In a bid to appear objective for a change, the UN’s Palestine monitor included some mention of Palestinian abuses in his latest report to the General Assembly, yet the report is still 95% against Israel and completely ignores Hamas terrorism, revealed UN Watch today.
In the nearly six years since Michael Lynk took up his post as the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, he has submitted six reports to the General Assembly and five reports to the Human Rights Council. Until last year, each of Michael Lynk’s reports began with a statement that the report focuses only on alleged Israeli violations citing to his mandate:
“In the present report, the Special Rapporteur focuses on the human rights and humanitarian law violations committed by Israel, as set out in the mandate of the Rapporteur” with a footnoted that reads “As specified in the mandate of the Special Rapporteur set out in Commission on Human Rights resolution 1993/2.”
However, apparently under pressure after UN Watch persistently called him out for ignoring Palestinian Authority and Hamas violations against both Palestinians and Israelis, Michael Lynk began including some Palestinian violations in his last three reports to the General Assembly in 2019, 2020 and 2021 and suddenly did way with the above language. Despite this change, the reports are still far from balanced with more than 95% still focusing on harsh criticism of Israel while Hamas terrorism continues to be completely ignored.
Moreover, the fact that Michael Lynk began to include some PA and Hamas violations in his reports belies his earlier claims that the mandate prohibited him from doing so and instead required him to limit his reporting to Israeli violations only.
