GENEVA, 28 March, 2014— Bowing to new pressure from the powerful Arab Group in the race to replace controversial official Richard Falk, the president of the U.N. Human Rights Council has decided to ignore the vetting committee’s official choice, and instead appoint Christine Chinkin — co-author of the Goldstone Report, and a law professor at the London School of Economics – as the UN’s next special rapporteur on “Israel’s violations of the bases and principles of international law.”

In a second highly controversial move, the president also announced that he would name Falk’s wife, former Turkish government adviser Hilal Elver, to another top U.N. human rights post.

The only power that can yet stop these outrageously partisan and problematic appointments before tomorrow’s plenary decision is the Obama Administration.

When council president Baudelaire Ndong Ella tomorrow moves the nominations, the U.S. — if it is to live up to its pledge to use its UNHRC membership to fight bias, politicization and double standards — must take the floor, call a vote, and vote No.
Because the UN desperately seeks to make such appointments by consensus, the president may change his mind if he knows in advance and for certain that the U.S would challenge these two objectionable nominations.
If the U.S. fails to call a vote and stand up for what is right, it will have forfeited its moral justification for serving on a council that just elected Putin, the Castro regime, the Chinese Communist Party, and the House of Saud.
Like her husband Richard Falk, Elver has promoted the writings of the world’s leading 9/11 conspiracy theorist, accused Israel of “genocide” and “Water Apartheid”, and systematically blames Western society for the world’s ills, accusing America and Europe of systemic Islamophobia and racism. UN Watch summarized her failure to satisfy the job’s minimum requirements here.
UN Watch has launched an urgent online campaign appealing for the U.S. government to take action tomorrow.
Yesterday, in an aggressive letter from the Arab Group, the council president was told in emphatic terms that “there is only one appropriate candidate for the position,” that “Professor Chinkin remarkably fulfils the criteria,” and “any deviation could set a dangerous precedent, which we would want to avoid.”
Although Indonesia’s Makarim Wibisono had been widely reported by diplomats as the slated pick, in the end the Arab states, following Ramallah’s lead, only wanted Chinkin. A proven, pro-Palestinian legal campaigner, in their view, will be far more effective to promote their global lawfare and BDS agenda than a Muslim diplomat.
Chinkin was famously criticized by fellow UN human rights expert Sir Nigel Rodley and others for having failed to recuse herself from the Goldstone inquiry despite having issued a prior statement declaring Israel guilty on the very legal question put before her commission.
Sir Nigel, Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Committee and a fellow English academic, criticized Chinkin’s failure to recuse herself from the mission, saying “there was regrettably a basis for questioning the appearance of bias” as a result of her public letter.
“If such a statement were made by a member of a standing fact-finding body,” wrote Rodley, “it could be expected that such a member would move to recuse himself or herself from the hearing of the issues.”
Chinkin was also criticized by a larger group of academics assembled by Chatham House, which, in diplomatic but unmistakable language, rebuked her by emphasizing that ”fact-finding missions should avoid any perception of bias,” that its members should not “act in a way that would damage their impartiality,” and should “therefore exercise great care when writing or speaking on international disputes that could potentially be subject to an investigation.”
When Goldstone in 2011 famously retracted the core charge of the Goldstone Report — that Israel killed civilians on purpose — Chinkin joined with two others in attacking him.

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The UN Watch NGO harshly criticized the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, calling it “systematically biased” against Israel. The criticism followed the adoption on Tuesday of a resolution “regretting” that Israel skipped a mandated review of its human rights record.
Responding to the resolution, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said: “A jury of brigands is not justice, it’s a travesty. We regret that today’s resolution failed to acknowledge the elephant in the room: the council’s systematic bias against Israel.”

Original URL: https://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=301420

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In response, Professor Schabas states as follows: “I have never turned on my good friend Richard Goldstone, ‘with a vengeance’ or otherwise.” We have corrected the briefing and regret the error.

Indeed, a closer examination shows the  following. After the Goldstone Report was published, Schabas proclaimed that Goldstone “had better be on next year’s Nobel short list.” Schabas also shared his belief, on the same occasion, that Goldstone’s act of condemning alleged Israeli war crimes was performed “as a Jew.” “The world should be thankful that we have people like Richard Goldstone,” said Schabas.

However, when Goldstone retracted the core charge of the report, Schabas was among the first to respond, adopting a different tone toward his friend. He now accused Goldstone of being “certainly more indulgent towards Israel.”

Yet it’s clear that this pales in comparison to the actions of Roger Cohen and Richard Falk.

After the report  came out, Roger Cohen, in an article accusing Israel of acting from an “annihilation psychosis”  and a “perpetual state of exceptionalism,” lauded Goldstone as “a measured man” who, unlike Israel, knows how to deal with reality.

