That the United Nations is institutionally hostile to the Jewish state is hardly news. Nor should it be surprising that a commission of inquiry established in the wake of the 2021 Gaza war by the UN Human Rights Council—one of the organization’s worst offenders in this regard—has devoted itself single-mindedly to compiling ill-founded accusations against Israel. But it is somewhat unexpected that a member of the commission, Miloon Kothari, declared forthrightly in an interview that he doubts whether Israel should be allowed into the United National at all, and then expressed his frustration at “social media controlled largely by . . . the Jewish lobby.” Anne Bayefsky, moreover, points to part of the interview that has received less attention:
Kothari revealed in his interview that the inquiry intends to act “well beyond just our reports,” and to that end, is now lobbying members of Congress. He made the startling admission that “we’ve had some communications even with congresspeople and senators in the United States” and that commission members were also planning to come to the United States for “about two weeks” to visit campuses and hold public meetings.
Lobbying is not in the inquiry’s UN mandate. . . . Moreover, UN commissions of inquiry on country-specific issues, like this one, are not allowed to waltz into the United States and conduct a lobbying and indoctrination tour.
But Washington has the means to retaliate, and Bayefsky urges it to:
• revoke any permission provided to members of the inquiry to travel anywhere outside the immediate vicinity of UN Headquarters and condition their entry into the United States on acting in conformity with their mandate and the UN Charter;
• withhold American taxpayer dollars from being used to support the inquiry and encourage allies to do the same;
• insist that the UN secretary-general issue a robust condemnation, and develop a plan for much stronger repercussions for relationships with the United Nations if the inquiry remains intact.
Read more on Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: https://jcpa.org/article/the-un-human-rights-councils-commission-of-inquiry-goes-openly-antisemitic