(Geneva) The president of the UN Human Rights Council on Friday asked one of his investigators to clarify comments he made about the “Jewish lobby”, after strong protests from Israel and other countries.
Posted at 12:52 p.m.
This expert, the Indian Miloon Kothari, is one of three members of a UN commission investigating alleged violations of human rights in the context of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
In an interview published July 25 on the Mondoweiss website, he alluded to a “Jewish lobby” and questioned the legitimacy of Israel’s membership in the United Nations.
“We are very discouraged by social media, largely controlled by the Jewish lobby or by some specific NGOs, which spend a lot of money trying to discredit us,” Kothari said.
His remarks sparked outrage from Israel, which on Friday called for his resignation, as well as strong criticism from other diplomats, including Britain and the United States.
Two days after the publication of the interview, the Israeli ambassador to Geneva Meirav Eilon Shahar wrote a first letter to the president of the Human Rights Council, the Argentinian Federico Villegas, to protest against these “scandalous comments , some of which are blatantly anti-Semitic”.
The chair of the commission, the South African Navi Pillay, former High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Thursday that Mr Kothari’s comments “appear to have been deliberately taken out of context” and that they had been “deliberately misquoted”.
She added that the remarks reflected “the committee’s disappointment with Israel’s continued lack of cooperation” with the experts.
“Clarify publicly”
In a second letter sent Friday to the President of the Council and of which AFP was aware, the Israeli ambassador denounced the remarks of Ms.me Pillay: “It’s the defense of the indefensible,” she said. “She supports anti-Semitism. It puts the whole of the UN to shame.
“It is time to disband this commission,” she wrote.
She considered that the three members of the commission can no longer “perform their duties effectively” and called on them to “resign immediately”.
Later in the day, the President of the Human Rights Council in turn sent a letter to Mr.me Pillay in which he asserts that certain comments made by Mr. Kothari “could reasonably be interpreted as stigmatizing the Jewish people, which […] is at the heart of any expression of anti-Semitism”.
“Therefore, I respectfully suggest that Commissioner Kothari consider the possibility of publicly clarifying his unfortunate comments,” he concluded.
Israel refused to cooperate with this commission set up following the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, during which 260 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza, including fighters, according to local authorities.
The experts are tasked with investigating alleged human rights violations committed in the Palestinian Territories and Israel since April 13, 2021.
In a report published on June 7, the commission considered that the occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel and discrimination against the Palestinian population are “the main causes” of the recurring tensions and instability.