When Goldstone retracted, Cohen wrote a scathing piece which began thus:

We have a new verb, “to Goldstone.” Its meaning: To make a finding, and then partially retract it for uncertain motive.

He ended his article in the same tone:

To “Goldstone”: (Colloq.) To sow confusion, hide a secret, create havoc.

Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent investigator on alleged Israeli violations  (who is so pro-Hamas that even the PA tried to remove him),  initially praised Goldstone as a “person of integrity,” “political balance,” and “an eminent jurist.”

After Goldstone retracted the main thrust of his report, first in the Washington Post and then in the New York Times, Falk suddenly accused “the new Richard Goldstone” of having “recast himself as the self-appointed guardian of Israel’s world reputation”; of “his seemingly opportunistic change of heart” and “wobbly change of position”; and said that Goldstone “abandons any pretense of judicious respect for either the legal duties of those with power or the legal rights of those in vulnerable circumstances.”

In a blog post entitled “Goldstone’s Folly: Disappointing and Perverse,” Falk referred to a “Goldstone hasbara effort to divert and distort,” “a stunning display of bad faith,” and of “shameless abandon.”

“The sad saga of Richard Goldstone’s descent from pinnacles of respect and trust to this shabby role as legal gladiator recklessly jousting on behalf of Israel is as unbecoming as it is unpersuasive,” wrote Falk.

The post Correction: On William Schabas and Richard Goldstone appeared first on UN Watch.

The core charges of the report—that Israel’s leadership intentionally plotted to murder Palestinian civilians, and did so from racist motives—were famously retracted by Judge Goldstone in op-eds published last year in the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Overnight, anti-Israel intellectuals who had hailed Goldstone as a modern-day saint turned on him with a vengeance, especially those uneasy with their Jewish ancestry, such as Roger Cohen and Richard Falk.

The trajectory of the Goldstone Report as a weapon against Israel has now hit several diplomatic and legal dead ends. Nevertheless, the UN document will continue to be used against Israel in politically-motivated prosecution campaigns.

The International Criminal Court recently reported to the UN that it is considering a Palestinian request to prosecute Israelis, along with “400 communications on crimes allegedly committed in Palestine.” If the ICC eventually does act against Israel over its last war with Hamas, the Goldstone Report will surely serve as Exhibit A.

• VIDEO: UN attacks Israel, creates Goldstone Report; UN Watch Responds: “Disproportionality and the Guilt-by-Numbers Argument”
• VIDEO: UN Watch Brings Sderot Victim Liraz Madmoni to Testify: “Are Human Rights for Some, but Not Others?”
• Key Documents Exposing Perfidy of Goldstone Report:
  • Trevor Norwitz, Letter to Richard Goldstone
  • Alan Dershowitz, The Case Against the Goldstone Report: A Study in Evidentiary Bias
  • UN Watch, Legal Brief to Disqualify Goldstone Commissioner Christine Chinkin for Bias
  • NGO Monitor, The Goldstone Report Reconsidered: A Critical Analysis

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After Recognizing “Palestine,” UNESCO Lobbying to Circumvent U.S. Funding Penalty

UNESCO officials are aggressively lobbying Washington to circumvent a U.S. law that mandates funding cuts in response to the Paris-based agency’s embrace of “Palestine” as a member, diplomatic sources report.

The UN’s education, science and culture organization is braced for “months” of back-and-forth with the United States.

One confirmed that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has been seeking ways to effect a waiver of the law that mandates immediate cessation of Washington’s contributions to any UN agency that allows Palestinian membership.

But this official added that the one key person holding out is Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Indeed, the Florida Republican launched a call this week for the United States to “strengthen and preserve” the funding prohibition law. In a press release, she says that the Obama administration has “failed” in what she describes as efforts to “gut” the law and restore Washington’s UNESCO contributions. Continue reading / Comment

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Islamic States Pledge Tolerance as Report Says They Practice Persecution

Concerns about an Islamic-sponsored “combating intolerance” initiative at the United Nations is brought into high relief by results of a new world survey on religious persecution.

Muslim nations make up nine out of the top ten countries where Christians face the “most severe” persecution, and 38 of the top 50, reports U.S.-based Open Doors in its 2012 World Watch List.

The results lay bare the sheer incongruity of the idea that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), whose 56 member states control more than a quarter of the votes in the UN General Assembly, can be serious about promoting religious tolerance.

Yet that is what it claimed by successfully pushing for an assembly resolution titled “Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping, stigmatization, discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons, based on religion or belief.”

The measure, which passed last month, mirrored an almost identical resolution in the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva last March.Continue reading / Comment

The post Issue 338: 3rd Anniversary: Goldstone Report Hits Dead-Ends, But Far From Dead appeared first on UN Watch.

Not surprisingly, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s pro-Hamas Richard Falk, who previously lavished praise on Goldstone, has now launched a vicious personal attack on his former hero.

