Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - After absorbing five months of Israel-bashing resolutions, Israel was pleasantly surprised by the "balanced" report presented by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights following her visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Israel's ambassador to the world body in Geneva said on Wednesday.

But a U.N. watchdog group said that while the high commissioner's report was better than the usual U.N. reports regarding Israel, there were still "core deficiencies" in her approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Louise Arbour visited Israel and the Palestinian Authority areas for a firsthand look at the situation last week. She presented her findings to the recently formed Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday.

"For the first time since the creation of the new council [there was] a very balanced report presented by the high commissioner," Israeli Ambassador Itzhak Levanon told Cybercast News Service by phone from Geneva.

Since its inception, he said, Israel had been accustomed to criticism and a distorted picture of reality from the U.N. -- as though there had been no suffering or bloodshed on the Israeli side.

Since the Human Rights Council replaced the discredited Human Rights Commission five months ago, it has held three special sessions - all focusing on Israel. All three meetings ended with the adoption of what Israel considers one-sided and unbalanced condemnatory resolutions.

Arbour arrived in the southern Israeli city of Sderot last week just before two Kassam rockets slammed into the city. One killed an Israeli father of two at the chicken packing plant where he worked.

Levanon, who accompanied Arbour during her visit to the city, said she had seen in one week what the U.N. council had failed to see since its establishment -- that there is suffering on both sides.

He said Arbour had acknowledged that as long as Palestinian terrorists were launching missiles at Israel, Israel had the full right to defend itself.

She had also said that the firing of Kassam rockets was a violation of humanitarian law and international law, and asked Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas directly to make it stop. Arbour told Abbas that he needed to hold accountable those who launch the rockets and bring them to justice.

Levanon said the high commissioner had for the first time seen for herself that the rockets were not simply "firecrackers" as the Palestinians claim they are, but were rather missiles capable of killing people.

In a message to the Human Rights Council Wednesday, Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the body to handle the Arab-Israeli conflict "in an impartial way, and not allow it to monopolize attention at the expense of others where there are equally grave or even graver violations.

"There are surely other situations, besides the one in the Middle East, which would merit scrutiny by a special session of this Council," he said. "I would suggest that Darfur is a glaring case in point."

Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based non-governmental organization U.N. Watch, told Cybercast News Service that, in "relative terms," Arbour's report was better than the customary "demonization of Israel that occurs in each session."

Neuer said it was rare for the Human Rights Council to hear anything about Palestinian violations or about demands made of the Palestinians. "It was almost anomalous to hear her address the other side [of the conflict]."

Nevertheless, he said he was concerned that Arbour failed to address the fact that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel, denounce violence or enter peaceful negotiations - what he called the "bedrock" of the current crisis.

She also did not recognize that Hamas terrorism itself violates human rights and humanitarian law, he added.

"There is a certain moral relativism in seeking to compare the actions of a democracy [seeking to] defend itself against terrorism with a terrorist group," he said.

Neuer estimated that Arbour's trip to Israel would not have any lasting impact on the council itself because her influence on it, he said, was limited.

The fact that there has been a disproportionate focus on Israel in many ways indicated that she had been falling in line with the dictates of the discredited council, he said. There had been a hope that she would counter the tendency of its predecessor to demonize Israel.

Neuer pointed out that all six sessions held so far by the Human Rights Council - the special sessions as well as regular one - ended in a condemnation of Israel. On Tuesday, the council rejected an attempt to hold Sudan responsible for human rights abuses in Darfur.

The final resolution had been so "noncommittal," U.N. Watch said, that in the end it was rejected by Canada and European members.

It showed that it was "business as usual, if not worse," Neuer said.

See Earlier Story
a href=" http://www.cnsnews.com/ForeignBureaus/Archive/200611/INT20061115c.html
" UN Rights Council and Israel: Three Out of Three (Nov. 15, 2006)


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