• The ILO report holds only one party responsible for “Barriers to economic development in the West Bank” — Israel.
• The report blames Israel for the “Deepening of Gaza’s six-year siege [which] paralyses [the] economy.”
• In a section titled “Rising tensions and violence,” the report discusses in depth violence against Palestinians throughout the West bank. This includes discussions of:
  • “Violent acts and intimidation by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property.”
  • “Serious concerns are being expressed that occupation and settler activity is leading to a dangerous culture of impunity.”
  • “In addition to settler violence, there is a worrying trend of violence linked to confrontations between Israeli armed forces and Palestinians.”
  • “A recent United Nations report notes that Israeli settlement-related activities and settler violence are at the core of most of the violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the right to freedom of movement, work, health, education, housing and an adequate standard of living (UN, 2014b).”

However, the ILO does not present the whole and honest truth and instead submits a careless and sloppy work that is seemingly offered as part of the habitual castigation of the State of Israel.

• IGNORING CORRUPTION OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY IN THE WEST BANK: While the report places the blame on Israel for Palestinian’s economic woes, outside observers find that corruption plays a pivotal role in Palestinian struggles. Last year, Britain’s Sunday Times reported that “Billions of euros in European aid to the Palestinians may have been misspent, squandered or lost to corruption, according to a damning report by the European Court of Auditors, the Luxembourg-based watchdog.” The auditors found that the Palestinian Authority wasted almost €2 billion ($2.7 billion) in European aid. Additionally, the Palestinian Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC), has received 65 corruption cases regarding Palestinian misconduct and notes that the commission is currently investigating several senior officials in the Palestinian Authority. There are also disturbing reports of misuses of international aid to the Palestinian Authority.
• IGNORING CORRUPTION OF HAMAS IN GAZA: The ILO, which places blame on Israel for the faltering economy in Gaza, makes no mention of Hamas throughout their entire report. Instead, what solution did the report provide for fixing the Palestinian economy? “Ultimately, the blockade must be lifted.” Hamas — a group many governments have designated as a terrorist organization — remains a corrupt institution which has a chokehold on the Palestinian economy. Reports of Hamas corruption include accusations of graft and other illicit activities, including embezzlement of funds, purchases of exorbitant sports cars, looting of public resources and outright theft. This includes accusations from the Palestinian Authority Minister for Religious Endowment Mahmoud Habbash that Hamas has stolen “800 million dollars from the poor, through front companies for investments.” Even more disturbing are United Nation’s reports that Hamas has directly stolen UN aid. Hamas irked the ire of the UN after it raided 100 aid trucks entering the Gaza strip and sold the contents to “the highest bidders,” and then, on two separate days, it stole truckloads of goods from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip. The UN was thus prompted to halt all aid to the Gaza Strip, before reinstating it a few days later. A few weeks prior, in a separate incident, Jordanian authorities confirmed that Hamas seized 12 trucks full of Jordanian humanitarian aid.
• IGNORING PALESTINIAN TERROR: Although the report does not shy away from asserting that there is “increased settler violence” in the West Bank, it refuses to explicitly mention any violence committed by Palestinians against Israeli civilians. The report additionally does not mention Palestinian extremism or terrorism. While the report is highly critical of the Israeli blockade, the report neglects to mention that the reason Israel maintains a blockade on the Gaza Strip is because thousands of rockets and mortars have been fired into Israel directly targeting, injuring and killing Israeli civilians.
• IGNORING ISRAELI EFFORTS TO IMPROVE PALESTINIAN ECONOMY: The report remains silent on Israeli efforts to aid and assist in the improvement of the Palestinian economy. These efforts range from small scale efforts to large scale initiatives. For example, in order to ameliorate the Palestinian economy, Israel has lifted restrictions on importing most building materials to Gaza, increased the gas and fuel imports into Gaza, expanded the number of work permits issued to West Bank residents and opened several border crossings  — including the opening of the Kerem Shalom crossing in Gaza. There has been international praise for the larger efforts of the Israeli government in reaching out and working with Palestinian authorities including from the World Bank and the EU. Currently, commerce between Israelis and Palestinians is estimated at $20 billion USD annually and the International Chamber of Commerce and the Quartet have recently taken initiatives to strengthen economic relations between the two. Most notably is the Initative for the Palestinian Economy (IPE), which is led by Quartet Representative Tony Blair. The Quartet states that the ultimate goal of the initiative is to continue to lead Palestinians on a path of growth and development — something the current Palestinian leadership has failed to do.

