CMEP Bulletin: Human Rights Groups Urge Immediate UN Action on Settlements
B’Tselem Head Urges Security Council to Act Now on Settlements [Times of Israel]
The NGO’s executive director, Hagai El-Ad, began his presentation to the Council at the UN headquarters in New York by airing two videos that he said illustrated life for Palestinians under Israeli occupation, and drew attention to what he called non-reported “regular” days under occupation. He cited “invisible, bureaucratic daily violence” that dominates Palestinian life “from cradle to grave,” including Israeli control over entrance and exit from territories, and even farming rights.
APN’s Lara Friedman Addresses the United Nations Security Council on Settlements [Americans for Peace Now]
Speaking in advance of the meeting, APN President and CEO Debra DeLee stated: Israeli settlement policies is [sic] an issue on which APN and our Israeli sister organization, Shalom Achshav, are justifiably recognized as the leading experts, both in terms of knowing and in terms of explaining the facts about settlements and their implications for peace and the two-state solution. And the facts point to a clear conclusion: the Israeli government’s policy of prioritizing settlements threatens the vital interests of Israel – its people and its national future. This Security Council meeting is a welcome opportunity to highlight the damage settlements are doing to Israel and the quest for peace.
Israel, U.S. Spar Over Human Rights Organization B’Tselem at UN Security Council [Ha’aretz]
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon assailed B’Tselem for demanding that the council take action against Israeli settlements and demanded that the UN stop funding the organization, arguing that doing so constitutes a direct interference in Israel’s internal affairs. That prompted America’s alternate representative to the United Nations, David Pressman, to leap to B’Tselem’s defense.
Settlement Debate Flares Again in Israel’s Quarrel with Rights Group [New York Times]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced B’Tselem and Americans for Peace Now, a sister organization of the Israeli Peace Now group, on Facebook. He said they had “joined the chorus of besmirching [sic] Israel” and had repeated “the mendacious claim that ‘the occupation and settlements’ are the cause” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He added, “The truth is that the Palestinians have been attacking Israel for 50 years, since before a single settlement existed.” He described B’Tselem and similar organizations as “ephemeral and delusional.”
PM Calls Obama an ‘Existential Danger’ to Settlements — Report [Times of Israel]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the residents of the Amona outpost in the West Bank — slated for evacuation in December by court order — that US President Barack Obama poses “an existential danger” to the settlement enterprise, Channel 2 television reported. “It isn’t just Amona, in the coming period, between the elections in the United States and the end of Obama’s term, the entire settlement enterprise is in existential danger,” the prime minister is quoted by Channel 2 as saying.