- Dec 29, 2008
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Israel decided Monday to sever all contact with the United Nations human rights council and with its chief commissioner Navi Pillay, after the international body decided to establish an international investigative committee on the West Bank settlements.
The Foreign Ministry ordered Israel's ambassador to Geneva to cut off contact immediately, instructing him to ignore phone calls from the commissioner, a senior Israeli official said.
Israel will also bar a fact-finding team dispatched by the council from entering Israel and the West Bank to investigate settlement construction.
"We will not permit members of the human rights council to visit Israel and our ambassador has been instructed to not even answer phone calls," said the official. "The secretariat of the human rights council and Nabi Pilawai sparked this process by establishing an international investigative committee on settlements, and we will thus not work with them anymore and will not appear before the council," said the official.
Israel cuts contact with UN rights council, to protest settlements probe - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
It's about time. More countries should have the courage to stand up against this UN agency that makes a mockery of human rights by promoting racism instead of human rights.