Aletho News

Following Visit, UNHCHR Criticises Israel for International Law Violations

By Tania Kepler for the Alternative Information Center | 13 February 2011

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who just completed a six-day visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, strongly criticized Israel for its treatment of Palestinians and violations of international law.

“All state actions in support of the establishment and maintenance of the settlements, including incentives to create them and the establishment of infrastructure to support them, are illegal under international law,” Pillay said at a press conference on Jerusalem Friday (11/2) marking the end of her visit.

“I have been struck by the complacency with which the entirely-avoidable predicament of Palestinians affected by the wall and settlements is treated by Israeli authorities with whom I have discussed these issues,” Pillay said.

“They tend to be brushed aside as if they are minor matters. They are not. They are clear-cut violations of human rights on a very large scale,” she said.

During her visit Pillay called for a halt on all settlement-related activities in East Jerusalem, as well as home evictions, demolitions, displacements and the cancellation of residency permits on a discriminatory basis.

On Monday, 7 February, the Jerusalem Municipal Planning and Construction Committee approved a plan for 13 new housing units for Jewish settlers in the East Jerusalem neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah.

The settler housing units will be built in two buildings, and will require the demolition of several Palestinian residences, leaving even more Sheikh Jarrah families homeless.

“East Jerusalem is being steadily drained of its Palestinian inhabitants, in clear-cut defiance of Security Council resolutions,” Pillay remarked during her visit.

“It’s only when you hear the testimonies that you begin to understand the true horror of the policies which are stifling their social, cultural and economic prospects and crippling their morale,” she said.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero also spoke out against building plans in East Jerusalem.

“The plans violate international law,” Valero said after the announcement of the new Sheikh Jarrah complex. “The settlements must end, in the West Bank as well as east Jerusalem.”

A U.S. State Department official also denounced Israel’s continued construction in East Jerusalem, saying Israeli actions “in Sheikh Jarrah and previously in Beit Orot, work against efforts to resume direct negotiations and contradict the logic of a reasonable and necessary agreement between the parties on the status of Jerusalem.”

In closing her visit, Pillay said, “The politics of conflict, peace and security are constantly leading to the downgrading, or setting aside, of the importance of binding international human rights and humanitarian law,” which she described as “not negotiable.”

February 13, 2011 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation