DFM Ayalon meets with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Jerusalem

9 Feb 2011
MFA
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/MFA+Spokesman/2011/Ayalon-meets-with-UN-High-Commissioner-for-Human-Rights-9-Feb-2011.htm

 
DFM Ayalon: The Council is damaging the chances of renewing the process, encouraging terror and not doing enough to secure the release of Gilad Shalit. He called on the commissioner to cancel her visit to Teheran, as this will legitimize the immoral oppression of the Iranian regime.
  

(Communicated by the Bureau of Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon)
The meeting between Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Dr. Navanethem Pillay, who has been visiting Israel and the Palestinian Authority since Sunday, ended earlier today (Wednesday, 9 February 2011). The purpose of the visit is to expose the High Commissioner to the complexities of the situation and the dilemmas Israel is facing as the only democracy in the Middle East.
DFM Ayalon reviewed recent Middle East developments and their consequence, and raised several issues: 
“The UN Human Rights Council is sabotaging chances of renewing the political process – the obsessive occupation with the Goldstone Report, as well as the use of the Committee for the political hounding of Israel, have created an atmosphere of hostility and lack of trust which have caused the Palestinians to fortify themselves in their positions and prevents them from returning to the negotiation table. The Goldstone Report describes the firing of rockets from Gaza as a ‘war crime’ - well, today, six such war crimes took place – and no response or denouncement was voiced by the UN. Seeing this double standard, we, as Israelis, find it difficult to take the human Rights Council seriously. “ 
“The Human Rights Council, as it operates today, damages the right to self defense of democracies who deal with terrorism and asymmetrical warfare, and actually encourages terrorism.” 
DFM Ayalon expressed the fear that forthcoming visit of the High Commissioner to Iran will legitimize the Iranian regime that maliciously violates human rights, executes its citizens and openly calls for genocide.   
During their meeting, DFM Ayalon referred to the condition of the captured soldier Gilad Shalit and implored on the High Commissioner to increase her efforts to hasten his release: “It seems that the UN is not doing all in its power to bring about the release of Gilad Shalit. I call for the mobilization of all possible means to bring him home, as well as to work towards the immediate improvement of his conditions, as these are a blatant and basic infringement of all relevant human rights conventions.” DFM Ayalon also requested that the Commissioner to do all in her power to meet with Shalit.