WIESENTHAL CENTER: BUSINESS AS USUAL IN GENEVA AS UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL DEBATES GOLDSTONE REPORT

October 16, 2009

WIESENTHAL CENTER: BUSINESS AS USUAL IN GENEVA AS UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL DEBATES GOLDSTONE REPORT

Verbal rape of Israel followed by adoption of resolution deleting any references to Hamas

The Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned the UN Human Rights Council’s 2-day Special Session sparked by the controversial Goldstone Report on last winter’s Israel action in Gaza against Hamas. A resolution endorsing the controversial recommendations of the report and condemning Israel over East Jerusalem and 'occupation' passed by a vote of 25-6, with 11 abstentions.

“It’s business as usual at the UN Human Rights Council, a verbal gang rape of Israel, combining baseless allegations by Arab and Muslim countries followed by demand from NGOs to try Israelis for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” charged Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights group. “Even Justice Goldstone himself publicly expressed his concerns today when he woke up to the fact that the resolution contained 36 paragraphs filled with allegations against Israel but not a word about Hamas’ rockets against the Jewish state.”

“The entire exercise sets back President Obama’s hopes to fast track the peace process. Further by adopting the Goldstone recommendations, the United Nations Human Rights Council has today weakened the ability of all nations to fight against non-state terrorism,” Cooper added.

The Wiesenthal Center official spoke by phone briefly to diplomat Douglas Griffiths, who cast the United States’ no vote and severely criticized the resolution and the elements of the Goldstone Report. Over 11,000 activists had petitioned the US to publicly state it would veto any move at UN security Council to adopt Goldstone recommendations (www.wiesenthal.com/Goldstone).

“The United States has returned to the UNHRC, but its hard to detect any change in Geneva. Can there really be any justification for the Council to have convened its 6th Special Session dealing exclusively with Israel in its 3 short years of existence? The Council has once again proven itself to be an impediment to real Mideast Peace and serves as a platform for outrageous rhetoric which included charges by Morocco that Israel is digging under the Temple Mount, that Jewish extremists are practicing 'Jewish rituals' on the Temple Mount (Organization of Islamic Countries) and intentionally murdered Palestinians and followed a scorched earth policy,” Cooper noted.

“Judge Goldstone has now seen for himself how his one-sided report is being manipulated by the enemies of peace and other cynical parties. Tragically, it is only the beginning of a campaign to prosecute Israelis whose only crime is battling against a terrorist group - Hamas, which boasts of its strategic use of human shields,” Cooper concluded.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).

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