The chair commissioner of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (COI), is defending her colleague against accusations of antisemitism from pro-Israel groups, Israeli lawmakers, and U.S. officials.
In an interview with Mondoweiss COI member Miloon Kothari addressed the consistent efforts of pro-Israel groups to discredit the COI, which was set up to investigate the “root causes” of violence in the region after the Israeli military killed at least 260 Palestinian residents of Gaza last year. Sixty-six of those killed were children.
After addressing the backlash that the COI has received from the United States government, Kothari said, “We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by – whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs, a lot of money is being thrown into trying to discredit us, but the important thing is our mandate is based on international human rights and humanitarian standards and that we are all seeking the truth.” Within the context of the interview, Kothari seems to be addressing the social media efforts of lobbying groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (which had a 2020 revenue of over $96 million) and other lobby groups who have attacked the COI on social media.
Mondoweiss shared the relevant audio clip statement on social media:
The distinction hasn’t stopped Kothari from being smeared as antisemite and from COI critics from citing the interview as proof that the COI is “singling out” Israel. Michèle Taylor, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council tweeted, “We are outraged by recent antisemitic, anti-Israel comments made by a member of the Israel COI. These unacceptable remarks sadly exacerbate our deep concerns about the open-ended nature & overly broad scope of the COI and the HRC’s disproportionate & biased treatment of Israel.”
“As we have stated repeatedly, we firmly oppose the open-ended and vaguely defined nature of the..Commission of Inquiry on the situation in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza,” she continued. “This one-sided, biased approach to Israel does nothing to advance the prospects for peace.”
“The international community should be outraged by Miloon Kothari’s antisemitic comments,” tweeted Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid spokesperson Keren Hajioff. “His racist remarks about ‘the Jewish Lobby’ that controls the media & his questioning Israel’s right to exist as a member of the family of nations — echo the darkest days of antisemitism.”
Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden administration’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism also denounced Kothari’s comments, calling them “outrageous” and “antisemitic.”
The pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called the comments “appalling.”
Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae said they were “biased”, “antisemitic”, and a “disgrace.”
Pillay responds
In a letter to UN Human Rights Council President Nazhat Khan, COI chair Navi Pillay says that Kothari’s comments “seem to have deliberately been taken out of context.”
“The Commission also wishes to underline that Commissioner Kothari’s comments on efforts by governments as well as specific NGOs to discredit individual
members of the Commission were again deliberately misquoted to imply that ‘social
media’ was controlled by the Jewish lobby,” reads the letter. “The Commission takes great exception to personal attacks against individual Commissioners appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Such attacks have been continuously directed against all three Commissioners throughout our tenure, and it is to this that Commissioner Kothari was making reference.”
Pillay also addressed the fact that the commission has grown frustrated with Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the inquiry in any way. “Israel is under an obligation to abide by the international legal framework, as well as independent bodies set up by the United Nations,” she explains.
Political attacks
The political attacks on the COI have gone far beyond rhetoric. In June, Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Tim Scott (R-SC) introduced a bill to halt the commission. “The UN Human Rights Council’s decision to investigate Israel — the only democracy in the Middle East — is simply outrageous,” said Scott, “While dictators like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un commit human rights violations with impunity, the council’s misguided inquiry only further undermines its credibility on the world stage. I urge my colleagues to pass this bill to support our ally Israel and ensure American taxpayers are not forced to fund the UNHRC’s discriminatory investigation.”
Rosen reiterated their goals in response to the Kothari interview, telling the pro-Israel Jewish Insider that, “The antisemitic comments made by a member of the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on Israel are outrageous and deeply offensive. This is yet another example of the Commission’s anti-Israel bias, and why this open-ended inquiry must be halted and disbanded.” The House version of the Scott/Rosen bill has 92 cosponsors, including 15 Democrats.
The COI has also been repeatedly attacked by the Biden administration. In March Secretary of State Antony Blinken called it “a stain on the Council’s credibility.” After the COI put out its first report in June the State Department put out a statement highlighting their opposition to the inquiry. “As we have stated repeatedly, we firmly oppose the open-ended and vaguely defined nature of the UN Human Rights Council’s (HRC) Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the situation in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, which represents a one-sided, biased approach that does nothing to advance the prospects for peace,” it reads. “The report of the Commission, released today, does nothing to alleviate our concerns. While the United States believes the HRC plays a crucial role in promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms globally, this COI and report do not advance this goal.”
So the US Ambassador to the HRC is “outraged”? Ya know what is outrageous? A US Ambassador not just merely selectively editing a quote and sharing it completely out of context to the ENTIRE world, but one who is parroting (virtually verbatim) talking points from Israeli officials and pro-Israel special interest groups.
In two steps they have collectively taken this quote:
“We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by – whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs, a lot of money is being thrown into trying to discredit us, but the important thing is our mandate is based on international human rights and humanitarian standards and that we are all seeking the truth.”
and edited down and shared it to Twitter as this:
“We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by – whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs.”
(Take special note of the period they deliberately inserted at the end of the quote, to deceivingly imply that was all that Mr Katharine said.)
They then distilled it even further down and out of context to:
”The Jewish Lobby controls the media…” and “…questioning Israel’s right to exist.”
This kind of misrepresentation, misquotation, misinformation, and Orwellian propaganda is not just beneath the office of an actively serving US Ambassador but a disgusting, reckless, and extremely dangerous precedent to be setting!
Why? Because when US governments officials in the administration speak and act like this and make this behavior the new global standard, there is simply no longer any more civil and legitimate discourse and ANYTHING is now allowed.
Don’t take my word for it, take Ambassador Taylor’s own words from her very same Tweet:
“As we have stated repeatedly, we firmly oppose the open-ended and vaguely defined nature of … Israel. This one-sided, biased approach … does nothing to advance the prospects for peace.”
See what happens when I selectively choose to simply leave out 16 of her words, just like Ambassador Taylor selectively chose to leave out 36 very important words? Suddenly, official US foreign policy at the UNHRC regarding Israel looks a WHOLE lot different! Not to mention, accurate.
Are Ambassador Taylor and her fellow AIPAC-sponsored and parroting ilk absolutely and positively sure that THIS is the game of words they want to play? Because two can play that game.
So why isn’t Deborah Lipstadt and others complaining about the anti-semitic Tom Friedman of the New York Times?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/opinion/israel-saudi-arabia-biden-trip.html
This occupation may not be the same as South African apartheid, but it is an ugly cousin and morally corrosive to Israel as a Jewish democracy.
I am astounded at how easy it is to distract people’s minds with ad-hominem and might-makes-right arguments. The proper response to the charge that Miloon Kothari is anti-semitic is not “no he’s not”, it’s “who cares? Are the reports he wrote or supervised accurate?”
It’s been months (5?) since the reports on Israeli apartheid by B’tselem, Amnesty and the U.N. came out, and as far as I can tell our colleagues at Hasbara U have still not come up with their own detailed analysis or refutation.
The Israel lobby doesn’t control the media. But when it comes to coverage of Palestine/Israel, it’s not for want of trying.
I think what really pissed them off was Kothari’s use of the term, “Jewish Lobby,” rather than “Israel Lobby.”