What's New
Resources updated between Monday, February 17, 2020 and Friday, February 21, 2020
February 20, 2020
The U.N. "Human Rights" Council: Turning human rights into a bad joke Article
February 19, 2020
"I knew if we waited long enough, the United Nations would make itself useful. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has produced a handy catalogue of companies that supporters of Israel can give their business to. Of course, this was not Michelle Bachelet's intention.
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Now Bachelet has released 'a database of all business enterprises involved in certain specified activities related to the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory'. She does not mean to celebrate their commitment to serving customers and clients in sometimes dangerous environments. No, her roster was compiled at the request of the UN Human Rights Council. This is a body in which countries whose idea of human rights is gender-neutral torture and equal-opportunity ballot-rigging get together and pass reams of vexatious resolutions against Israel.
Bachelet's list doesn't explicitly encourage the blackballing of companies mentioned. But it is a nod and a wink to the methods of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. It's too obvious to be clever but it's still sly: a coycott, rather than a boycott.
BDS's economic warfare against the Jewish state has had little success but that's not the point: a UN body is tacitly legitimising its agenda and even doing the research for it. The UN's obsession with this tiny strip of land on the shores of the Mediterranean has nothing to do with human rights. If Vlad the Impaler were around today he'd be a special rapporteur on exsanguination and no one in Geneva would see anything untoward about it. What OHCHR's list is about is the UN's institutional hostility towards Israel and support for 'de-judaising' Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.
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Be in no doubt: if the OHCHR gets away with this, Israel won't be the last country to find its economy targeted in this way. The policies of any member-state will be open to this kind of political interference. The states that want to avert this eventuality should demand Bachelet goes and reduce its contributions until she does."
The U.N. should be ashamed of its anti-Israel boycott list Article
"In 2018 Nikki Haley, Donald Trump's UN ambassador at the time, was right on the money when she described the UN Human Rights Council as a "cesspool of political bias" against Israel. Her exasperated assessment then is even more relevant now following the publication of the council's 'blacklist' of 112 international and local companies operating in the Israeli-occupied territories. It's a shameful attempt to strike a blow against the Middle East's only functioning democracy and upholder of the rule of law and religious freedom. The aim is clearly to mobilise the 47-member UN body, of which Australia is a member, to help the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement campaign seeking to isolate Israel. UN deputy executive director for advocacy Bruno Stagno Ugarte says it puts all the companies 'on notice (that) to do business with illegal settlements is to aid in the commission of war crimes'.
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Given the make-up of an organisation that claims to be the world's 'premier human rights body', there can be little surprise about its obsessive targeting of Israel with the blacklist. Its publication has been in the works since 2016, when countries with some of the worst human rights records, including Cuba and Venezuela, made the running at the UNHRC. Nicolas Maduro's jackbooted Venezuelan dictatorship remains a leading light, alongside other great exponents of human rights such as Angola, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Somalia and Libya.In 2018, Scott Morrison, in pledging Australia would not abstain from voting against anti-Israel resolutions at the UN, said: 'We won't turn a blind eye to an anti-Semitic agenda masquerading as defence of human rights.' It is hard to see the UNHRC blacklist as anything but part of a blatantly 'anti-Semitic agenda' aimed at crippling companies legitimately bringing goods, services and much-needed employment to the occupied territories. Australia must waste no opportunity to condemn and counter the council's brazen hypocrisy and the sinister witch-hunt it has embarked on."
February 18, 2020
Iran sentences alleged U.S. spies to up to 10 years in prison Document
Record number of antisemitic incidents documented in the Netherlands Article
Balloon carrying rocket-propelled grenade warhead flown into Israel from Gaza – reports Document
February 17, 2020
A Palestinian was apprehended by IDF forces near the "Crusader" checkpoint at the Cave of the Patriarch for attempting to carry out a stabbing attack against the forces on Monday afternoon.
In response to the incident, the police spokesperson said that "a suspect attempted to stab a border police officer on duty at a security checkpoint. Officers responded and the suspect was arrested at the scene without drawing fire from the forces."
No injuries occurred at the scene. Israel Border police have heightened security in the area.
A similar incident happened yesterday near the Cave of the Patriarchs, when Israel Border Police arrested a Palestinian man carrying a knife following an attempted attack on Israeli forces at a checkpoint near the tomb in Hebron.
Stabbing attempt by Palestinian terrorist at the Cave of the Patriarchs Document
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