UN encouraging Israeli impunity by withholding settlement blacklist
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet
The International Middle East Media Centre reports:
The National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements has described UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s abstention, from disseminating the names of all companies working in illegal settlements, as a clear political, legal and moral violation of human rights, and a contradiction of her duties — especially concerning resolution 31/36 of 2016 and the commitment made by Bachelet, in March of 2019, to the Human Rights Council.
The National Bureau confirmed that Bachelet behaves with a double standard, bowing to American and Israeli pressures, as well as that of some EU countries, on herself and on the Human Rights Council, where she is required to carry out her mission neutrally, in order to protect the rights of Palestinian citizens in the territories occupied since June of 1967, and also to ensure respect for the law from all governmental and non-governmental bodies concerned with human rights. She is also required to ensure the provision of tools and standards to promote the implementation of the law and international standards, especially as Israel steps up, with the support of the US administration, the construction of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
According to the latest data, coming from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, for 2018, the number of settlers in the West Bank, excluding occupied Jerusalem, has reached 427,800, (i.e., 4.77% of the Israeli population). The population growth rate in Israel, for 2018, was 1.9%, while the growth rate in settlements was at about 3.5%. 4,400 settlers, (i.e., 8,050 born in or transferred to the West Bank). The data showed that about 3,000,000 people currently live in the West Bank — 14% of whom are Israeli settlers — with 2,636,244 Palestinians in the West Bank and 284,926 in East Jerusalem.