The UN Human Rights Council held an urgent “special session” today to address “human rights violations emanating from Israeli military incursions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory including the recent ones in occupied Gaza and West Bank of Nablus.” This is the fourth out of six emergency sessions dealing with Israel, and was convened at the behest of Syria and Pakistan on behalf of the Arab and Islamic groups.
It had fiasco written all over it, prompting Israel and the United States to stay away from the meeting, the first time they had done so at the new council.
The Palestinian ambassador accused Israeli leaders of being “in competition” as to who could best prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. “Israel,” he said, “transgresses legal, ethical and moral standards.” Syria said that Israel’s true aim is to “deliberately abort all Arab and international efforts to invigorate the peace process.” Egypt called Israel’s recent actions “the most brutal forms of violation of human rights.” Bangladesh said that recent events “did not represent the first time Israel has committed crimes.”
The Sri Lankan delegation equated the horrors of World War II and recent events. “It is bitterly ironic that Israel, having practiced for decades a policy of invasion, annexation, occupation – should now add a policy of ghettoization of the Palestinian people. The people of Israel know very well, given their own history, the horrors of such ghettoization… We see scenes… that could not but remind us of the horrors of the Warsaw ghetto during World War II.”
Absent from nearly every speech – save the statements of a few states and High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour – was any reference to the responsibilities of Hamas and other terrorist groups.
Slovenia on behalf of the EU, and Russia both made one-line references to the “indiscriminate launching of rockets to Israel.” Canada, though, was the only country to express its full and unwavering opposition to any special session or resolution that did not consider “the responsibilities of all parties,” in particular focusing on “Israeli actions, and not condemning or even mentioning the acts of rocket attacks that deliberately target Israeli civilians.”
High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour also took pains to emphasize the hardship on all sides, beginning her remarks by noting that “the right to life [is] imperiled to all, particular for Israel in Sderot, particularly [for] the Palestinians in Gaza.”
Negotiations on a draft resolution continue Wednesday evening, and the Special Session will reconvene and vote Thursday morning.
