UN giving Israel veneer of legitimacy with seat on legal panel: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Paul Larudee, co-founder of Free Palestine Movement in Berkeley, to discuss Israel’s chairmanship of the United Nation’s Legal Committee.

Read a rough transcription of the interview appears below.

Press TV: Israel being appointed as the chairman of the UN’s Legal Committee, what do you say about that? Why Israel of all countries? And we know Israel’s track record is not that brilliant when it comes to human rights, its occupation of the Palestinian territories, its siege of Gaza, its breach of and total disregard for UN resolutions; now Israel is appointed as the chair of this important and strategic committee?

Larudee: I know that you are asking the questions but let me ask you a question. Do you know of any other country that has broken so many international laws other than Israel? This is presumably why it was put in charge of the Legal Committee. If you want someone who has not broken laws, maybe you should make an illegal committee because the United Nations seems determined to turn these words on their head.

Two years ago you will remember that Israel was the head of the Committee on Decolonization. This is also a mockery and Barack Obama was given the Nobel Prize and Henry Kissinger received the Nobel Prize. How are these not a mockery? If you have not killed somebody you cannot be a great humanitarian apparently.

Press TV: And what does this say about the United Nations? Recently we had the UN removing Saudi Arabia from its list of child rights violators because of pressure from Riyadh. Now we have the UN appointing Israel as the chair of this very important committee, its Legal Committee. What does it further say about the fading role of the UN?  

Larudee: The role of the UN is not fading. The role of the UN is to allow the most powerful nations, the greatest committers of atrocities in the world to have a veneer of legitimacy on their atrocities and this is what is happening with Israel. That is the function of the United Nations apparently.  

Press TV: And my last question, Israel’s ambassador to the UN which has just been appointed as the chairman of this Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly has claimed that Israel is a world leader in international law and in fighting terrorism. Now with Israel at the head of this committee, what can we expect in terms of Israel’s intensified crackdown on the Palestinian uprising and on movements like the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas?

Larudee: Israel has never cared for any kind of resolutions passed by the United Nations; it has not cared for any kind of international law; it does not care for a law at all and now you are putting the fox in charge of the hen house. This is what is happening.

Why should Israel care what it does? This is a license to finish the genocide of the Palestinian people. This is what they want. They want Palestine to be completely free of Palestinians. They do not want to see any Palestinians in Palestine and they will interpret this as a license to do just that.

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