International Fact-Finding Mission on Israeli Settlements

Last updated November 03, 2024

The International Fact-Finding Mission on Israeli Settlements was a United Nations fact-finding mission created in March 2012 by the Human Rights Council, an agency of the United Nations, to "investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.^[1] The mission was composed of Christine Chanet from France (Chair of the Mission), Asma Jahangir from Pakistan, and Unity Dow from Botswana.^[2]

Report

Methods

Following a public call for submissions from interested parties, including representatives of Israeli settler communities, the mission received information from governments, inter-governmental organisations, international and national NGOs, professional bodies, academics, victims, witnesses and the media. It planned visits to both Israel and the occupied territories, to observe the situation on the ground, but was unable due to a lack of Israeli cooperation. In order to obtain first hand information the mission set up meetings in Jordan in which it met and interviewed various involved individuals and organisations.^[1]

Findings

The final report of the Mission was presented at a Human Rights Council session on 18 March 2013 in Geneva by Christine Chanet and Unity Dow. The report states Israel commits a multitude of human rights abuses against the Palestinian people and calls for nations and businesses to abide by the international legal regulations.

Reactions

The report met with both full endorsement and rejection. Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said: "This is incredible. We are extremely heartened by this principled and candid assessment of Israeli violations.(...) The UN Human Rights Council's call for sanctions against Israel is crucial because it clearly expresses the idea that the settlement enterprise leads to "ethnic cleansing" in the West Bank."^[3] Israeli newspaper Haaretz ran an Opinion Editorial by Saeb Erekat, the Chief Negotiator of the Palestinian Authority, in which he urged that "The UN report on Israeli settlements should be read by every single Israeli citizen. It is an opportunity for the international community to hold Israel accountable and end a culture of impunity that has all but destroyed the possibility of a two-state solution."^[4]

Representatives of Israel did not take the floor during the 18 March debate,^[5] and the Israeli Foreign Ministry dismissed the report, calling it "counterproductive" and saying that the Human Rights Council "has sadly distinguished itself by its systematically one-sided and biased approach towards Israel. This latest report is yet another unfortunate reminder of that."^[6] In a similar spirit, UN Watch, an Israel-affiliated^[7] non-governmental organisation, described the report as "categorically one-sided, casting Palestinians as the sole victims of the Arab–Israeli conflict, while denying the slightest consideration to any basic human rights for Israelis."^[8]

Related Research Articles

Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity, and have been constructed on lands that Israel has militarily occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967. The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law, but Israel disputes this. In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel's occupation was illegal and ruled that Israel had "an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers" from the occupied territories. The expansion of settlements often involves the confiscation of Palestinian land and resources, leading to displacement of Palestinian communities and creating a source of tension and conflict. Settlements are often protected by the Israeli military and are frequently flashpoints for violence against Palestinians. Furthermore, the presence of settlements and Jewish-only bypass roads creates a fragmented Palestinian territory, seriously hindering economic development and freedom of movement for Palestinians.

The occupied Palestinian territories, also referred to as the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the Palestinian territories, consist of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967. These territories make up the State of Palestine, which was self-declared by the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1988 and is recognized by 146 out of 193 UN member states.

Issues relating to the State of Israel and aspects of the Arab–Israeli conflict, and more recently the Iran–Israel conflict, occupy repeated annual debate times, resolutions and resources at the United Nations. Since its founding in 1948, the United Nations Security Council, has adopted 79 resolutions directly related to the Arab–Israeli conflict as of January 2010.

Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat was a Palestinian politician and diplomat who was the secretary general of the executive committee of the PLO from 2015 until his death in 2020. He served as chief of the PLO Steering and Monitoring Committee until 12 February 2011. He participated in early negotiations with Israel and remained chief negotiator from 1995 until May 2003, when he resigned in protest from the Palestinian government. He reconciled with the party and was reappointed to the post in September 2003.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. The headquarters of the Council are at the United Nations Office at Geneva in Switzerland.

Israel has occupied the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights since the Six-Day War of 1967. It previously occupied the Sinai Peninsula and southern Lebanon as well. Prior to 1967, the Palestinian territories was split between the Gaza Strip controlled by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan, while the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights are parts of Egypt and Syria, respectively. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights, where Israel had transferred its parts of population there and built large settlements, is the longest military occupation in modern history.

