Aussie Arsen takes on the UN

FORMER Australasian Union of Jewish Students political officer Arsen Ostrovsky addressed the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva last week on behalf of the World Jewish Congress.

Ostrovsky, who is now an international human rights lawyer based in Israel, told The AJN that he wanted to put a human face to Israeli victims of terror and to demand that the UNHRC end its “relentless obsession and demonisation of the Jewish state, which it has condemned more times than the rest of the world put together”.

He said that the UNHRC will yet again overlook the terror and incitement perpetrated by the Palestinians and seek to condemn Israel when a report of the special rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967 is presented.

“The World Jewish Congress is dismayed by yet another report from this council that singles out the state of Israel,” Ostrovsky told the UNHRC.

“The proliferation of reports and resolutions, with respect to Israel, is a total waste of this council’s resources.”

He said the report overwhelmingly focuses on Israel’s alleged violations of human rights and the recommendations focus solely on Israel.

“In his recommendations, he never calls for an end to the Palestinian incitement and terror attacks against Israeli civilians, the launching of rockets by groups such as Hamas, or the building of tunnels used for the sole purpose of targeting Israeli citizens.

“If this is not biased, we simply do not know what is.”

Ostrovsky told The AJN it was a surreal experience to sit there and listen to countries like Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and North Korea attack Israel so viciously.

“I think it only reinforced the need for us to use our voice to make the case for Israel heard in forums such as these, which have traditionally been so antagonistic to Israel.”

JOSHUA LEVI

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