GENEVA (EJP)---An international Jewish organisation has called for the dismissal of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

In an address before the in Geneva, B’nai B’rith International’s delegation spoke out against John Dugard, a rapporteur who they say has “continually demonstrated an extreme bias against Israel, openly ignoring the ongoing and pervasive human rights violations of the Palestinians while criticizing Israel at every turn.”

BBI’s David Matas adressed the UN on behalf of B’nai B’rith International President Moishe Smith and the Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations (CBJO), referring to a recent report of Dugard’s as “a tired repetition of a long string of unilateral accusations leveled against Israel”

Dugard is a South African professor of international law who has served as Judge ad hoc on the International Court of Justice and as a Special Rapporteur for both the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the International Law Commission and has written extensively on South African apartheid.

In his reports on Israel’s treatments of the Palestinians, Dugard has consistently compared Israel to apartheid South Africa.

Describing Gaza as “a prison”, Dugard wrote in his report “Israel has genuine and legitimate security concerns. However Israel has taken advantage of the paranoia of non-State terrorism in certain countries to embark on a reign of state terrorism in the occupied Palestinian territories.”

No understanding

“The former German Foreign Minister once said that he who places all the blame for the Middle East conflict on one side, shows thereby that he understands nothing about this conflict,” Matas said. “Mr. Dugard’s paper fits that description.”

Matas went on to detail how Dugard negatively depicted “Israeli measures to defend its citizens from suicide and other terrorist attacks” such as the security barrier using “Nazi vocabulary”.

“The author does not find space for a single mention of these attacks coming from the West Bank and only half of a sentence regarding the on-going Qassam attacks fired from Gaza.

“In his exuberance to tag Israel with the racist label, the author even resorts to Nazi vocabulary by describing the Jews as a “racial” group in opposition to a so-called Palestinian “racial” group. Given the worldwide rise of antisemitism such language in a U.N. document is welcome food for those who seek to denigrate Jews on account of their “racial” characteristics,” the BBI representative added.

And in further criticism, he said: “This is perhaps the most blatant violation of the principles of non-selectivity unanimously supported by all member and non-member countries at the very first session of this new Council.”

B’nai B’rith International, describes itself as “the global voice of the Jewish community”. Formed in 1843, it is the oldest and most widely known Jewish humanitarian, human rights, and advocacy organization.
Dugard’s latest report can be found here http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G07/105/44/PDF/G0710544.pdf?OpenElement