Since the defeat of the American foreign Ministry – one year before its attempt to withdraw the vote on Goldstone's report- the American delegation adopts the strategy of double-head in the Human Rights Council:

1-    Confronting any resolution or procedure that condemns Israel.     

2-    Creating a new agenda that limits the condemnation of the encroachments committed by its military forces outside its territories to protect the American soldiers from any condemnation. This matter is clear in the resolutions of condemnations for Israel passed by the council, the same as the ones passed after the invasion against Freedom Flotilla, for instance. However, the American and Israeli delegations began a new policy aiming at removing the item addressing the issues of occupation, resistance, and self-determination right from the agenda of the Human Rights Council.

3-    The American delegation and the ones very close to it strongly supported the Israeli proposal of removing item 7 concerning the Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories. This item is the only means available for   dealing with the issue of the Golan in every session of the Council. Another proposal was made aiming at confining the Palestinian one to the minimum by means of a four-year report as the western delegations suggest or only once every year, instead of 3 times every year, as the Palestinian delegation suggests in Geneva.

 

The non-governmental organizations signing this call consider the seventh item an essential attainment of Human Rights and peoples'. The attempt to its removal, or minimizing the times it is being discussed, is considered a direct support of the occupying in his occupation and an explicit resignation from Human Rights Council to avoid tackling the Palestinian cause and the occupied Arab lands in a way that suits the importance and current status of this file. They require all member delegations in the Human Rights Council to mobilize in order to face the American-Israeli proposals concerning occupation and self-determination issues and the attempt to make the investigating expeditions in Human Rights Council submit to the Security Council appropriateness and other proposals that the American delegation tries to pass. Thus, the American-Israeli proposals represent a small minority. It is painful that there is an Arabian or southern collusion to pass them silently.

The organizations signing underneath consider maintaining the seventh item without any amendment is the minimal request of the Human Rights Council's credibility regarding all matters concerning the occupied Arab lands.

Geneva on 31 October 2010

 

Arab Commission for Human Rights ;
International Coalition against War Criminals (ICAWC) ;
Damascus Center for Theoritical Studies and Civil Rights ;
Bahreïn Society for Human Rights ;
Protection des Défenseurs des Droits de l’Homme dans le Monde Arabe (PADDH) ;
National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria ;
Voix libre pour la défense des Droits de l’homme ;
Rencontre Culturel Euro-arabe ;
Association de Défense des Droits de l’Homme au Maroc ;
Syrian Observatory for Human;
Association de l’Amitié Euro-arabe ;
Arab Network for Human Rights Information ;
Addameer for Human Rights – Gaza ;
Comités de Défense des Libertés Démocratiques & des Droits de l’Homme  en Syrie.