|
Israel Cuts Contact with U.N. Human Rights Council
[An Nahar] The Israeli foreign ministry decided on Monday to cut contact with the United Nations...what started out as a a diplomatic initiative, now trying to edge its way into legislative, judicial, and executive areas... Human Rights Council after it said last week it would investigate Israeli settlements, a front man said. "There was a decision by the foreign ministry to sever work contacts with the organization," ministry front man Yigal Palmor told Agence La Belle France Presse, adding that Israel had yet to formally inform the council of its decision. "There won't be working relations with them, conversations, passing papers, making visits, exchanging information, consulting one another, attending meetings," he added. "That's work, and it will not take place." Council head Laura Dupuy said the Israeli move was "most regrettable." "I have no doubt that it is in the interest of Israel to cooperate with the Human Rights Council on this investigative mission, not least so that it can explain its own policies and actions to the independent commissioners once they are appointed," she said. The Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, movement in the Gazoo Strip slammed the Israeli decision, with front man Fawzi Barhoum calling it a "Zionist attempt to blackmail" international institutions that criticize Israel. "This is proof of the vulnerability of the Zionists in front of rights organizations and the U.N., and will generate a wide international consensus on the oppression of the Paleostinian people and the justice of their cause," he said in a statement. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday called publicly for a boycott of the council, which last Thursday passed a resolution ordering the first investigation into how Israeli settlements may be infringing on the rights of the Paleostinians. Posted by: Fred 2012-03-27 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=341713 |