While it is impossible to undo even a fraction of the Goldstone Report’s catastrophic harm to basic principles of international human rights and humanitarian law, and to Israel’s ability to defend itself from terrorism, UN Watch congratulates Judge Goldstone’s welcome actions. We hope that he will continue to speak out against demonization and double standards, especially as practiced by too many U.N. bodies, including the Human Rights Council that had appointed him.

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Israel and the Apartheid Slander

Nov. 1, 2011

By RICHARD J. GOLDSTONE

THE Palestinian Authority’s request for full United Nations membership has put hope for any two-state solution under increasing pressure. The need for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians has never been greater. So it is important to separate legitimate criticism of Israel from assaults that aim to isolate, demonize and delegitimize it.

One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.

While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.

I know all too well the cruelty of South Africa’s abhorrent apartheid system, under which human beings characterized as black had no rights to vote, hold political office, use “white” toilets or beaches, marry whites, live in whites-only areas or even be there without a “pass.” Blacks critically injured in car accidents were left to bleed to death if there was no “black” ambulance to rush them to a “black” hospital. “White” hospitals were prohibited from saving their lives.

In assessing the accusation that Israel pursues apartheid policies, which are by definition primarily about race or ethnicity, it is important first to distinguish between the situations in Israel, where Arabs are citizens, and in West Bank areas that remain under Israeli control in the absence of a peace agreement.

In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts … committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.

To be sure, there is more de facto separation between Jewish and Arab populations than Israelis should accept. Much of it is chosen by the communities themselves. Some results from discrimination. But it is not apartheid, which consciously enshrines separation as an ideal. In Israel, equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal; inequities are often successfully challenged in court.

The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.

But until there is a two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense, even as Palestinians feel oppressed. As things stand, attacks from one side are met by counterattacks from the other. And the deep disputes, claims and counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of “apartheid” is invoked.

Those seeking to promote the myth of Israeli apartheid often point to clashes between heavily armed Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing Palestinians in the West Bank, or the building of what they call an “apartheid wall” and disparate treatment on West Bank roads. While such images may appear to invite a superficial comparison, it is disingenuous to use them to distort the reality. The security barrier was built to stop unrelenting terrorist attacks; while it has inflicted great hardship in places, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the state in many cases to reroute it to minimize unreasonable hardship. Road restrictions get more intrusive after violent attacks and are ameliorated when the threat is reduced.

Of course, the Palestinian people have national aspirations and human rights that all must respect. But those who conflate the situations in Israel and the West Bank and liken both to the old South Africa do a disservice to all who hope for justice and peace.

Jewish-Arab relations in Israel and the West Bank cannot be simplified to a narrative of Jewish discrimination. There is hostility and suspicion on both sides. Israel, unique among democracies, has been in a state of war with many of its neighbors who refuse to accept its existence. Even some Israeli Arabs, because they are citizens of Israel, have at times come under suspicion from other Arabs as a result of that longstanding enmity.

The mutual recognition and protection of the human dignity of all people is indispensable to bringing an end to hatred and anger. The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony.

Richard J. Goldstone, a former justice of the South African Constitutional Court, led the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict of 2008-9.

The post Issue 321: New York Times op-ed published by Judge Richard Goldstone against the demonization of Israel appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA, Oct. 20 – UN Watch today welcomed the end of the Gaddafi regime, one of the world’s most brutal violators of human rights, and called on UN chief Ban Ki-moon and human rights commissioner Navi Pillay to acknowledge the UN was wrong to support Gaddafi by granting him key posts on its most influential bodies.

“It’s time for the UN to formally apologize for having legitimized Gaddafi’s regime by electing Libya to its Human Rights Council last year, to the Security Council in 2008-2009, and as General Assembly president in 2009,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based watchdog organization.

“The UN should also apologize for choosing Gaddafi’s regime to head the planning of its 2009 world conference on racism, and for designating Col. Gaddafi’s daughter Ayesha a UN Goodwill Ambassador.”

“On this day, it would also be appropriate for Mr. Ban and Ms. Pillay to call for Jean Ziegler, the co-founder of the Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, a propaganda tool for the regime, to resign from the UN Human Rights Council’s Advisory Committee.”

An international coalition of 45 human rights groups have urged Mr. Ban and Ms. Pillay to call on the UN Human Rights Council to fire Ziegler for his actions over three decades to shield Libyan dictator Col. Gaddafi from scrutiny of his regime’s gross violations of human rights.

The NGO appeal names Jean Ziegler, a member of the UNHRC Advisory Committee, who in 1989 announced the creation of the Moammar Gaddafi Prize for Human Rights. When Libya’s rights record was reviewed in November 2010, a Libyan-funded group tied to Ziegler distributed a 2010 book, edited by Ziegler, that likens Gaddafi to the philosopher Rousseau.

