Front page today of 
Canada's National Post: Hillel Neuer's op-ed calling to dismantle the UN’s anti-Israel inquiry that is presenting today in New York.
“On Tuesday, a UN commission of inquiry on Israel will yet again present a report accusing the Jewish state of genocide. Days later, all three members will step down. Instead of replacing them, however, the UN would better serve the cause of humanity and peace by terminating a commission that is prejudiced in favor of Hamas, redundant to numerous other UN mechanisms, and in an era of deep UN austerity, a symbol of moral and fiscal waste.
In July, all three commissioners suddenly resigned, to take effect after their final report this week. Insiders said it was not accidental that their announcement came mere days after another UN figure targeting Israel, Francesca Albanese, was designated by the U.S. government on its sanctions list over her support for terrorism. Navi Pillay, the South African chair of the commission, reportedly feared being barred entry to the U.S., where her daughter lives.
The inquiry was initiated by the Arab and Islamic states at a special session that they convened at the UN Human Rights Council in wake of the May 2021 Hamas-Israel war. Rather than investigating the Hamas rockets that rained down on Israeli civilians, the new commission was tasked with examining the “root causes” of the conflict, including Israel’s alleged “systematic discrimination” based on race. Instead of the usual one-year term for such inquiries, the investigation of Israel was made perpetual – it has no end date. Reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition, which lasted 350 years, and where guilty verdicts were pre-determined.
The distinct bias of the inquiry was further made clear by who the UN chose as its members. Pillay, before being chosen as the supposedly impartial chair, had openly lobbied governments to “sanction apartheid Israel.” On an anti-Israel website, commissioner Miloon Kothari gave an interview questioning Israel’s right to UN membership, and ranting about “the Jewish lobby” that is “controlling social media.” The third, Chris Sidoti, trivialized the issue of antisemitism, claiming that Jews “throw around accusations like rice at a wedding.”
Astonishingly, even after the U.K., Germany, and France and 15 other nations condemned Kothari for antisemitism, Pillay backed him, and he stayed on.
With an annual budget of more than $4 million and a staff of 18, the trio performed as expected, delivering annual reports accusing Israel of war crimes, and meeting with the International Criminal Court in The Hague to empower their pursuit of Israeli leaders.
Now with their impending departure, the UN is about to appoint three replacements behind closed doors, devoid of any procedure, transparency or oversight. The president of the 47-nation Human Rights Council will simply announce his appointments as a fait accompli, with no opportunity for member states or the public to object.
Even EU countries that support investigating Israel should recognize that the very existence of this inquiry is redundant and wasteful. Whereas the UN has designated zero mandates to investigate human rights violations suffered by the one fifth of humanity living in China—and zero on Cuba, Turkey, Zimbabwe, and most other countries in the world—it has a plethora of mechanisms targeting Israel.
Every year since 1968, the UN’s “Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices” has produced annual 70-page reports, with legal analysis and recommendations on Israel’s alleged violations, summaries of Palestinian testimonies, and collections of statistics. Composed of Malaysia, Senegal, and Sri Lanka, and staffed out of the UN human rights office, the Special Committee also conducts regular field missions, including to Amman, Cairo, and Damascus. This has been going on for five decades before the Pillay Commission, and still continues. Its budget is undisclosed.
In addition, based out of New York, there is the 25-nation “Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People,” led by Cuba, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, and staffed by some 15 employees in the UN’s $3.1 million Division for Palestinian Rights. They produce legal studies, background papers, and public communications materials, in addition to holding annual conferences, and organizing global advocacy networks, to target Israel.
Then, based out of Geneva, there is the UN Human Rights Council’s “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,” another open-ended mandate, created in 1993. Not, as its title claims, to investigate human rights in that area, but only “Israel’s violations.” Currently held by the notorious Hamas apologist Francesca Albanese, she produces numerous reports and statements on alleged Israeli crimes, often recruiting other UN experts to sign her joint press releases. Albanese’s activities are supported by staff from the UN human rights office, at an estimated cost of $500,000 a year. This does not include additional outside funding that she receives, none of which is publicly disclosed.
Next, there is a lesser known entity in Vienna, the “United Nations Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” which, astonishingly, employs 19 staff, under the leadership of a former Russian diplomat, at an annual estimated cost of $3.5 million. In addition, the entity received another $9 million in voluntary donations, including from France, Austria and the Netherlands.
Finally, there’s UNRWA, a billion-dollar agency employing 30,000 employees, which is supposed to be about aid for Palestinians, but which also pays numerous senior staff engaging in public media campaigns targeting Israel.
Again, for perspective, the UN has a total of zero staff mandated to critically examine or address anything related to China, which, putting aside its malign activities in the region and abroad, oppresses 1.5 billion people.
Costs matter. The UN is now cutting 20% of its overall staff due to a financial crisis. The cost of the redundant Commission of Inquiry is over $4 million a year. Meanwhile, the UN is drastically scaling back investigations that are actually worthy. Two out of three commissioners tasked with investigating abuses in Venezuela have now resigned, citingfunding constraints. The UN is canceling its investigation into abuses in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where millions are displaced, and where there are tens of thousands of victims of mass rape and torture. Budget cuts will also see the UN reduce its reporting on human rights abuses by Russia and Myanmar, as well as on preventing child marriage, domestic violence, and discrimination against women. Instead, the UN will spend millions on multiple entities targeting Israel.
The resignation of all three members of the Pillay Commission has created a moment of reckoning. The new U.S. ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, should make clear to Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general who desperately craves US funding and relevancy, that America will no longer turn a blind eye to gross bias and waste.
The UN should be made to choose between saving its inquisition against Israel — and saving itself.”
