Jewish right-wing extremists carry Israeli flags during the controversial "Flag March" outside the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem's Old City in East Jerusalem on May 29. A United Nations report published Tuesday blamed Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory as the main cause of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI |
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June 7 (UPI) -- Recurrent Israeli-Palestinian violence and instability in the region is mainly due to Israel's continued occupation of Palestinian territory and discrimination against Palestinians, a new United Nations report published Tuesday said, attracting rebuke from the Jewish state and Washington.
The report from the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, said ending Israel's occupation is essential to ceasing the persistent cycle of violence.
It described the occupation as in perpetuity and that stakeholders cited it as the root cause of recurrent tensions, instability and conflict in both the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.
The commission also noted that the occupation, which the U.N. has repeatedly said is unlawful, is not likely to end without international intervention.
"The findings and recommendations relevant to the underlying root causes were overwhelmingly directed towards Israel, which we have taken as an indicator of asymmetrical nature of the conflict and the reality of one state occupying the other," Navanethem Pillay, chair of the commission, said in a statement accompanying the 18-page report, which is to be presented to the 50th session of the Human Rights Council on Monday.
Israel, which has occupied the West Bank and Gaza since 1967, is seeking to ensure "complete control" of Palestinian territory and is "acting to alter the demography" by creating an environment that is repressive toward Palestinians but favorable for Israelis, it said.
Impunity is also feeding increased resentment among Palestinian people, it said, citing forced displacement, threats of forced displacement, demolitions, settlement construction and expansion, settler violence and the blockade of Gaza as contributing factors to the persistent violence.
Concerning the Palestinian Authority, the commission noted that it refers to the occupation as justification for its own human rights violations and as the core reason it fails to hold legislative and presidential elections.
The commission was born by the U.N. Human Council in May 2021 following 11 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas that erupted when Hamas began firing rockets at Israel as tensions escalated over Israel's intentions to forcibly displaced Palestinian families from their East Jerusalem homes.
According to U.N. data, 256 Palestinians, including 66 children and 40 women, were killed in Gaza with nearly 2,000 more injured. In Israel, 13 people were killed, including two children and six women.
The commission is to produce a report annually on the state of the occupation.
Israel -- which the commission said did not cooperate with its investigation -- chastised the report and described it as a waste of money.
"Their 18-page report solely defames Israel while ignoring Palestinian terrorism & violence targeting Israelis," its foreign ministry tweeted. "The report does not address Israel's security needs nor Palestinian terror.
"So, what does this dangerous and discriminatory report leave us with? More hatred, violence & global antisemitism, a denomination of Israel and a reword for terrorism."
The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, which welcomed the report, accused Israel in a statement of responding to it with its "usual blatant attack" against the council "without being able to justify the violations and crimes of the occupation and settler militias."
Ned Price, the U.S. State Department spokesman, repeated the United States' opposition to the commission, which he described as being a "one-sided, biased approach that does nothing to advance the prospects for peace.
"The report of the commission ... does nothing to alleviate our concerns," he said in a statement, adding that while the United States supports the U.N. Human Rights Council's goal of promoting respect for human rights, this report fell short of that end.
"Israel is the only country subject to a standing agenda item at the HRC and has received disproportionate focus at the HRC compared to human rights situations elsewhere in the world," he said. "While no country is above scrutiny, the existence of this COI in its current form is a continuation of a longstanding pattern of unfairly singling out Israel."
