Prof. Anne Bayefsky: The UN Human Rights Council's "Commission of Inquiry" Goes Openly Antisemitic
In May 2021, after an 11-day conflict between Palestinian terrorists in Gaza and Israelis, the UN established a "Commission of Inquiry" on Israel with a permanent "ongoing" mandate to ferret out "systematic discrimination and repression."JPost Editorial: UN bias toward Israel does nothing to achieve peace
Three well-known biased actors were appointed as members of the inquiry who could be counted on to manufacture a guilty verdict: Navi Pillay as chair (former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), Miloon Kothari (a former UN "expert"), and Chris Sidoti (a close associate of a top Palestinian organization and of Israel-bashing NGOs).
While UN rules specifically require that UN human rights "experts" are independent, impartial, and objective, each one was on record promoting the libel of apartheid and crimes against humanity regarding Israel and a proven anti-Israel zealot. In June 2022, the inquiry members presented their first report, which concluded that the actions of "Jewish Israelis" were the "root cause" of the conflict.
On July 25, 2022, an interview with commission member Miloon Kothari appeared on the anti-Israel website Mondoweiss where, referring to Israel, he said: "I would go so far as to raise the question as why are they even a member of the United Nations." He referred to social media reaction to the inquiry controlled by "the Jewish lobby."
Human Rights Council President Federico Villegas of Argentina called Kothari's remarks "unfortunate" and said they "could reasonably be interpreted as the stigmatization of the Jewish people." He suggested Kothari "consider the possibility" of "publicly clarifying" his comments. In a letter to Villegas, Israel's Prime Minister Yair Lapid wrote, "The fight against antisemitism cannot be waged with words alone. It requires action. This is the time for action; it is time to disband the Commission. This Commission does not just endorse antisemitism - it fuels it."
The Biden administration has officially and repeatedly objected to the UN "inquiry." On June 29, the House Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment prohibiting the use of any American funds for the inquiry. Defunding would be entirely consistent with current American legislation prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars for other anti-Israel UN bodies.
The comments by the UN’s Miloon Kothari last week were shocking but not surprising. Kothari is on a three-member panel appointed by the UN last year to conduct an unprecedented open-ended war-crimes probe against Israel. Along with Kothari, the panel comprises chairwoman Navi Pillay, a former UN high commissioner for Human Rights, who in the past has supported calls to boycott and sanction Israel, and Australian legal expert Chris Sidoti, who has also made disturbing remarks recently.Sign Our Petition: Help End UN-Backed Hate Campaign Against Israel and the Jewish People (with VIDEO)
The “UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem, and in Israel” was initially approved in May 2021 by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council. It followed in the wake of the 11-day war that started when Hamas in Gaza launched thousands of rockets on Israel, starting with Jerusalem, and Israel in response launched Operation Guardian of the Walls.
The creation of the commission of inquiry (COI) to investigate Israel – and not Hamas – in perpetuity, is itself shameful. That the panel is composed of three people known to have voiced negative views about Israel, the subject of their investigation, compounds the problems. Nothing the commission or its members have done or said in the meantime even partially mitigates concerns of the built-in bias against Israel. Sidoti rejected criticism when the first report was published in June saying some Jews were throwing around accusations of antisemitism “like rice at a wedding.”
Last week, however, Kothari raised the rhetoric and did away with the last vestiges of pretense of impartiality. Upset by criticism of the COI, including by some governments, Kothari said in an interview with the Mondoweiss website: “We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by – whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs – a lot of money is being thrown into trying to discredit us.” The Indian lawyer, in addition, said “I would go as far as to raise the question of why Israel is even a member of the United Nations.”
Kothari’s comments combine the abhorrent but frequently heard antisemitic tropes of Jewish control of the media backed by Jewish money. For good measure, he also clearly questions Israel’s right to exist along with its membership in the 193-member United Nations.
On July 25, a UN expert tasked with investigating the Jewish state told an anti-Israel website that the “Jewish lobby” controls social media.
“We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by — whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs… A lot of money is being thrown into trying to discredit us,” Miloon Kothari said in an interview with Mondoweiss’ David Kattenburg. A long-time pro-Palestinian activist, Kattenburg once asserted that “the Nazis would have been impressed” with what he described as the Israeli “terrorist apartheid regime.”
Miloon Kothari is one of three members of the controversial ‘UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel’ (COI), which is currently carrying out an unprecedented open-ended probe into Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, set up following 2021’s 11-day Hamas-initiated conflict.
The COI’s first 18-page report, published on June 7 of this year, charged the government in Jerusalem with everything from “gender-based violence” to hindering “Palestinian democratic processes.”
At the time, leading news organizations were all too eager to parrot the UN’s slanted conclusions. Yet these same outlets have refused to univocally condemn the antisemitic tropes in Kothari’s most recent statements, even as they fall within the widely-adopted IHRA working definition of antisemitism.
Over the past months, the media have also failed to note that the commission’s head, Navi Pillay, has expressed support for the BDS movement, which according to its leaders is meant to put an end to the Jewish state. Pillay has furthermore advocated for the blacklisting of companies that do business with Jewish communities located over the Green Line, and went on record as saying that Israel has “enforced segregation on racial lines.”
Similarly, mainstream journalists did not report that COI member Chris Sidoti on June 14 at the UN Human Rights Council downplayed modern-day Judeophobia, claiming that some Jews throw around “accusations of antisemitism” like “rice at a wedding.” Before his stint at the UN, Sidoti worked closely with Palestinian NGOs for over 15 years.
Notably, Pillay defended Kothari’s anti-Jewish remarks in a letter to UN Human Rights Council President Federico Villegas, falsely asserting that the quotes about the “Jewish lobby” were taken out of context.