The Consolidation of a Palestinian Unity Narrative at the United Nations Human Rights Council Despite Israel’s Attempts to Silence Palestinians

By: Nada Awad

[1] Equating antisemitism with criticism directed at its settler colonial regime and decrying the UN’s “anti-Israel bias”, Israel has worked to silence critical voices stemming from civil society, the UN and its member states. In its statements at the HRC, Israel equates BDS support with racially motivated attacks targeting Jewish persons,[2] decries the human rights violations in other “non-democratic” countries, and furthers its smear campaigns[3] against civil society, the UN and its mechanisms[4] in an effort to focus the attention on issues that distract from the root causes of the situation.

Instrumentalizing proxy organizations at the United Nations

Israel has also instrumentalized the use of proxy organizations such as NGO monitor and UN Watch to discredit and undermine the work of Palestinian civil society organizations at the Human Rights Council and advance its discourse in their engagement with the Human Rights Council member states, UN treaty bodies, special procedures. In close coordination with the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, these organizations have played an active role at the UN and in capitals in sustaining smear campaigns aimed at discrediting the work of civil society[5] and calling for the cutting of funds on “terrorism” and “antisemitism” grounds and in advancing the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to censor Palestinians under the guise of combating “antisemitism”.[6]

Israel’s major allies: Advancing Israel’s interests at the Human Rights Council

Israel has also used its allies to portray the UN as “biased” against Israel to delegitimize its findings and recommendations and also to attack item 7 with a sustained campaign for its removal from the agenda of the Council.[7] In 2018, when the US withdrew from the membership of the Human Rights Council, it used the same rhetoric, citing the Council’s “chronic bias against Israel”[8]. This step was immediately welcomed by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu branding the Council as “a biased, hostile, anti-Israel organization that has betrayed its mission of protecting human rights”.[9]

Similar to the United States, which continues to virulently oppose the existence of agenda item 7 and campaign for its removal, European Union member states and the EU as a group at the UN have increasingly joined this campaign.[10] It is worth noting that while the resolution addressing accountability for human rights violations against Palestinians was moved under a different agenda item, in 2019,[11] 2020,[12] 2021,[13] and 2022[14] EU member states and the USA continued to vote against or abstain on the accountability resolution which clearly demonstrates that the argumentation around item 7 is merely rhetoric to shield Israel from accountability.

Powers dynamics and double standards at the Human Rights Council

Examples of double standards continue to come to light at the HRC when addressing and responding to comparable human rights situations in different geographical contexts. The UN member states’ strong mobilization and response to the Russian invasion and annexation of additional Ukrainian territory in 2022 led to the adoption of unprecedented sanctions against Russia and several resolutions including the establishment of an Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine.

While Palestinians have for decades been pushing the international community to hold Israel to its violations against the Palestinian people, including through sanctions, these efforts have been met with opposition by the US and a majority of EU member states, amongst other states claiming to advance human rights at the HRC. In his statement at the Council, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, stated that “the Commission of Inquiry and standing Agenda Item 7 are a stain on the Council’s credibility, and we strongly reject them.”[15]

The United States has consistently voted against resolutions pertaining to the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and addressing human rights violations against the Palestinian people while not addressing the substance of the resolutions but advancing the Israeli rhetoric. Meanwhile, many EU member states have abstained and voted against resolutions establishing fact-finding missions and commissions of inquiry on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The US and European votes do not have the same weight at the HRC in comparison with their political weight outside this body since their geographic representation provides for 13 votes out of a total of 47 members[16] but, as in other resolutions at the UN, they have continued to leverage political and economic incentives to ensure allies vote in line with their interests and agendas.

Israeli allies have played a detrimental role in attempting to discredit, and undermine independent mechanisms, including through ensuring that these bodies do not receive sufficient funding to allow them to implement their mandates using their financial leverage over the institution.[17] One example is that of the UN database.[18] While the database was not designed as a judicial tool but one of transparency shedding light on business involvement in human rights violations, it was perceived by Israel as a challenge to its maintenance of profitable business in occupied territory with impunity. For this reason, Israel’s allies pressured OHCHR publicly and privately in order to ensure that this tool would not be published by the UN. Three years after the mandated publication date, and following political pressure on OHCHR, the Office of the High Commissioner finally issued a report[19] in February 2020 containing a list of 112 companies. Israel responded by refusing to “issue or renew visas for UN Human Rights staff in the occupied Palestinian territory”.[20] This denial of visas to international staff is still in force and continues to disrupt the work of OHCHR. Moreover, while the mandate provides for an annual update of this list, there has been no update since OHCHR’s initial report.

