"EMHRN report continues exploitation of human rights rhetoric"
Summary: EMHRN, an EU body that has been involved in anti-Israeli political campaigns using the rhetoric of human rights and international law, and seeks to undermine Israeli-EU relations, published a report entitled: A Human Rights Review on the EU and Israel (2003-4). Like other EMHRN reports, this one is stripped the context of Palestinian terror in order to condemn Israeli defensive actions. The claims and analysis are based entirely on the allegations of the following highly politicized NGOs:
- Adalah The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Israel)
- Al-Haq (The West Bank, Palestine)
- Arab Association for Human Rights (Israel)
- B’Tselem The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (Israel)
- Bruno Kreisky Foundation (Austria)
- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (Egypt)
- Swedish member of the International Commission of Jurists (Sweden)
- Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (Gaza, Palestine)
- Palestinian Human Rights Organisation (Lebanon)
- Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (Israel)
- Swedish Refugee Aid (Sweden)
The conclusions claim support the Durban process of demonization, claiming that "Israel implements its agreements with the EU in violation of general international law, and in violation of the agreements themselves. The EU has repeatedly chosen not to prevent this. … To the extent that the EU has addressed questions of international law, the positions that have been taken have been consistent and legally correct, although in the EUu0012s declarative diplomacy4 on matters relating to Israel, few if any affirmative references could be found to those elements of international law that assign general responsibilities to states relative to the illegal acts of third states. .. In addition, a review of several key elements of the EUu0012s operative diplomacy5 , including its contractual relations with Israel, reveals a striking lack of coherence with the EUu0012s legally correct declarative diplomacy. … The EU may have actually facilitated Israelu0012s violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by deferring to them in its own dealings with Israel. The review presents several instances where Israelu0012s implementation of its agreements with the EU has been based on its rejection of its key international obligations as an occupying power, and as a state of all its citizens. The EU can not knowingly allow its contractual relations with any third country to operate in this manner without itself violating European Community law and international law.
The report was published "with the generous financial support" of Diakonia, Novib, DanChurch Aid and ICCO.