Ultimately, the facts show that the ILO presents a slanted and partial view of the economic situation of the Palestinians and disregards substantial truths, data and information. While the ILO is quick and thorough in scrutinizing, criticizing and exaggerating Israeli actions and inactions, it remains quiet on the Palestinian responsibility for their own failures and lack of success.

The post ILO on Auto-Pilot against Israel appeared first on UN Watch.

Analysis: By the time it concludes, the Conference will have heard seven major thematic reports on poverty, gender discrimination, the scope of the employment relationship, occupational safety, training for “the knowledge society,” maritime workers and terrorism, and “the situation of workers in the occupied Arab territories.”  The first subject alone – poverty – directly concerns 2.8 billion people who live on less than $2 per day.  Yet tomorrow, the Conference will hold its only “special session,” and it will be dedicated to the ILO’s report on “workers in the occupied Arab territories.”  That report cites 1.94 million persons living on less than $2.15, less than one tenth of one percent of the 2.8 billion in extreme poverty.  Though affecting only a minute percentage of the world’s population, other parallel Conference meetings will be suspended to ensure maximum attendance for the session on the Palestinians.  Many delegates, however, boycott the session to protest such politicization.

Elimination of discrimination is one of the four fundamental concerns of the ILO.  The ILO’s statistics in its report on gender discrimination explain why the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) prefers a special session on the Palestinians rather than on women and the workplace.  The ILO selected several countries from each region and presented data on women’s participation in the labor market for the year 2000, the latest available.  Pakistan (15.2%), Iran (10.6%) and Syria (16.7%) compare poorly to Thailand (64.2%), Peru (58.1%), South Africa (43.9%) and Israel (47.3%).  Another table shows the number of “gender-dominated occupations.”  The United States and Poland have fifteen professions that are dominated by women.  France and Germany have eight.  Russia, Korea and Thailand have five.  Iran and Pakistan – zero.  Men dominate every single profession.  No statistics are given for Arab states, but UN’s Arab Human Development Report asserts that “Arab countries … suffer a glaring deficit in women’s empowerment.”

Both the ILO’s report on training for “the knowledge society” and the UN’s Arab Human Development Report address “information and communication technology,” known as “ICT.”  The ILO report stresses that “[l]earning and training for work must … focus on developing those multiple skills that will help countries, enterprises and individual men and women seize new opportunities.  Workers will need more knowledge and higher technical skills in order to be able to exploit the productive potential of advanced technologies, particularly ICTs.”  The UN’s Arab Human Development Report, however, laments that “[t]he Arab region has the lowest level of access to ICT of all regions of the world, even lower than sub-Saharan Africa.”  If the Arab countries were more concerned about their own populations than with political attacks on Israel, they would have instead pressed for a special session on the ILO’s “knowledge society” report.

Instead of wading into the complicated issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict, perhaps the ILO’s involvement in the region should start with a simple and more pertinent question: “Why are there no independent trade unions in Syria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman or Qatar?”

The post Issue 102: Politicization of the International Labor Conference appeared first on UN Watch.

Analysis: In the first days of the conference, Lebanon introduced a resolution on “the devastating effects of Israeli occupation and hostilities on the working conditions and the workers of Palestine and the other occupied Arab territories.”  The Lebanese delegate then compared the Israelis to Nazis, a slander that has become a standard among Arab speakers at UN venues.  In an attempt to customize the vilification of Israel to the labor forum, Israel was also accused of “massacring workers.”

The text of the resolution itself also made false accusations against Israel, such as condemning Israel for “the massacres that took place in Jenin camp.” It declared that Israel had not fulfilled Security Council resolution 425 about withdrawal from Lebanon, though Secretary-General Kofi Annan an the UN have confirmed that Israel has indeed fulfilled resolution 425. The resolution would also have established a standing ILO committee to examine the Israeli-Arab conflict, thus ensuring that the ILO would always be politicized.

On June 7, the delegates to the ILO conference voted on  draft resolutions to establish their priority. The secret ballot placed the Arab proposal third, behind resolutions on “Social Dialogue” and on “Sustainable Development.” However, the anti-Israel resolution received more votes than those for “Gender Equality” or “Social Responsibility of Business.” Since only one resolution is usually dealt with at each ILO annual conference, the vote should ensure that the anti-Israel campaign at the labor conference remains limited to abusive rhetoric in the plenary session.

