Israel to boycott UN rights review

Israel will boycott Tuesday's UN human rights review despite requests from Washington and a coalition of Israeli and Palestinian NGOs that it take part, a foreign ministry spokesman said. "We cut all our contacts with the (UN Human Rights) Council last March, including the current activity," Yigal Palmor told AFP. "Our policy has not changed." Israel is scheduled to go before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva at 1330 GMT. Last week, the US representative to the Geneva-based council said that it was in Israel's own interest to appear at a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of its rights record, as required of all UN members. "We have encouraged the Israelis to come to the council and to tell their story and to present their own narrative of their own human rights situation," ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe said on Thursday. Israel cut all ties with the 47-member council after it announced it would probe how Israeli settlements may be infringing on the rights of the Palestinians. It is the first time since the reviews began in 2007 that the country under evaluation is absent, and it remains unclear how the rights council will react. On Tuesday, a coalition of 15 Israeli and Palestinian organisations warned of "the far-reaching consequences" of Israel's no-show. "This lack of transparency will not only mean that Israel avoids rigorous criticism of its violations of international law, but that the entire UPR system will be undermined by the loss of its two fundamental principles: equality and universality," they said in a joint statement. "Israel and the council are setting a dangerous precedent on the international stage, one that could be followed by other states refusing to engage with the UN in order to avoid critical appraisals." Palmor, meanwhile, said it was the council that should have considered the consequences of what Israel has called a routinely hostile attitude to the Jewish state. "There are far-reaching consequences of their behaviour towards Israel so far, they should have taken that into account," he said.