By JNS , Israel Hayom Staff—
The United Nations’ anti-racism committee began a mandatory two-day review on Tuesday of the policies and practices of the Palestinian Authority, whose delegation responded by criticizing experts of the 18-member panel for asking about anti-Semitic incitement based on evidence provided by the international human rights group UN Watch, whose 32-page shadow report on Palestinian discrimination was labeled by the Palestinian Authority as “propaganda.”
Prior to their questioning of the PA, members of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination were addressed by UN Watch legal adviser Dina Rovner in a meeting with non-governmental organizations, as well as in a private briefing. Rovner highlighted the gross and systematic anti-Semitism by the PA and Hamas, as documented in a written submission by UN Watch.
It also called attention to the failure of the Palestinian delegation – headed by Ammar Hijazi, deputy foreign minister for multilateral affairs – to acknowledge any of this in its submissions to the world body.
“Our shadow report and presentations today exposed how the PA’s submissions to the committee completely ignored racist and discriminatory Palestinian practices, and how they tried to evade responsibility by shifting the focus of the review onto Israel,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.
Notably, groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which lobbied for the Palestinians to be recognized as a state for the purpose of signing human-rights treaties saying that this would hold them to account, did not make a submission or statement for this first-ever review of the Palestinians by the UN’s anti-racism committee. Continue Reading….