Ms. Navi Pillay (South Africa)
Navi Pillay, appointed to head the COI, is well known for her bias towards Israel while UN High Commissioner of Human Rights in 2008-2014. In this position, she empaneled four fact-finding missions targeting Israel, more than any other country; oversaw the discredited Goldstone Report, which was later rejected by its primary author; permitted the appointment of the notoriously antisemitic Richard Falk as the Special Rapporteur for the Palestinians; and convened the 2009 Durban II conference, which was boycotted by most democracies, and provided Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a prominent platform to disseminate antisemitic vitriol.
See more about Navi Pillay here.
Mr. Miloon Kothari (India)
Nearly 20 years ago, Miloon Kothari entered Israel under false pretenses in order to prepare a UN report (also in cooperation with radical NGOs). That publication erases the context of mass Palestinian suicide bombings that killed and wounded thousands of civilians, whitewashing terrorism and other war crimes as “Palestinian resistance.” It also employs highly inflammatory rhetoric, accusing Israel of “massacring” and “ethnically cleansing” Palestinians and falsely asserting that “the basic theocratic character of the Israeli legal system establishes ethnic criteria as the grounds for the enjoyment of full rights” (report available here: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/473611?ln=zh_CN). Kothari’s troubling statements relating to Palestinian terrorism and his reliance on false NGO claims suggest he is unable to fulfill the COI mandate in accordance with UN standards.
Mr. Christopher Sidoti (India)
Chris Sidoti has been described as a “close friend and ally” to the PA framework known as the Independent Commission for Human Rights and sits on the advisory council of AJIC, an Australian NGO that calls Israel a “settler-colonial apartheid regime” and has accused Israel of committing crimes during the May 2021 conflict. His position with AJIC, a group that has taken extreme positions on matters directly under investigation by the COI, and his role with a PA entity, present clear conflicts of interest disqualifying him under UN rules and international fact-finding standards.
