Pillay's Pogrom:

The UN's "Commission of Inquiry" Targeting Israel

The “Inquiry” Members

The resolution mandated the President of the Human Rights Council to appoint the “Inquiry” members. On July 22, 2021, the President (Nazhat Shameem Khan, a Muslim lawyer from Fiji) appointed the following members: Navi Pillay of South Africa as Chair of the “Inquiry,” Miloon Kothari of India, and Chris Sidoti of Australia.

As is true of every UN “inquiry” on Israel, the selection of the inquisitors is intended to pre-determine the answer – in clear violation of UN rules. UN Human Rights Council rules require members of inquiries to adhere to a specific code of conduct. These “mandate-holders” are supposed to uphold the “highest standards” of “impartiality;” they are supposed to be guided by the principles of “impartiality and even-handedness.” The Council is bound to ensure that all mandate-holders satisfy criteria “of paramount importance,” including: “independence,” “impartiality” and “objectivity.”

But each of the three individuals on Pillay's Pogrom was selected because they did not satisfy these criteria. Their minds were made up. They had already expressed the view that Israel was guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity, including apartheid, or indicated the accountability measures Israel should face, or demonstrated clear bias against Zionism and Jewish self-determination.



Chris Sidoti,
Member of the "Inquiry"

Chris Sidoti already holds these views on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict:

“Inquiry” member Chris Sidoti posted an article in 2018 on the website of the Palestinian “national institution” named the “Independent Commission for Human Rights” (ICHR). His post is accompanied with a biographical description that says of Sidoti: “He worked closely with Arab and Palestinian Human Rights organisations, and is a close friend and ally to ICHR.” Indeed, Sidoti then wrote of the Commission: “It has courageously denounced violations by the occupying Israeli forces. It has established an international reputation for integrity and credibility in its work, providing a welcome, reliable voice.”

In 2015 the ICHR’s “welcome” voice told the UN Human Rights Council that “Since Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territory in 1967, it has systematically targeted Palestinians including children.” The ICHR changed the name of the IDF to a fictitious “IOF – Israeli Occupying Forces,” and said of the 2014 Gaza conflict that “the IOF committed crimes against humanity.” It called throwing stones at Israelis – which kill and maim – “acts of natural rights.” In 2009 the ICHR’s purportedly credible and “reliable” voice included a submission to the UN Human Rights Council that contained this outlandish assertion: “facts on the ground confirmed…a pure Israeli intention to eliminate all the assets of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.” That was after Sidoti’s “close friend and ally” complained to the Council of the “jewishizing” of Jerusalem.

In addition, Sidoti “provides strategic guidance and advice” to a two-person NGO, the “Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ),” as a member of its Advisory Council. According to their first report in 2020, the ACIJ is actively promoting criminal prosecution of Israelis at the ICC. On May 7, 2021, the Centre partnered with the “Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council” and submitted a report to the Australian government labeling Israel a “settler-colonial and apartheid regime” guilty of crimes against humanity, and recommending that Australia endorse BDS. After the May 2021 conflict with Gaza, Sidoti’s ACIJ pronounced itself directly on the subject matter of Sidoti’s “Inquiry.” The ACIJ signed, published and promoted a joint open letter which included: “In the spring of 2021, the world once again watched in horror as Israeli occupying forces attacked defenceless Palestinian civilians.” They made no attempt to hide their objection to the creation of a Jewish state from day one, denouncing: “this systematic brutality, perpetrated throughout the past seven decades of Israel’s colonialism, apartheid, pro-longed illegal belligerent occupation…” (Emphasis added). The letter also says the solution is to render Israelis defenseless by imposing a total arms embargo.



Navi Pillay,
Chair of the "Inquiry"

Navi Pillay already holds these views on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict:

Navi Pillay served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008-2014. Pillay has a long record of labeling the Jewish state as a racist state and prejudging Israel as guilty of criminal atrocities. Herself a native of Durban, South Africa, Pillay made the glorification of the Durban antisemitic hatefest the centerpiece of her time in office. She became the world’s leading pro-Durban advocate, personally justifying the inclusion of alleged Palestinian victims of Israeli racism in Durban manifestos. It was Pillay who initiated, organized and led a global campaign to defend and promote Durban follow-up conferences in 2009 and 2011.

In addition, it was Pillay who generated and championed the Goldstone Report – the UN blood libel that the 2008/9 Gaza conflict was about Israel targeting the innocent and deliberately murdering civilians. She went on plugging it well after Goldstone himself recanted the report’s central lie.

The 2014 Gaza conflict occurred weeks before Pillay ended her term as High Commissioner. The conflict included the kidnap and murder of Israeli teenagers, hundreds of rockets fired at Israeli civilians, a cross-border terror tunnel network uncovered, and twelve ceasefires violated by Palestinian terrorists. But from Pillay came a series of blood libels, including the accusation that Israel targeted and deliberately murdered children.

Since leaving office as High Commissioner, Pillay has been very open about exactly where she stands on these issues – including the subject-matter of the “inquiry.” Public speeches at conferences. Interviews posted on YouTube. Signing on to published statements. According to Pillay, Israel practices apartheid. BDS should be supported. Israelis are criminals who should be rounded up and imprisoned. And on top of all that, Israelis should be denied military support and armaments (presumably lest they seek to respond to the certain violence that her advocacy incites).

On November 29, 2017, Pillay went out of her way to speak at a special event for “United Nations International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” Her remarks evidence her anti-Israel pathology. She claimed “apartheid…is happening in Israel.” After praising “the world-wide anti-apartheid movement…mobilized on the moral principle of abhorrence against racism,” she declared: “I hope that the Palestinian struggle to end colonization gains this kind of momentum, especially in the civilian campaign of BDS, Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.” She produced a lengthy charge sheet only for Israel, and paradoxically promoted her “anti-xenophobia” cause by announcing that there are “rabbis who do not support these violations.” Finally, Pillay points to the real villain, to her way of thinking: “the lobbies supporting Israel,” or again: “the extremist Israeli lobby.”

And in a June 14, 2021, open letter to U.S. President Joe Biden co-signed by Pillay, Pillay claimed that Israel is guilty of "institutionalized domination and oppression of the Palestinian people" and "ever-expanding discrimination and systemic oppression" - one of the very issues that Pillay has been mandated to investigate.



Miloon Kothari
Member of the "Inquiry"

Miloon Kothari already holds these views on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict:

“Inquiry” member Miloon Kothari, who previously served as the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, was the subject of a formal complaint filed by Israel to the UN for lying on a visa application. After entering the country under false pretenses, Kothari issued a report in which he described the Second Intifada – during which Israeli men, women and children were routinely butchered by Palestinian suicide bombers – as the “wave of Palestinian resistance in September 2000.” He alleged Israeli was guilty of “ethnic cleansing” and concocted the racist allegation that Israel had a “theocratic” legal system based on “ethnic criteria.” The root cause of his glorification of terrorism and open antipathy to the Jewish state was quite clear. To Kothari, Jews living in the Jewish homeland were always an affront. Kothari’s UN report called it “Israel’s long record of…implantation of settlers prior to and since its establishment as a State.”

In a UN press release, Kothari encouraged countries to discontinue “military cooperation” with Israel, since apparently rendering Israel defenseless was a Palestinian human right. He also said that he already knew the factors “that underlie the ongoing conflict” – namely, “the colonization activities” of the “World Zionist Organization and Jewish National Fund.”