United Nations
Israel’s ambassador offers his Ukrainian counterpart solidarity, but will likely remain publicly silent due to sensitivities in dealing with Russia.
Kyiv’s goal in the talks is an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian forces from the country • U.S. suspends embassy operations in Minsk, authorizes departure of non-emergency employees from Moscow embassy.
Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan criticized the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other NGOs for launching “a jihad war against the only vibrant democracy in the Middle East.”
As the international community focuses on the Ukraine-Russia crisis in the U.N. General Assembly, U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills is critical of the diplomatic time and energy that monthly meetings on the Israeli-Palestinian file take up at the Security Council.
“[Navi] Pillay is the complete opposite of impartial,” said Hillel Neuer, UN Watch executive director and an international human-rights lawyer.
The initiative is being sent with the goal of making the voices heard of hundreds of thousands of Israelis who experienced the rocket terror that targeted them with the intent to maim, injure, terrorize and kill as many people as possible—a war crime and blatant violation of international law.
The United States and Israel left UNESCO in December 2018 after the organization passed several anti-Israel resolutions.
Irit Back, head of the Inter-University Program of African Studies at Tel Aviv University, described the status as symbolic though noted that it comes with practical economic and diplomatic benefits. For instance, Israel will now have a greater ability to influence the bloc to change its generally anti-Israel voting record at the United Nations.
They also asked U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to terminate the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry.
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations CEO William Daroff called the probe a “one-sided farce” that “again demonstrates the clear anti-Israel bias in the U.N. body.”
The Palestinian Authority also called on the International Criminal Court to launch an investigation into Israel’s “crime against humanity ... without delay.”
It follows a bipartisan letter by 42 other lawmakers to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for defunding the Commission of Inquiry.