The 2006 shelling of Beit Hanoun by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) happened on 8 November, when shells hit a row of houses in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, killing at least 19 Palestinians and wounding more than 40. The shelling followed the IDF's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in completion of a week-long operation codenamed Operation "Autumn Clouds", which the Israeli government stated had been intended to stop the Qassam rocket attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants. The Israeli government apologized and attributed the incident to a technical malfunction.

UN Watch is a Geneva-based non-governmental organization (NGO) whose stated mission is "to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter". It is an accredited NGO in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council and an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information.

Issues relating to the State of Palestine and aspects of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict occupy continuous debates, resolutions, and resources at the United Nations. Since its founding in 1948, the United Nations Security Council, as of January 2010, has adopted 79 resolutions directly related to the Arab–Israeli conflict.

Richard Anderson Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor's Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In 2004, he was listed as the author or coauthor of 20 books and the editor or coeditor of another 20 volumes. Falk has published extensively with multiple books written about international law and the United Nations.

The Battle of Jenin, took place in the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on April 1–11, 2002. The Israeli military invaded the camp, and other areas under the administration of the Palestinian Authority, during the Second Intifada, as part of Operation Defensive Shield.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict</span> Team formed in 2009 to investigate human rights violations by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza

The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, also known as the Goldstone Report, was a United Nations fact-finding mission established in April 2009 pursuant to Resolution A/HRC/RES/S-9/1 of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) of 12 January 2009, following the Gaza War as an independent international fact-finding mission "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression". South African jurist Richard Goldstone was appointed to head the mission. The other co-authors of the Report were Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin and Desmond Travers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Security Council Resolution 1405</span> United Nations resolution adopted in 2002

United Nations Security Council resolution 1405, adopted unanimously on 19 April 2002, after recalling resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 1397 (2002), 1402 (2002) and 1403 (2002), the Council emphasised the necessity of humanitarian access to the Palestinian population.

Direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority took place throughout 2010 as part of the peace process, between United States President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The ultimate aim of the direct negotiations is reaching an official "final status settlement" to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by implementing a two-state solution, with Israel remaining a Jewish state, and the establishment of a state for the Palestinian people.

Christine Chanet is a French lawyer and judge who is a long-term member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, serving as its chairperson in 1997-98 and 2005–06. She also sits on the UN Committee Against Torture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hanan Ashrawi</span> Palestinian legislator, activist, and scholar (born 1946)

Hanan Daoud Mikhael Ashrawi is a Palestinian politician, activist, and scholar.

The 2013–2014 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks were part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. Direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians began on 29 July 2013 following an attempt by United States Secretary of State John Kerry to restart the peace process.

The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict was a United Nations fact-finding mission established by a resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on 23 July 2014 to investigate "all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law ... in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014" in the Palestinian territories, particularly the Gaza Strip, during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.

The Embassy of the United States of America in Jerusalem is the diplomatic mission of the United States of America to the State of Israel. It is located in Talpiot, a neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem. In mid-October 2018, Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State under the Trump administration, declared that the new embassy would be merging with the Consulate General, through which the United States had maintained diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority. Currently, all diplomacy between the United States and the Palestinians is conducted through the "Office of Palestine Affairs" inside of the American embassy for Israel.

Following the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted on 27 May 2021 to set up a United Nations fact-finding mission to investigate possible war crimes and other abuses committed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

References

1 2 "Terms of Reference: The International Fact-Finding Mission on Israeli Settlements" (PDF). OHCHR. Retrieved March 14, 2013.
↑ Baker, Amb Alan. "Biased, Prejudiced, and Unprofessional: The UN Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission Report on Israeli Settlements". Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Retrieved 24 January 2017.
↑ Jack Khoury (31 January 2013). "PLO's Ashrawi: UN report proves Israel carries out 'ethnic cleansing' in West Bank". Haaretz .
↑ Saeb Erekat (4 February 2013). "Enforce the UNHRC settlements report to push Israel out of its state of denial". Haaretz . Retrieved 22 March 2013.
↑ "The United Nations in the Heart of Europe | News & Media | HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL CONCLUDES TWENTY-SECOND SESSION AFTER ADOPTING 39 TEXTS". Unog.ch. Retrieved 2013-08-18.
↑ "UN: Israeli settlements 'violate Palestinian rights'". BBC. Retrieved 14 March 2013.
↑ Capella, Peter (7 July 2009). "UN Gaza probe chief underlines balanced approach". Agence France Presse. Archived from the original on 22 December 2011. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
↑ "UN report is a 'weapon' against Israel because Palestinians could take grievances to criminal court, panel says". National Post. Associated Press. 31 January 2013.