GENERAL:

Members of B'nai B'rith International participated in B’nai B’rith's annual delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. The delegation was headed by BBI President Moishe Smith and included Ambassador Joseph E. Harari, chairman of the Council on U.N. Affairs; David Matas, senior honorary counsel of B'nai B’rith Canada; Yves Kamami, vice president of B'nai B'rith Europe; David Michaels, director of U.N. and intercommunal affairs among other B’nai B’rith leaders from the United States, Israel, France, Panama, Belgium and Switzerland.

Throughout the week the delegation met with more than 30 missions of UN member states including: the US, South Africa, Germany, Canada, Palestine, Pakistan and several other members which hold leadership positions on the Council. Members also met with representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and other delegates from various regional groups and NGO's.

THE MAIN POINTS DISCUSSED DURING THE MEETING WERE:

• UN Human Rights Council's record of voting; the ongoing problem of the Council's obsessive focus on Israel which also includes item #7.
• B'nai B'rith International's position towards the Durban Review Conference.
• Calling upon the missions to emphasize the “red lines” and to support attempts to prevent the violation of the conference's critical principles.
• Inclusion of Israel in a regional group as Israel is still not a member of the regional group WEOG (Western European and Others Group) in Geneva, nor is it part of JUSCANZ (Japan, US, Canada, New Zealand) in either Geneva or New York.
  

In addition to the advocacy meetings, B’nai B’rith convened a panel discussion on accusations that Israel was responsible for war crimes, including violation of "proportionality" and other principles of international law, during its recent counterterrorism operations in Gaza. David Matas and Daniel Lack, representatives of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, comprised the panel.

B’nai B’rith also hosted a diplomatic reception for UN delegates, NGO's and other members of the international community. More than 60 guest including 20 Ambassadors participated in the event including the President of the Human Rights Council Mr. Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi.

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL - 10TH SESSION - ITEM 7 - STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF B’NAI B’RITH INTERNATIONAL AND THE COORDINATING BOARD OF JEWISH ORGANIIZATIONS - 23 MARCH 2009 - BY KLAUS NETTER

Mr. President,

On behalf of B’nai B’rith International and the Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations allow me to make a few remarks on Mr. Falk’s report on the OPT.

The Rapporteur starts out with an undoubtedly truthful statement regarding the denial of his entry into Israel on 14 December 2008. What he forgets to mention is that he had been explicitly informed by the Israel authorities in advance of his attempted mission that his visit would not be welcome. Thus, we are confronted with a half-truth right at the outset of his report. The reason for the denied entry can be found in the one-sidedness of his mandate, which he himself had criticized on taking up his assignment as Special Rapporteur. Whereas he considers the entry denial “an unfortunate precedent with respect to the treatment of a representative of the United Nations Human Rights Council, and more generally of the United Nations itself”, he appears to be unaware that official UN missions require advance governmental approval of the country to be visited. Even an advisory opinion on the part of the International Court of Justice, which he calls for, is unlikely to change this long-standing practice.

Mr. Falk states that “the population density in Gaza means that reliance on large-scale military operations to ensure Israeli security cannot be reconciled with the legal obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention to protect to the extent possible the safety and well-being of the occupied Gazan population.” By this reasoning Israel commits a crime by any and every act of retaliation against terrorist attacks directed at Israeli civilians emanating from Gaza. Here again he ignores the deliberate intermingling of militants and civilians as practiced by Hamas, as well as the use of civilians as human shields and the launching of attacks from civilian structures such as schools and places of worship. It is precisely these practices contrary to international law which result in the oft-decried lack of proportionality between the civilian losses suffered by Israel and those suffered by the Palestinian population in the course of Israeli military reprisals.

Israel’s “refusal to acknowledge Hamas as a political actor” is undoubtedly true, but again a half-truth, because the author fails to note that such a refusal is also practiced by the major Western democracies, such as the EU, Canada and the United States. It is perhaps even less than a half-truth for not mentioning Hamas’s adamant refusal to recognize the existence of Israel as a State.

To summarize, Mr. President, Mr. Falk’s report continues the long but more than useless tradition of anti-Zionist propaganda which poisons the atmosphere in this Council rather than contributing to the solution of the political problem separating the two parties or reducing the human rights suffering that affects the civilian population on both sides of the divide.

Thank you Mr. President.