Thread by @HillelNeuer

Big News: The UN's entire commission of inquiry against Israel has resigned, in fear of U.S. sanctions.
▶️ unwatch.org/un-watch-hails…

Now here's my 🧵 on what the media won't tell you:

A broad coalition of 22 nations condemned the inquiry's anti-Israel bias:

• It was established with an “open-ended mandate with no sunset clause, end date, or clear limitations...”

• “We believe the nature of the COI is further demonstration of long-standing, disproportionate attention given to Israel in the Council, which must stop.”

• “We continue to believe that this long-standing disproportionate scrutiny should end, and that the Council should address all human rights concerns, regardless of country, in an even-handed manner.”

• “Regrettably, we are concerned that the Commission of Inquiry will further contribute to the polarization of a situation about which so many of us are concerned.”

2/ When the commission's reports supported Hamas, @COLRICHARDKEMP took the floor:

“Mr. President, this commission of inquiry is equivalent to Putin’s propaganda machine. The disinformation from Moscow justifies their illegal war on Ukraine; the disinformation from today’s report justifies Hamas’s illegal war on Israel.

I wish to address the commissioners. Putin wrongfully says an illegitimate Ukrainian state occupies Russian territory; you wrongfully say an illegitimate Israeli state occupies Palestinian territory.

Putin falsely says his war is to protect Russian-speakers in Ukraine; you falsely say Hamas’s violence is to protect religious rights in Jerusalem.

Why is this commission swallowing Hamas’s lies — hook, line and sinker — and amplifying them with a megaphone that contorts reality into a travesty of human rights?

Neither this commission nor Putin count Hamas as terrorists. You back them with words while Putin backs them with guns.

Today’s report validates and encourages Hamas’s terror tactics, just as it outrageously denigrates Israel’s lawful defense.

Your work here today ensures renewed bloodshed tomorrow. It incites hatred of Jews around the world, and cruelly betrays the Palestinian people.”

HRC President: “Excuse me, I have to interrupt you — there is a point of order asked by the State of Palestine.”

PLO: “Thank you very much indeed, sir. I would just like to reiterate your call on everyone to respect the mandate of this council and to stick to using respectful language. Such interventions, President, perpetuate the crimes and the violence that we have seen during the funeral of the Palestinian journalist who was killed. This language is an ongoing feature of the violence that is in Palestine. So, President, I will call on you to put an end to the statement of the current speaker. Thank you.”

Col. Kemp: “This report incites hatred of Jews around the world, and cruelly betrays the Palestinian people. Before Putin was expelled from this body, he voted to create your commission of inquiry, and now—like Hamas—he has endorsed your report. I can think of no greater indictment.”

3/ I took the floor at the United Nations to expose the disqualifying bigotry and bias of the commission chair, Navi Pillay. They had no reply:

“Today we ask: Do you believe, High Commissioner, that this Council is ensuring justice and the rule of law?

You mention, at paragraph 34, that the Council created a new commission of inquiry in May 2021.

This inquiry is special.  It has an unusually broad mandate to investigate all violations connected to the war that month between Hamas and Israel, as well as incidents in Jerusalem in April, and all events leading up to that period, and since.

Second, unlike all previous inquiries, this one has an all-encompassing mandate to investigate the “root causes of current tensions,” including alleged “systematic discrimination” on the basis of race.

Finally, whereas all other inquiries have a defined term—typically for a year, to produce one report—this inquiry on Israel is the only one mandated to report “on an annual basis.” For perpetuity. The size of the inquiry’s budget and staff, costing millions of dollars, is also unprecedented.

For its most substantial inquiry ever, one would expect special care in choosing its Chair. Yet in July, the Council appointed Ms. Navi Pillay — despite a bipartisan Congressional letter from 2012 documenting how she “repeatedly demonstrated bias against the State of Israel.”

In the Bible it is written: “Justice, Justice shalt thou pursue.” Why does Justice appear twice? To teach us that the methods we use to pursue justice must also be just.

