UN Watch rejects Kothari’s whitewash letter, demands Pillay inquiry be disbanded

August 4, 2022: "The independent non-governmental organization UN Watch rejected the attempt by UN investigator Miloon Kothari, via a letter that he sent today to the head of the 47-nation Human Rights Council, to keep his post on a commission of inquiry on Israel, despite remarks he made last week that were condemned worldwide as antisemitic.

‘UN Watch rejects Mr. Kothari’s attempt to whitewash his use of a notorious antisemitic trope that throughout history has sparked deadly pogroms and worse, and his literal questioning of Israel’s membership in the UN. His request for the president of the Human Rights Council to ‘enable and protect’ the inquiry should be turned down,’ said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

‘Mr. Kothari is the first UN investigator in the history of the United Nations to be called out for antisemitism by the head of the Human Rights Council, the Secretary General, together with Britain, France, Germany, the US and 14 other countries. He has disgraced the council, and cast a shadow upon the United Nations as a whole. That Mr. Kothari is clinging to his post after he obliterated any semblance of the impartiality legally required for a UN investigator, shows that is also without self-awareness or shame.’

‘Mr. Kothari has disgraced and disqualified himself, and must leave immediately. The other commissioners, Navi Pillay and Chris Sidoti, who have expressed similarly toxic public statements, are no better. The entire commission, created last year at the behest of Pakistan and the PLO, must be disbanded,’ said Neuer."