Apr 25, 2017:
In an article entitled Open Letter to UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on Our Report on Apartheid in Israel | The Nation appearing on The Nation website, Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley (co-authors of the ESCWA report) responded to U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley's response to the report.
In the article Falk and Tilley say the following:
We were deeply disappointed by your response to our report, Israeli Practices Toward the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid, and particularly your dismissal of it as "anti-Israeli propaganda" within hours of its release.
So far we have not received any information identifying the flaws you have found in the report or how it may have failed to comply with scholarly standards of rigor. Instead, you have felt free to castigate the UN for commissioning the report and us for authoring it. You have launched defamatory attacks on all involved, designed to discredit and malign the messengers rather than clarify your criticisms of the message. Ad hominem attacks are usually the tactics of those so seized with political fervor as to abhor rational discussion.
We were especially troubled by the extraordinary pressure your office exerted on the UN secretary general, António Guterres, apparently inducing him first to order the report's removal from the ESCWA website and then to accept the resignation of ESCWA's distinguished and highly respected executive secretary, Rima Khalaf...
Instead of using this global forum to call for the critical debate about the report, you used the weight of your office to quash it. These strident denunciations convey a strong appearance of upholding an uncritical posture by the US government toward Israel, automatically and unconditionally sheltering Israel's government from any criticism at the UN, whether deserved or not, from the perspective of international law.
Finally, we find it deeply troubling that your objections to our report have extended to criticism of the UN itself, partly on grounds that the UN devotes excessive attention to the question of Palestine.
Mar 17, 2017:
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres requested that the ESCWA report be removed from the ESCWA website.
UN chief orders report accusing Israel of 'apartheid' pulled from web | The Times of Israel
Mar 15, 2017:
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) released a 74-page report entitled Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid which concludes that Israel is an Apartheid state.
The report's Executive Summary states the following:
This report concludes that Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole. Aware of the seriousness of this allegation, the authors of the report conclude that available evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid as legally defined in instruments of international law.
In sum, this study was motivated by the desire to promote compliance with international human rights law, uphold and strengthen international criminal law, and ensure that the collective responsibilities of the United Nations and its Member States with regard to crimes against humanity are fulfilled. More concretely, it aims to see the core commitments of the international community to upholding international law applied to the case of the Palestinian people, in defence of its rights under international law, including the right of self-determination.
The ESCWA also posted a press release entitled ESCWA Launches Report on Israeli Practices Towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid which states:
Khalaf [Rima Khalaf, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the ESCWA] noted that Israel, encouraged by the international community's disregard for its continual violations of international law, has succeeded over the past decades in imposing and maintaining an apartheid regime that works on two levels. First, the political and geographic fragmentation of the Palestinian people which enfeebles their capacity for resistance and makes it almost impossible for them to change the reality on the ground. Secondly, the oppression of all Palestinians through an array of laws, policies and practices that ensure domination of them by a racial group and serve to maintain the regime.
The ESCWA is a panel which consists of the 18 Arab countries of Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and the State of Palestine. All 18 countries are U.N. member states except for the State of Palestine which is only partially recognized as a member state (138 of the 193 U.N. member states recognize the State of Palestine as a U.N. member state).
The report was published by the ESCWA and co-authored by Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley. From March 2008 to May 2014 Falk was a United Nations Special Rapporteur (investigator, independent expert, and working group member), appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to investigate, advise, and publicly report on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories. Falk is currently a
Professor of International Law Emeritus at Princeton University. Tilley is a professor of political science at Southern Illinois University.
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said:
The report as it stands does not reflect the views of the secretary general.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the report was published without any prior consultation with the U.N. secretariat.
Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon said:
The attempt to smear and falsely label the only true democracy in the Middle East by creating a false analogy is despicable and constitutes a blatant lie. It comes as no surprise that an organization headed by an individual who has called for boycotts against Israel, and compared our democracy to the most terrible regimes of the twentieth century, would publish such a report. We call on the Secretary-General to disassociate the UN from this biased and deceitful report.
U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley referred to the report as "anti-Israel propaganda." Haley also said:
The United Nations secretariat was right to distance itself from this report, but it must go further and withdraw the report altogether.
Source:
(2017). "Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid". United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
Reuters. (March 15, 2017). "Israel imposes 'apartheid regime' on Palestinians: U.N. report". Reuters. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
Eglash, Ruth. (March 16, 2017). "Is Israel an 'apartheid' state? This U.N. report says yes.". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
The Times of Israel and AFP. (March 17, 2017). "UN chief orders report accusing Israel of 'apartheid' pulled from web". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 2019-09-21.
(September 4, 2019). "International recognition of the State of Palestine". Wikipedia. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
(September 9, 2019). "Richard A. Falk". Wikipedia. Retrieved 2019-09-15.
(September 11, 2019). "United Nations special rapporteur". Wikipedia. Retrieved 2019-09-15.
(September 11, 2019). "Virginia Tilley". Wikipedia. Retrieved 2019-09-15.
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