Israel Institute of New Zealand co-director, Dr David Cumin, is calling on the New Zealand Government to immediately condemn a \u2018disgraceful\u2019 United Nations report labelling it as \u2018consistent with the worst traditions of the Third Reich\u2019.<\/p>\n
Dr Cumin was referring to an unprecedented UN Human Rights Council report listing 112 companies doing business with Israelis living in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem and other areas over which sovereignty is disputed.<\/p>\n
Dr Cumin says that, by any reasonable definition, the UN Human Rights report is a \u201cblacklist\u201d of businesses and is similar to the Nazi-imposed boycott of Jewish businesses in the 1930s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are eerie echoes of Hitler\u2019s regime here. These businesses haven\u2019t committed any crime \u2013 yet they\u2019re being singled out by an agency which is supposed to uphold human rights. What possible purpose is there in compiling, and publishing, a list to \u2018shame\u2019 them if it isn\u2019t to intimidate and incite hatred and violence?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Dr Cumin says that the report perpetuates the UN\u2019s disgraceful record of bias against Israel and notes that most New Zealanders would be appalled if they knew which countries made up the majority of the membership of the UN Human Rights Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cA majority of the (United Nations Human Rights) Council members are countries with appalling human rights records, yet they single out the only democracy in the Middle East for condemnation. This gross hypocrisy and double standard is blatant antisemitism\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Dr Cumin says that while antisemitism in the UN has been growing over the past 20 years, it was given a boost with the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, in which New Zealand was complicit, in 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, New Zealand co-sponsored the resolution along with Malaysia, Senegal and Venezuela and, in so doing, it has given legitimacy to a growing tide of hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWorse still \u2013 New Zealand is continuing to vote disproportionately against Israel at the UN General Assembly and is funding antisemitism, incitement to violence and supporting terrorism through the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to the tune of at least $1m each year.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Dr Cumin says that the latest UNHRC move just shows how politicised the UN has become.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are more than 100 territorial disputes in the world today but the UN chose only to blacklist companies doing business in Israel\u2019s disputed territories\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese companies have done nothing wrong and many are involved in providing goods and services to Palestinians pursuant to the Oslo Accords; affording them good wages and allowing for Arab-Jewish interaction that could lay the foundation for peace between the two peoples.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe HRC bias is clear but the timing of this \u201cblacklist\u201d is especially cynical, coming hot on the heels of a peace proposal. The HRC is obviously not interested in peace.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Dr Cumin notes that the Human Rights Council also has only one standing agenda item to condemn a particular country \u2013 item 7, which singles out Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cImagine going to your Neighbourhood Watch meeting, month after month, year after year, and there being just one item, is on every agenda, which is to reaffirm how much you all hate the only Jew on the block. That’s just not cricket. We must stand up to racism wherever it comes from.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israel Institute of New Zealand co-director, Dr David Cumin, is calling on the New Zealand Government to immediately condemn a \u2018disgraceful\u2019 United Nations report labelling it as \u2018consistent with the worst traditions of the Third Reich\u2019. Dr Cumin was referring to an unprecedented UN Human Rights Council report listing 112 companies doing business with Israelis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2538,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445,447,451],"tags":[662,291,112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4808,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807\/revisions\/4808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}