ELNET-UK, Together With UK Lawyers For Israel, Have Submitted Evidence To The International Court Of Justice As It Considers A Referral Against Israel By The Un General Assembly
ELNET-UK and UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) have this week submitted a forceful response to questions referred by the UN General Assembly to the International Court of Justice, which amplify anti-Israel bias and propagate mischaracterisations of the only Jewish State.
Firstly, none of the initial 29,000 pages of documents provided to the Court by the UN was published prior to 1967 – as if that’s where the history of this conflict began. Previous wars, prolonged periods of anti-Jewish violence and millennia of history appear to be viewed as irrelevant.
Secondly, the UN has been recognised even by former Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and critics of Israel such as US Senator Bernie Sanders as holding ingrained anti-Israel bias. For example, since 2015 the UN General Assembly has passed 140 resolutions against Israel compared to less than half that against all other countries in the world combined; the UN Human Rights Council has passed 104 resolutions against Israel compared to 97 against everyone else; while the World Health Organisation has passed 9 resolutions against Israel and none for any other country. An opinion relating to Israel based on documents produced by bodies such as these would be unjudicial and unreliable.
Thirdly, the International Court’s procedure when providing advisory opinions is wholly unsuitable for addressing disputed questions of fact, particularly when there is so much misinformation as in matters relating to Israel. Its previous opinion, relating to Israel’s security barrier in the West Bank, was shown to have been based on a raft of false information – to give just one example, a decline in UN hospital caseloads in a West Bank town was misconstrued as being a result of the security barrier when in actual fact it was due to the opening of two new hospitals in the same area.
Finally, the questions assume unified Palestinian positions on issues such as the redivision of Jerusalem whereas consistent polling of Palestinians in East Jerusalem suggest otherwise.
Read the full submission here:
“This case will cause great damage to the reputation of the International Court. The evidence provided to the Court fails a basic smell test and reeks of anti-Israel bias. We are proud to stand up for the world’s only Jewish State and its right to fair and proper treatment by the international community”.
“The Court has been asked to provide an advisory opinion on the basis of a long series of mendacious UN reports, resolutions and other documents. The process is vitiated from the outset with a prevailing and incorrect assumption of guilt. We cannot allow this to go unchallenged”.