again demonstrates the clear anti-Israel bias in the U.N. body.”
“The Jewish and pro-Israel communities are unified in their abhorrence of the [COI] process and strongly urge United Nations leadership to ensure that the commission does not present a report that will unfairly criticize Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East,” he said.
