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UN Report Sets Stage for Hague Case Against Israel

Daoud Kuttab writes that the UN report calling on Israel to vacate its settlements in the West Bank paves the way for legal action against the Jewish state at the International Criminal Court.
A general view shows Palestinian villages (rear) around a Jewish settlement near Jerusalem known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim April 25, 2012. Har Homa is a terraced suburb of neat, white-stone apartments housing 13,000 Israelis that overlooks the biblical town of Bethlehem. Of all the obstacles blocking the way to peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, the status of Jerusalem is arguably the most intractable. Picture taken April 25, 2012. To match insight PALESTINIAN

It was no coincidence that Israeli representatives boycotted the Jan. 29 meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, at which Israel's record was to be reviewed. They had been aware for months that a three-person fact-finding mission headed by French judge Christine Chanet would be extremely critical of Israel. In fact, according to press reports, the Israelis had sought, and were granted, a delay in the publication of the mission's report until after elections in Israel held Jan. 22. The report identifies Israel’s ongoing settlement activity as a serious breach of international humanitarian law and calls on Israel to withdraw all Jewish settlers from the occupied territories. One member of the mission details Israeli violations since 1967.

“The magnitude of violations relating to Israel’s policies of dispossessions, evictions, demolitions and displacements from land shows the widespread nature of these breaches of human rights. The motivation behind violence and intimidation against the Palestinians and their properties is to drive the local populations away from their lands, allowing the settlements to expand,” said Unity Dow, a commission member from Botswana.

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