Geneva, March 9, 2022 – The Geneva-based human rights organization UN Watch announced today that it has submitted a 34-page report on Palestinian apartheid to a United Nations commission of inquiry tasked with examining “systematic discrimination” in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The report documents how the Palestinian Authority enforces a system of apartheid to ensure that every inch of territory under its control is strictly judenrein (free of Jews) by punishing Palestinian land sales to Jews with the death penalty, and by inciting the murder of Jews through financial rewards to terrorists.
The inquiry, created in May 2021 by the UN Human Rights Council at the initiative of Pakistan and the Palestinians, is also mandated to examine the Hamas-Israel war of that month, and will present its first report in June. It is them mandated to report again every year in perpetuity.
UN Watch recently filed a legal brief demanding the removal of Navi Pillay as chair of the inquiry, citing her bias and conflict of interest. The former UN rights chief has publicly lobbied governments to “sanction apartheid Israel,” thereby disqualifying her under UN rules of impartiality.
In a recent plenary debate, current high commissioner for human rights Michelle Bachelet declined to defend the appointment of Pillay.
“We know that this inquiry is meant to be a lynching, with Pillay having already signed the guilty verdict against Israel,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch.
“However if she is removed, and new commissioners are appointed, and this is turned into an honest investigation, it must examine the Palestinians’ systematic discrimination and antisemitism.”
UN Watch’s report documents how the PA and Hamas reject the Jewish right to self-determination in Israel and incite antisemitism and terrorism.
The PLO Charter considers the UN partition plan “illegal,” while calling for “armed struggle” to liberate all of historic Palestine. Likewise, the Hamas Charter calls for Jihad against the enemies—Jews and Zionists—who are compared to Nazis.
The UN Watch submission also spotlights for the inquiry how PA and Hamas TV programs compare Israelis to Nazis, and teach that all of Palestine “from the river to the sea” belongs to the Palestinians.
In addition, the report shows, Palestinian schools and summer camps are routinely named after terrorists, who are presented as heroes for the children to emulate.
The level of incitement is so extreme, claims the UN Watch report, that Israeli law prohibits Jews from entering the Palestinian-controlled territories because of the high risk that they will be violently attacked or even killed.
In December 2021, two Israelis were attacked by a Palestinian mob after entering Ramallah by mistake.