UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Pillay produces yet another Israel-bashing report

A new Israel-bashing report has been issued by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for the upcoming March session of the UN Human Rights Council. The report is submitted annually pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions S-9/1, which in 2009 established the notorious Goldstone inquiry, and S-12/1, which subsequently adopted the Goldstone report.

The High Commissioner Navi Pillay has a long history of anti-Israel bias. She called for the creation of the Goldstone inquiry. After Goldstone claimed that Israel had intentionally targeted civilians, the High Commissioner expressed "full support to Justice Goldstone's report and its recommendations." In 2009, she issued a report that lauded Hamas for having "made public statements that it is committed to respect international human rights and humanitarian law."

In her latest report, among other things, Pillay accuses Israel of "excessive use of force" and lists alleged "incidents" on which she based her conclusion. One incident described in the report illustrates well her animosity against Israel.

The report alleges that Jihad Aslan and Younis Jahjouh "were shot and killed as they threw stones at the [IDF] soldiers" and that UNRWA employee Ruben Zayed, "was shot and killed on his way to work by the Israeli security forces as they were leaving the [Qalandia refugee] camp." It concludes that "In all of these cases, those killed or injured presented no threat to the lives of the soldiers."

In fact, while apprehending an arms dealer in the Qalandia refugee camp, the IDF was "confronted by scores of young Palestinian men who attacked them with Molotov cocktails, stones, cinder blocks and various other objects and shot at them." In response the soldiers fired shots at the rioters. After the investigation the IDF concluded that there was no excessive use of force because the violence the soldiers encountered was "extreme and unusual". In addition, the funeral of the three Palestinians was attended by Hamas leader Jamal al-Tawil. Also present was a member of Fatah's Central Committee, who called on the Palestinians to set up "human shields" to "protect the members of the resistance [i.e., terrorist organizations] and guard the homeland".

An objective report would at least include both accounts of this event.

Further, in the report the High Commissioner complains about Egyptian authorities destroying "numerous tunnels used to smuggle goods from Egypt to Gaza." She fails to mention that Hamas uses these tunnels as a way to circumvent the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip and smuggle weapons into the Palestinian territory.