At UN, B’Tselem chief blasts Israeli policies; envoy calls him a ‘collaborator’

B’Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad, left, next to Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour,

Raphael Ahren writes in Times of Israel, “Israel’s ambassador the United Nations and the head of a dovish Israeli human rights group faced off at the Security Council on Thursday. B’Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad delivered a speech critical of various Israeli policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians, comparing them to apartheid-era South Africa and urging the international community to act on their behalf. Ambassador Danny Danon called him a “collaborator” who should be ashamed of himself. During his first-ever speech to a formal Security Council session, El-Ad focused on Israel’s settlement policies, accusing the government of deliberately “splitting up an entire people, fragmenting their land, and disrupting their lives.”

“El-Ad did not dispute that Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin village in the West Bank slated for demolition by Israeli authorities, was built without the proper permits. “But this is the case not because Palestinians are inherently law-breakers, as some in Israel suggest. Rather, it is because they have no other alternative,” he said, sitting next to Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour.”

“It is all but impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits from the Israeli authorities because the Israeli-established planning regime in the West Bank is meant, by design, to serve settlers and dispossess Palestinians,” he said….The fact that Israel’s High Court gave a green light to the village’s expected demolition does not make it “just or even legal,” he went on. “It only makes the justices complicit, by approving an action that is nothing short of the war crime of forcible transfer of protected people in an occupied territory.”  (more…)

Times of Israel staff and Raphael Ahren report, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a speech given by a prominent Israeli human rights activist to the United Nations Security Council about Israel’s administration of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was a “disgrace” and “full of lies.”…“As our soldiers prepare to defend Israel’s security, [the] B’Tselem director chooses to deliver a speech full of lies at the UN in an attempt to help Israel’s enemies,” Netanyahu said in a statement.”…

“B’Tselem said in a statement that Britain’s envoy to the Security Council criticized Danon for his comments to El-Ad and for failing to translate his Hebrew remarks for the rest of the ambassadors at the meeting. It said the five European countries in the council thanked B’Tselem for El-Ad’s appearance” (more…)