In a report by the previous special rapporteur on Palestine, Professor Michael Lynk summarized the role of Western states in the maintenance of Israel’s repressive regime stating that: “Israel, a relatively small country in terms of geography and population and with a particular dependence on the international community for both trade and investment and diplomatic cooperation, could not have sustained such a prolonged and repressive occupation in clear violation of international law without the active support and malign neglect of many in the industrialized world.”[21] There is no ambiguity around the involvement of third states in the perpetuation of a settler colonial Zionist apartheid regime against the Palestinian people.

The consolidation of a Palestinian unity narrative at the Human Rights Council: An Indispensable Shift to Achieve Justice

The Human Rights Council, following its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights, has focused solely on Palestinian human rights within the territory Israel has occupied since 1967. This approach includes a permanent agenda item and a special rapporteur dedicated to this issue. However, it has been criticized for sidestepping the root causes – namely, Zionist racism and settler colonialism that led to Israel's creation, resulting in ongoing displacement and denial of Palestinian self-determination.[22] This underscores the UN and its member states' role in legitimizing the illegal partition of Palestine and perpetuating Israel's settler colonialism while depoliticizing the Palestinian question.

While the position of many states continues to be one of complicity which allows Israel to maintain its apartheid regime over the Palestinian people, in the past few years there has been an important shift in the narrative at the HRC, which emerged despite Israel’s strategic campaigns to silence Palestinians.

Palestinian civil society through the engagement with the HRC and its mechanisms have been able to achieve important recognition through the UN treaty bodies. Notably, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) recognized the continuity of Israel’s racial segregation against Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line[23] in 2019 and the Human Rights Committee emphasized the “pre-existing systematic and structural discrimination against non-Jews” in 2021.[24] This shift from the 1967 fragmentation paradigm, put forward by Israel, to a recognition that Israel’s apartheid policies are the same on both sides of the Green Line, was made possible through the work of Palestinian civil society and its allies at the Council.

This shift was also made possible through the support of African and Asian UN member states which recognized that the situation maintained by Israel is one of apartheid against the Palestinian people, building upon the mounting recognition provided by UN treaty bodies (including CERD), special procedures, and the report on apartheid published by the previous special rapporteur on the oPt.

The missions of Namibia and South Africa at the HRC played a critical role in supporting the mainstreaming of the Palestinian narrative as both countries lived through regimes of racial domination and oppression.

Since 2020, Israel has worked to silence civil society and discredit the use of the apartheid framing. In one instance, the Israeli representative interrupted a joint civil society statement[25] through a point of order refuting the use of “non UN terminology” in October 2020.[26] In March 2022, in response to a statement by South Africa, Israel also interrupted the ambassador stating “we will not tolerate outrageous attempts to libel my country as an apartheid state.” These attempts at the Council have failed to dissuade civil society and member states from speaking out against Israel. Already in 2020, in response to Israel’s attempts to silence civil society organizations, Namibia asserted that, “the international community, particularly this Council, has a responsibility to address the apartheid practices being perpetuated against the Palestinian people by Israel…practices which are in flagrant violation of international law.” [27]

The most notable development came about in 2021, following the Palestinian Unity Uprising when HRC member states heeded the calls of Palestinian civil society and its allies and adopted an unprecedented resolution, which, for the first time, addressed the Palestinian people as a whole, and created an open-ended commission of inquiry with a mandate to investigate human rights violations on both sides of the Green Line and “underlying root causes” of the situation, “including systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity”. [28] This commission of inquiry was established despite Western states’ votes against the resolution and abstentions and it continues to conduct its important work despite attempts to delegitimize its mandate and shrink its funding.

This comes following years of sustained work by Palestinian civil society, who have been forced to operate within a hostile environment where the rules of the game are the product of colonialism’s legacies, political interests are at the heart of the decision-making and Palestinians are constantly told to be “pragmatic” and to adapt their demands.[29]  

It is also an important achievement in the face of years of systematic and coordinated campaigns by Israel, its allies and proxy organizations to delegitimize and silence Palestinian civil society and the Palestinian narrative. The failure to silence organizations and human rights defenders is notable as the UN and its mechanisms upheld a principled position in the face of the latest attempts to outlaw and declare Palestinian organizations “terrorists”, a desperate tactic which failed in the face of mounting recognition of Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime.

While the recognition of Israel’s apartheid regime over the Palestinian people at the UN is not an end in itself, it is an important step towards ensuring that Israel’s propaganda is challenged and overturned, Israel’s fragmentation of the Palestinian people is reversed and it is no longer possible to evade addressing the root causes of the situation of Zionist settler colonialism and apartheid. Setting the correct framing provides an opportunity to address the questions which need to be answered to achieve justice for the Palestinian people. Many tools exist and are at the disposal of the international community, the shift in narrative is a first and indispensable step in the right direction.