PMW makes 11,687 submissions to the biased UN Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry

While the United Nation’s anti-Israel bias is well documented, last year, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) went even further. It chose to “establish an ongoing, independent, international commission of inquiry to investigate” only one country in the world: Israel. This unprecedented committee is now a permanent UN fixture with a budget of US $ 4,151,800 for the year of 2022 alone, that will report to the UN twice every year on Israel's alleged human rights violations.

To expose the anti-Israel bias of the commission, Palestinian Media Watch immediately went into action. Working in cooperation with Human Rights Voices, PMW submitted 11,687 unique submissions - content from PMW’s website - to the so-called “Commission of Inquiry."

Under its own regulations, the commission, which invited these submissions, must review all PMW’s evidence and failure to do so will be additional proof of the one-sided, biased nature of the commission. 

In the submissions, PMW gave critical evidence demonstrating how the PA indoctrinates Palestinian children to hate, kill, and seek Martyrdom-death, promotes terror, honors mass murderers of children, operates an institutionalized and systematic policy of paying huge financial rewards to terror, promotes vile Antisemitism, and much more. 

This commission, whose sole purpose is to demonize Israel, is being boycotted and ignored completely by the Israeli government and some NGOs. Nonetheless, PMW wants to be able to expose and undermine the commission by supplying it with all the critical evidence proving the PA is the terror supporter and human rights violator, and not Israel. However, not wanting to give it any legitimacy and to ensure that the commission will not use PMW’s submissions as a fig leaf for its anti-Israel designs, every one of PMW’s submissions included this disclaimer: “This submission in itself should not be understood as an endorsement of the inquiry or its mandate.”

In our submissions, PMW referred to each of the five subjects the commission is meant to consider, namely:

“(1) Underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict in and between the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel;

as well as systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity;

(2) Facts and circumstances regarding alleged violations of international humanitarian law and alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since 13 April 2021;

(3) Identification of those responsible;

(4) Recommendations on accountability measures, with a view to avoiding and ending impunity and ensuring legal accountability, including individual criminal and command responsibility;

(5) Recommendations on measures to be taken by third States to ensure respect for international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”

PMW’s submissions to the commission made use of the “cloud” service that the UN created specifically for this purpose and advertised on its website.

The unprecedented anti-Israel scope of the UNHRC resolution and the mandate of the commission make it clear that the commission was set up for the sole purpose of demonizing Israel. The UN’s goal is to achieve global support for the delegitimization of the State of Israel, the demonization of Jewish self-determination, and the criminalization of Israeli self-defense.

On March 31, 2022, the Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper reported that the Commission of Inquiry “met in Jordan on Thursday with a delegation of Israeli Arabs who presented allegations of systematic discrimination by Israel.”  

In contrast, but apparently all too indicatively, while PMW made 11,867 submissions to the commission and provided unequivocal evidence and analysis regarding each of the five subjects at the core of the commission’s mandate, PMW has not yet been contacted.

Now, PMW is turning to you to partner with PMW and join the fight for Israel. Take any report on PMW’s website and make your own submission to the commission. A template for submissions can also be found here.

Submissions should be sent to the UN in two places and to PMW:

1. By email, to the UN Secretariat at: [email protected]

2. By "cloud" at: https://owncloud.unog.ch/s/eYqkCWdqgMUqFTs

3. Send an email to us at PMW to ensure that we have a record of your submission: [email protected]