24 August 2007
A two-day conference scheduled for next week and organized by the UN ‘Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People’ is causing controversy because it is to be held in the premises of the European Parliament in Brussels. The announcement of the gathering, entitled “The UN International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace”, has been meet a barrage of protests amid accusations that the conference will have a clear anti-Israel agenda. Poland has already announced that it will boycott the event. "I will not take part in this conference. I saw the materials prepared by the organizers," said Bronislaw Geremek, a Polish member of the European Parliament, adding: "Although there is no official statement that Israel must be pushed down to the sea, the choice of subjects and the attitude towards the problems shows that it will be a biased, conflict-generating conference. Actually we can call it anti-Israeli."
Israel’s Foreign Ministry and Knesset speaker Dalia Itzik have voiced their concerns, and Itzik has written to the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, asking him to reconsider hosting the event. The World Jewish Congress and other Jewish groups have also tried to intervene with European Parliament leaders to make them reconsider their decision to provide rooms in the parliament building for the conference. Previous requests from the committee were turned down by the EP. The body was set up by the UN General Assembly on the same day the notorious resolution “Zionism equals Racism” was adopted and the committee has repeatedly been accused of promoting a biased view of the Middle East conflict.
Gerald Steinberg from the organization NGO Monitor was quoted by the “Jerusalem Post” as saying: “This is yet another example of how officials from the EU provide support for radical NGOs leading the anti-Israel campaign through the use of the rhetoric of human rights. Many of the speakers represent NGOs that receive funds from the EU under the guise of building peace and development. Now, under the auspices of the UN, these NGOs are allowed the legitimacy to promote their incitement by holding a conference at the European Parliament under the banner of 'humanitarian violations of Israel's military'. [...] Such activities undermine the claims of the EU and its member states' governments - who also fund these NGOs - to be building bridges between Israelis and Palestinians, “ he added.
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