Reuters
GENEVA: Arab and Muslim states on Friday put the occupied Palestinian territories on the permanent agenda of the UN Human Rights Council, overcoming Israeli and Western objections to singling out alleged abuses by the Jewish state. A resolution to re-examine the issue at future sessions brought by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) won passage at the 47-member forum. A second OIC resolution, expressing deep concern at an increasing trend of defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred, was also adopted along similar voting lines. The two votes, on the final day of the Rights Council s inaugural two-week session, were seen as divisive. Many states and rights activists had hoped all decisions would be taken by consensus to avoid the acrimony that marked the council s predecessor body, the UN Commission on Human Rights, which also debated Palestinian issues at each session. Israel kept up an offensive in Gaza on Friday, where warplanes set ablaze the Interior Ministry offices on the third day of an operation aimed at recovering an army corporal seized in a cross-border raid on Sunday. The vote to examine the situation in the Palestinian territories at future sessions passed with 29 countries in favor, 12 against, five abstentions and one delegation absent. The resolution also called for existing U.N. human rights investigators, known as special rapporteurs, to report on the situation in the territories at the next session in September. Regional powers including Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria were among the resolution s sponsors. Western countries, including Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Japan, voted against the text. The United States did not stand for election and only had observer status. Itzkhak Levanon, Israel s ambassador said in a speech before the vote that the OIC text was imbalanced and intentionally one-sided . If this Council seeks to follow the discredited footsteps of the Commission, to encourage contention and selectivity rather than tolerance and objectivity, to lend itself to become a mere instrument of Israel bashing, politicized and subverted to propaganda, then it is clearly walking in that trail, he said.