Was appointing Ms. Pillay just?

High Commissioner, under Guidelines published by your office in 2015, a chair of a commission of inquiry must have “a proven record of independence and impartiality,” which can be impacted by “prior public statements.”

Let us consider the statements of Ms. Pi­­­­­­­llay, Chair of the new inquiry. On 31 May 2010, she declared that “the Israeli government treats international law with perpetual disdain.” In November 2017, she accused Israel of “apartheid.” In a May 2021 lecture, she did it again—and she described Israel’s actions as “inhuman.”

But it’s not only statements. Ms. Pillay has actually lobbied governments. In June 2020, she signed an appeal, organized by the South African Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Coalition, entitled “Sanction Apartheid Israel!”

Her petition condemned “Israel’s occupation and apartheid regime,” campaigned for countries to “ban military-security cooperation with Israel,” and urged them to impose sanctions.

On 14 June 2021, she co-signed a letter to U.S. President Biden, decrying Israel’s “oppression of the Palestinian people.” She called on the U.S. to “address the root causes of the violence” by ending Israel’s “ever-expanding discrimination and systemic oppression.” She referred directly to the events of April.

High Commissioner, is the Council pursuing justice by putting at the head of its most important investigation an individual who has publicly lobbied governments to condemn and sanction one of the parties—and on the very issues that are the object of her inquiry?

High Commissioner, would you not agree that allowing this grave injustice to stand will not only undermine the credibility of the inquiry, but risk casting a shadow upon the reputation of the United Nations as a whole?

Justice, Justice shalt thou pursue.”
unwatch.org/un-rights-chie…

4/ “The 7th October attacks have not occurred in a vacuum...”

Navi Pillay, like the UN chief Antonio Guterres, was obscenely trying to legitimize the Hamas massacre and atrocities.

Then I took the floor:

“Mr. President, we meet in the Palais des Nations, a site with a historical lesson concerning what is being done in this body.

Here was the League of Nations. In July 1936, the journalist Stefan Lux stood up in the Assembly and shot himself, committing suicide.

He did so to warn humanity of the catastrophic peril coming from the Nazis. His warning went ignored. Hitler launched World War II, and the League went extinct.

In its place came the UN. It promised to uphold world peace.

Yet here today, as happens all too often, the UN has become a platform of terrible lies.

The worst dictatorships on the planet, state sponsors of terrorism, and their apologists, told heard terrible lies, to demonize the world’s only Jewish state.

Israel was accused of starvation. In truth, since Hamas started the war, 500,000 tons of food were transferred to Gaza.

“Extermination?”

It is Hamas which attempted to carry out a genocide, and openly promises to try again. Hamas deliberately embeds itself among civilians. To stop genocide, and to rescue the hostages, Israel aims at the terrorists.

No army in the history of urban warfare has achieved a lower ratio of civilian-combatant casualties.

Commissioner Pillay, why does your report make no mention of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the one orchestrating the multi-front war?

Is it because this would collapse the fixed narrative of Israel as the guilty party?

Today we sound a warning: UN demonization of the Jewish state has consequences. The demon of antisemitism has now been unleashed upon the world. If the world does not act now, it will only get worse.”

5/ I went on @CBSNews’ “Eye on the World” with to call out this UN inquisition:
“Navi Pillay actually lobbied governments to “Sanction Apartheid Israel’ — it is a travesty of justice for her to now serve as chair of the U.N. inquiry on Israel.”

@batchelorshow

@COLRICHARDKEMP @CBSNews @batchelorshow 6/ Did you see any media reporting that one of the commissioners, Miloon Kothari, said that “The Jewish lobby controls social media?” Or that 18 countries—condemned him for antisemitism? Or that Navi Pillay then defended him?
unwatch.org/the-compendium…

@COLRICHARDKEMP @CBSNews @batchelorshow 7/ Condemned commissioner Miloon Kothari's antisemitism:
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