WJC condemns UN Human Rights Council probe on flotilla raid

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) has declared that the debate in the United Nations Human Rights Council, following the publication of a profoundly unbalanced and critical report on Israel’s raid of the Turkish flotilla on 31 May 2010, once again revealed an underlying bias against Israel through its distortion and perversion of the facts. Chairman of the International Independent Fact Finding Mission, Judge Karl Hudson-Phillips, said that the deaths of the so-called activists on the boat Mavi Marmara were a result of “serious violations of both humanitarian and human rights law”, that “passengers were assaulted by being kicked and gunbutted”, and that the conduct of the Israel military “was disproportionate and excessive and that they demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary violence”. 

Despite the submission to the investigative mission of evidence of the clearly violent intentions of the IHH terrorists who were on the Mavi Marmara, the report ignored the fact that the Israelis were attacked by a violent group that had articulated its will to become “martyrs”, with the intent to commit suicide in order to kill the Israelis, the WJC stated.

Insult was added to injury by the Palestinian representative who said that “the offensive character of Israel made it kill those innocent civilians”, and the Turkish ambassador’s shameful utterance that “I couldn’t help asking myself whether Israel has a heart in its chest or a stone.” In the view of the WJC, Israel rightly refused to partake in this  investigation, correctly identifying it for what it was at the outset: a prejudiced charade that would only repeat what has become the expected, hypocritical libel and blame of Israel by the UNHRC.

“The World Jewish Congress sadly again deplores these biased proceedings of the UN Human Rights Council,” said WJC President Ronald S. Lauder. “We note that it has lost its moral compass, where terrorism is deemed activism, and self-defense is called disproportionate violence. If the UNHRC wants to regain the integrity of its original purpose, it cannot submit to being manipulated into justifying and covering up terrorism”, Lauder declared.