A recent Swiss TV report confirmed Ziegler’s key role in creating the Gaddafi prize, which it described as “an instrument of propaganda for the dictator.” As a result, citing his Gaddafi connections, the famed Salzburg Festival decided to cancel Ziegler’s keynote address this summer, sparking a heated controversy in Austria.

The post UN Should Apologize For “Legitimizing” Gaddafi with Key Posts appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA, Oct. 20 – UN Watch today welcomed the end of the Gaddafi regime, one of the world’s most brutal violators of human rights, and called on UN chief Ban Ki-moon and human rights commissioner Navi Pillay to acknowledge the UN was wrong to support Gaddafi by granting him key posts on its most influential bodies.

“It’s time for the UN to formally apologize for having legitimized Gaddafi’s regime by electing Libya to its Human Rights Council last year, to the Security Council in 2008-2009, and as General Assembly president in 2009,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based watchdog organization.

“The UN should also apologize for choosing Gaddafi’s regime to head the planning of its 2009 world conference on racism, and for designating Col. Gaddafi’s daughter Ayesha a UN Goodwill Ambassador.”

“On this day, it would also be appropriate for Mr. Ban and Ms. Pillay to call for Jean Ziegler, the co-founder of the Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, a propaganda tool for the regime, to resign from the UN Human Rights Council’s Advisory Committee.”

An international coalition of 45 human rights groups have urged Mr. Ban and Ms. Pillay to call on the UN Human Rights Council to fire Ziegler for his actions over three decades to shield Libyan dictator Col. Gaddafi from scrutiny of his regime’s gross violations of human rights.

The NGO appeal names Jean Ziegler, a member of the UNHRC Advisory Committee, who in 1989 announced the creation of the Moammar Gaddafi Prize for Human Rights. When Libya’s rights record was reviewed in November 2010, a Libyan-funded group tied to Ziegler distributed a 2010 book, edited by Ziegler, that likens Gaddafi to the philosopher Rousseau.

A recent Swiss TV report confirmed Ziegler’s key role in creating the Gaddafi prize, which it described as “an instrument of propaganda for the dictator.” As a result, citing his Gaddafi connections, the famed Salzburg Festival decided to cancel Ziegler’s keynote address this summer, sparking a heated controversy in Austria.

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The post Issue 285: Expert Analysis: Goldstone’s Resounding Reversal appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA, Oct. 21 – The German law professor heading the U.N. committee to enforce the Goldstone Report has a history of comparing Israeli actions with the “barbarism” and “inferno” of World War II, and should be removed for lack of impartiality by the U.N. Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said a report submitted by UN Watch today to the world body’s Geneva office. Click here for summary and full report.

In his September 27 report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Christian Tomuschat, a professor emeritus at Humoldt University, faulted Israel for failing to investigate allegations of war crimes by the country’s senior leadership, specifically naming Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, who was foreign minister during the 2009 war with Hamas. The Tomuschat Committee will report to the council again in March 2011.

However, according to “Goldstone II,” the 29-page report by UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitor of the world body, Tomuschat’s credibility is severely impaired by his prior legal work for PLO leader Yasser Arafat, which Tomuschat said he “could not recall,” and by a series of public statements and writings that show his lack of impartiality on the Arab-Israel conflict.

Based on newly-translated materials, the report reveals that in German academic essays published in 2006 and 2007 on the Lebanon war, Tomuschat associated the military practices of the Jewish state with the “barbarism which was the particular hallmark of World War II.” Israel, wrote Tomuschat, “overruns a country like a steamroller,” and “butchers everything in its way.” Accusing Israel of classifying civilian targets as military, Tomuschat said its actions could be regarded “as a relapse to the Inferno of World War II.”

Tomuschat also said that “the observer gets the impression that the Israeli armed forces inconsiderately geared itself toward the overall concept of the Totalen Krieges.” This concept is most famously associated with Goebbels’ 1943 “Total War” speech delivered under a giant banner.

Other key findings from the report:

•   In a 2002 essay, Tomuschat singled out Israel as a prime example of “state terrorism,” a charge he repeated in a 2007 interview, in which he added that killing terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden would be “absolutely illegal under international law.”

•   Prior to heading the U.N. inquiry to assess Israel’s system of investigations, Tomsuchat had already made up his mind, saying in 2002 that Israel ordered the “systematic commission of war crimes,” and that “in such instances, there is little hope that the judicial system will conduct effective investigations and punish the responsible agents.”

·   When a German academic journal featured a debate on the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Tomuschat was the one chosen to present the side opposed to Israel.

The post Report: German Professor Heading U.N.’s ‘Goldstone II’ Committee Accused Israel of World War II ‘Barbarism’, Removal Urged appeared first on UN Watch.