H.E. Mr António Guterres

Secretary-General of the United Nations

The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations’ Council (PHROC) is dismayed by your decision to withdraw the report of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) regarding “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid” from the website of the Commission.

The aforementioned report addresses with great professionalism the reality to which the Palestinian people is subjected under the Israeli occupation and its colonial policies that have been based on racial discrimination since the Declaration of Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The report objectively transmits the legal procedures and separate and unequal practices towards the Palestinian people, who Israel has sought to divide into different groups (within the 1948 Green Line, occupied Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the diaspora) with the purpose of achieving racial domination over them.

The withdrawal of the report from the ESCWA website as a result of political pressure is at odds with the principles upon which the United Nations was founded, and as enshrined in its Charter, in addition to the rules of international humanitarian law and international human rights law upon which the report is based. It is our belief that the withdrawal of this report will contribute to the commission of further violations by Israel, the occupying Power, especially in light of a continued politicization of the application of international law.

The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations’ Council deplores the decision to withdraw the aforementioned report and affirms that it will adopt the analysis and conclusions contained therein in an effort to achieve justice for the Palestinian people, especially since the report was written by renowned experts known for their high professionalism and objectivity.

In the same vein, the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations’ Council calls upon the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to take the aforementioned report into consideration during its preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine.

Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council

(PHROC)