Human rights situation in the OPT – Letter from Israel

QUESTION OF THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE

 OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES, INCLUDING PALESTINE

Letter dated 3 February 1993 from the Permanent Representative

of Israel to the United Nations Office at Geneva addressed

to the Under-Secretary-General for Human Rights

I wish to bring to your attention the attached two letters from the World Jewish Congress and the International Council of Jewish Women concerning the Human Rights Commission document E/CN.4/1993/70.

The State of Israel fully shares the feelings of surprise and outrage expressed in these letters, and joins their authors in the call for withdrawal of the said document.

I would be grateful if this letter, together with the letters of the above-mentioned organisations could be circulated as an official document of the Commission without delay.

Please accept, Mr. Under-Secretary-General, the assurances of my highest consideration.

(Signed):  Itzhak Lior

Ambassador

Permanent Representative

Annex I

WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS

Geneva, 1st February 1993

Ambassador Itzhak Lior

Israel Permanent Mission

to the European Office of the United Nations

9, chemin de Bonvent

1216 Cointrin – Genève

Dear Ambassador Lior,

We wish to bring to your attention the letter we have addressed of even date to the Chairman of the 49th session of the UN commission on Human Rights as well as to the Under-Secretary-General on Human Rights and the Secretary of the UN Commission on Human Rights, deploring the clearly antisemitic and racist statement contained in the last five lines of the first paragraph of the PLO Observer's letter of 7th October 1992, referred to in our letter.

We trust you will take whatever measures your Mission deems appropriate to convey the profound indignation which our two organisations and Jews as well as people of good will throughout the world will share at this appalling and highly objectionable manifestation of antisemitism which should be rejected and roundly condemned on all sides.

Yours sincerely,

Annex II

WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS

Geneva, 1st February 1993

The Chairman

United nations Commission on Human Rights

49th Session

Palais des Nations

Geneva

M. Antoine Blanca

Under-Secretary-General for Human Rights

Palais des Nations

Geneva

Mr. John Pace

Secretary

United Nations Commission on Human Rights

Palais des Nations

Geneva

Gentlemen,

The International Council of Jewish Women and the World Jewish Congress hereby convey to you their great distress and indignation at the scurrilous and offensive passage at the end of the first paragraph of the letter addressed to the Under-Secretary-General for Human Rights of the U.N., dated 7th October  1992 and distributed as an official document of the Commission's 49th session on 3rd December 1992, bearing reference number E/CN.4/1993/70.

This outrageous incitement to racial and religious hatred and discrimination offensive to Jews throughout the world as well as to other religious believers, seeks to give currency to the scandalous and repeatedly condemned blood libel by echoing the notorious calumny that the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar, namely Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement as well as other Jewish religious holidays are supposedly marked by blood rituals and human sacrifice.  We urge the Commission on Human Rights to condemn unreservedly and reject this appalling calumny conjuring up demonic antisemitic libels from the past.

We express our surprise that such an atrocious and deliberately diffamatory statement which has no connection whatever with the matter at issue, should have been circulated to the members of this Commission on Human Rights, violating as it does Article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and constituting a clear incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence on grounds of race and religion prohibited by Article 20, paragraph 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

We call on you and this Commission to withdraw this objectionable hate literature from the Commission's documentation and to condemn and censure the authors of this odious and detestable statement.

Yours sincerely,