UN Watch Presents Report on Endemic Palestinian Antisemitism To UN’s Anti-Racism Committee
Before the UN’s anti-racism committee reviewed the “State of Palestine” for the first time today, UN Watch Legal Adviser Dina Rovner took the floor twice before the committee’s panel of experts to present UN Watch’s 32-page shadow report on Palestinian violations of the anti-racism convention. The first remarks presented below were delivered at a meeting between the panel members and non-governmental organizations. Following those remarks is Rovner’s in-depth speech on the UN Watch submission, parts of which were conveyed in an informal lunchtime briefing with committee members.
Full prepared remarks, delivered at the UN anti-racism committee’s meeting with non-governmental organizations:
We meet today to review the State of Palestine’s compliance with the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Yet one would not know that from reading the Palestinian Authority’s 62-page report to this Committee, which repeatedly blames the “Israeli occupation” for countless alleged violations of Palestinian rights, while seeking to evade responsibility for its own racism and discrimination. We remind all stakeholders that Israel will be reviewed for its actions in November, whereas the proper focus of today’s review is Palestinian compliance with the Convention, or lack thereof.
United Nations Watch submitted a shadow report, which is available at www.unwatch.org/PA-racism. We were disappointed that NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International which lobbied for the Palestinians to join international treaties saying it would hold them to account did not submit reports for today’s review.
Ironically, the PA report acknowledges that there are almost no minorities in Palestine. According to the statistics provided by the PA, the various minority groups comprise no more than 1% of the population.
The Committee may wish to ask the PA why, by its own admission, it has virtually no minorities. By any objective standard, these figures suggest high levels of racism and discrimination. For example, if 1.9 million Arab citizens live in neighboring Israel, comprising 21% of the population, why is it that there are no Jews at all living under Palestinian jurisdiction?
Today, for the first time since Yasser Arafat & his PLO were brought in to the United Nations in 1974, the Palestinians are being officially reviewed for their policies & practices of racism & discrimination.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 13, 2019
We just took the floor before the committee & urged them to ask about: https://t.co/WiQzhWGa1H pic.twitter.com/glV4BGHXOL
UN Watch Shadow Report Exposes Palestinian Antisemitism Ahead of First UN Racism Review
UN Watch’s detailed submission reveals that the PA and Hamas routinely violate international commitments to combatting racism, through laws, policies, and statements aimed at denying any Jewish rights in Israel or the Palestinian-controlled territories.
By contrast, in its own report, the PA shirks its obligations as a party to the anti-racism convention by failing to address the problem of racism in Palestinian law and society, and instead seeking repeatedly to blame Israel.
“The PA exploits the reporting process of the anti-racism committee as yet another UN vehicle to attack Israel. This is a waste of the committee’s time and resources, as Israel is subject to its own review later this year,” said Neuer.
Highlighting the deficiencies in the PA’s report, UN Watch urged the anti-racism committee to focus its review on Palestinian laws and policies, detailing the following discriminatory practices for consideration:
1. Racist Palestinian laws criminalize the sale of land to Israeli Jews
Dozens of Palestinians have been arrested for attempting to sell land to Jews — a crime that is considered treason. In December 2018, an American-Palestinian man was sentenced to life in prison with hard labor for violating the Palestinian law prohibiting land sales to Israelis. Palestinian courts have ruled that the death sentence can be applied in such cases as well.
2. Palestinian laws incentivize the murder of Israeli Jews by providing financial rewards to Palestinian terrorists who kill or attempt to kill Israeli Jews
The payment by the PA of salaries and benefits to Palestinian prisoners serving time in Israeli jails for terror-related offenses is mandated in Palestinian law. Each year, the PA allocates approximately 7% of its budget to terrorist payments. This practice directly legitimizes acts of terrorism against Israelis and is aimed at keeping Jews out of areas controlled and claimed by the PA.
President Mahmoud Abbas recently reiterated the PA’s commitment to these payments, stating “even if we have only a penny left, we will give it to the martyrs, the prisoners, and their families.”
3. Regular incitement of antisemitic racial hatred by Palestinian officials, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas
While the PA report referenced Palestinian criminal laws concerning propaganda, it conveniently ignored the problem of rampant antisemitic propaganda that incites Palestinian terrorism. In his speeches and social media posts, Abbas has regularly incited terrorism and spewed classical antisemitic tropes. His comments have praised “martyrs” as the “priority” of Palestinian society, proclaimed that Jews “have no right to defile the Al-Aqsa Mosque with their filthy feet,” and claimed that European Jews were hated for their connection to usury and the banks rather than for their religion.
Several other PA and Hamas leaders have publicly called Jews “apes and pigs” and promoted other antisemitic libels.
Forty-one times over past 13 years, Ken Roth sent his HRW reps to criticize Israel, at every session when it was subjected to stand-alone scrutiny at the UNHRC.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 12, 2019
Yet now that the Palestinians are being reviewed for first time ever by the UN racism committee, he submits nothing. pic.twitter.com/ZDznwsQ47C
While we were working on our 32-page submission to the UN racism committee documenting Palestinian Authority discrimination against Christians, Samaritans & Jews, Ken Roth & his HRW team were sitting & smiling with the perpetrator, whitewashing his crimes. https://t.co/js07ddaLcF pic.twitter.com/j0yeKIh0fa
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 12, 2019