The Chairman of the Conference, Ambassador Jean-Jacques Elmiger of Switzerland, opened the general discussion by clarifying the ILO’s role in political conflicts. He reminded the delegates that the ILO has two main responsibilities: to defend the principles upon which the ILO was founded and to diffuse tensions. He asked each speaker to remember these principles. The ILO, he said, should not concern itself with issues that are being discussed by other UN bodies. He implored each speaker to keep to the topic at hand, and behave in a respectable manner.

His request was quickly discarded. The Egyptian Minister of Manpower and Immigration accused Israel of conducting “a campaign to destroy the Palestinians.” The Algerian delegate compared Israeli policies to Nazi policies. A Kuwaiti delegate charged Israel with conducting “a war of extermination… that did not distinguish between employers and workers.”

Despite these calumnies, the rejection of the unjust anti-Israel resolution by secret ballot provides hope that the ILO may not suffer the same debasement as the Commission on Human Rights.

The post Issue 82: Politization of the International Labour Conference appeared first on UN Watch.

Analysis: The ILO is meant to serve as a forum for discussion among labor, employers and governments. In this “special sitting,” though, the labor relations focus is overwhelmed by political attacks against Israel. Predictably, the result is a long list of Arab League speakers, each repeating Palestinian positions on Permanent Status issues and other anti-Israel arguments, whose connection to labor is tenuous at best.

Despite the implication of being exceptional, the “special sitting” aimed at Israel has in fact become standard practice at the ILO’s annual meetings. Beginning in 1990, such a session has been held for eight of the past twelve years. The only exceptional aspect is that Israel is the one country singled out for such treatment.

The UN Charter stipulates equal treatment for all UN Member States. The decision to focus the only “special sitting” on “workers of the occupied Arab territories” is not justifiable with regard to any non-political criterion. That Palestinian workers are in a conflict zone and suffer from high unemployment (around 50% according to both Palestinian and Israeli sources) is neither unprecedented nor unique today.

The ILO itself has lamented the “near catastrophic destruction in all sectors of society” in war-torn Sierra Leone, where unemployment was at the perilous level of 70% earlier this year. In Liberia, wracked by civil war as well as electricity and water stoppages, unemployment hovers around the same figure.

Neither of those African cases, nor the situations in the Balkans, nor any other conflict has produced a “special sitting” in recent years. This double-standard leaves little doubt that the Governing Body of the ILO has allowed Algeria and Saudi Arabia, the sponsors of the resolution, to conduct a “special sitting” to abuse the ILO for political purposes.

The effect of this abuse is to inflame the conflict in the Middle East, an act to which no Specialized Agency or UN institution should be a party. If the ILO feels compelled to be involved in the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, it should search for non-political projects which might promote peace through cooperation.

The post Issue 63: Special Sitting of the International Labour Conference appeared first on UN Watch.

Analysis: The ILC considers labour conditions and standards throughout the world.  Only Israel, however, is singled out for a special sitting.

Especially troubling is the fact that the special sitting does not offer dialogue on the situation of workers of the territories.  Once again, it turned into another “Israel bashing” event – an all too familiar scene inside the UN halls.  Delegates poured blame for the stalled peace process on Israel alone.  Statements accused Israel of killing innocent people and practicing the “worst forms of colonialism,” to name just a couple aspersions.

The ILC is not a forum for political discussion.  The special sitting had nothing to do with labour, nor with management.  States were simply given free license to castigate Israel and fan the flames of anti-Israel sentiment.  Such discussions have nothing to do with the situation of workers in the territories, nor do they contribute to the overall peace process.  The ILC should cease holding these special sittings which are wholly political, irrelevant, and undermine the important work of the ILO.
* The UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights celebrated the official opening of its new headquarters in Geneva’s Palais Wilson, an impressive building sitting on the banks of Lake Geneva.

Analysis:  The UN’s Centre for Human Rights joined the High Commissioner for Human Rights in September of 1997 to form the new United Nations Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights.  With palatial grounds to house its activities, it is now up to the human rights machinery to earn its keep.

In today’s UN, human rights have become politicized, hindering the potential of human rights bodies.  The High Commissioner’s office – invested with principal responsibility for UN human rights activities – was established “to improve coordination, efficiency, and effectiveness.” The hope is that Mary Robinson will distance herself from the increasingly politicized UN human rights agenda.  Indeed, the resolution establishing the Commissioner’s office requires her to be “impartial, [and] objective.”

The post Issue 6: 86th International Labour Conference with a special sitting on workers in occupied Arab territories; and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights inaugurates its new headquarters appeared first on UN Watch.