Germany said to warn Israel over skipping UN human rights review
BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF October 27, 2013,
Israel has come under increasing pressure to attend a United Nations human rights review, scheduled for this Tuesday, and has reportedly been warned that a failure to attend would cause harmful diplomatic fallout.
The review, a Universal Periodic Review carried out by the UN Human Rights Council, is obligatory every few years for all UN members, but foreign minister Avigdor Liberman severed Israel’s relationship with the HRC in 2012 after the agency announced a probe into Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on Friday sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging Israeli to attend the review, Haaretz reported on Sunday. The letter acknowledged Israel’s difficulties with the HRC, but said not attending would have “serious consequences.”
If Israel does not attend, the report noted, it will be the first country to fail to attend its Universal Periodic Review, and it is feared that such a refusal will set a precedent for other countries to do the same.
In recent weeks Israel has reportedly been in discussions with other UN member states over a way for Israel to resume cooperation with the HRC, and therefore attend the periodic review. Israel participated in the first round of reviews, which was concluded by October 2011, but has so far failed to indicate whether it would participate in the second round, which is currently ongoing.
Representatives from Jerusalem skipped a meeting in January to determine the three-member jury picked to oversee the review — Maldives, Sierra Leone and Venezuela — drawing calls by Pakistan for punitive action. Representatives of other countries also urged Israel to return to the fold and comply with the UNHRC’s review processes, but refrained from calling for punitive action, according to UN Watch, which attended the meeting.
Israel has laid out two conditions, according to the Haaretz report: a limit to the implementation of Article 7, the permanent agenda item on the UN Human Rights Council which uniquely demands a discussion of Israel’s human rights issues at every meeting, [ISRAEL SHOULD DEMAND THAT THIS BE DROPPED ENTIRELY] and a way for Israel to join the UN’s Western Europe and Others Group, which would end Israel’s regional isolation at the UN (the country currently does not belong to a regional group, which limits Israel’s participation in UN activities).
Israel’s acceptance into the Western Europe and Others Group would require a unanimous vote from the member states comprising that group. In his letter to Netanyahu, the German foreign minister said that Israel’s attendance at the review would create “the best conditions for its being accepted into the Western European and Others Group.”
In January, Israel’s permanent representative to the Geneva-based UNHRC, Ambassador Eviatar Manor, spoke to the council’s president, Remigiusz Henczel, about postponing the review.
Manor said then that “Israel respected all human rights mechanisms, although it had a complex and difficult relation with the Council and OHCHR [Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights],” according to the official minutes of the meeting.
Raphael Ahren contributed to this report
@ CuriousAmerican:
Don’t project your bigotries on me.
Neurosis was a term coined by Sigmund Freud, who was NOT an ethnic Christian
and your point is? Bigotry? Back to that again huh? Accuse me of what you are guilty of? Seems to be a pattern here.
Don’t project your bigotries on me.
Neurosis was a term coined by Sigmund Freud, who was NOT an ethnic Christian.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Don’t project your personal (by which I mean you, Dove, and not every Jew) neurosis on me, Dove
Don’t project your personal (by which I mean you, Dove, and not every Jew) neurosis on me, Dove.
@ CuriousAmerican:
It sounds to me like you have a gentile complex. That is just one of reasons why you try to make us the same.
I forgot, you never tell us Gentiles what we should do.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Stop insulting us and being so BOSSY! By what right do YOU have to tell a Jew what to do??? Playing G-d again???
Stop whining! Leave the UN. Most Americans would support you; and it would probably prod us to Leave.
the never-ending saga of euro blackmail, extortion and threats.
It makes no sense for Israel to be the one contributing to prop up an obviously failed institution. It is typical of the euros to be the first to perpetuate pretense and false images. It is a sucker’s game to help the frauds prop up their fraudulent institution especially at the same time they are committing a fraud upon Israel. At what point will Israel cease to be a masochistic dummy?
The UN is failing generally and bilateral and regional alliances are growing once more. Israel is becoming adept at forging relationships and alliances outside the global network. things are changing and Israel should concentrate on improving its bilateral endeavors based on self-interest with others who are self-interested. A self-interested party is much more reliable and credible than those who carry banners of fake morality. Europe’s star is fading and Israel should look eastward where there is little history of anti semitism which cannot stop rearing its ugly head. Leaving Europe will be the lifting of a heavy albatross from the shoulders of the Jews.
@ Bert:
Well then let us at least go down (G-d forbid!) with the truth on our lips!
From the start Israel has placed itself on the defensive by failing to ever claim its full rights to the land of Israel. The Arabs and other nations are simply using this failure as a weapon to attack Israel. Having always conceded that Israel is an occupier they are finding it more and more difficult to resist calls for them to simply pull out. At this late date it would be impossible for them to suddenly change and begin to tell the truth. Having lied for so long against themselves who will not believe them if they finally told the truth.
yamit82 Said:
The problem is Israel’s dhimmi Jews like to sit there and take it. Jewish masochism will not make Israel a respected country in the world.
UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
Current Membership of the Human Rights Council, 1 January – 31 December 2013