Israel ‘furious’ at Belgium over UN Security Council ‘demonization’
Foreign Ministry summons ambassador to express outrage after Brussels invites NGO affiliated with PFLP terrorist group to brief UN Security Council.
By LAHAV HARKOVUN Security Council meets to discuss Israel's control of the Golan Heights(photo credit: screenshot)
Israel is incensed at Belgium for a number of anti-Israel actions taken at the UN Security Council, a diplomatic source said on Thursday, shortly after the Foreign Ministry summoned Belgium’s deputy ambassador for a reprimand.Belgian Deputy Ambassador to Israel Pascal Buffin was summoned for Israel to express its outrage about a series of moves the country has made as a member of the UN Security Council. The most recent is that Belgium, which is presiding over the UNSC for the month of February, invited Brad Parker, Senior Adviser for Policy and Advocacy for Defense for Children – Palestine (DCI-P) to brief the council’s members.DCI-P calls itself an organization defending the human rights of Palestinian children. It alleges Israel is committing war crimes and supports the boycott, divest and sanctions movement. It has numerous ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist group in the US, EU, Canada and Israel, to the extent that Citibank and Arab Bank stopped providing banking services to the NGO.Parker is the driving force behind pro-BDS legislation introduced in the US by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), think tank NGO Monitor reported. Last January, in his capacity as an adjunct professor at the CUNY Law School's Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic, he filed an anti-Israel submission to the UN, replete with false statements and whitewashing of terrorist groups like Hamas. CUNY subsequently launched an investigation into the law school's partnership with DCI-P.Israel told Buffin, summoned because the ambassador was out of the country, that it urges Belgium to cancel Parker’s invitation.In that vein, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon wrote a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres calling DCI-P “an arm of the PFLP in order to enact diplomatic terror against Israel…A place that promotes peace and security in the world has no room for people like Parker.”Danon said that “Belgium is continuing to adopt an anti-Israel line in the UN, but must know that it will have a price. Israel’s denigrators will enter a battle they weren’t looking for.”A diplomatic source said that while Parker’s invitation to the UNSC is “crazy,” it is “just one link in a chain of very anti-Israel actions taken in the UNSC. This is the nadir.”Another example the diplomatic source gave was that the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva formed a commission of inquiry to look into Israel’s response to Palestinians rioting and trying to break through the border fence in Gaza. An allegation of Israel’s criminality was in the commission’s assignment, leading Israel to argue that it is inherently biased. Belgium invited the head of the commission to brief the UNSC with its findings.“We are furious at the Belgians,” the source said. “Belgium is using its membership in the UNSC to demonize Israel.”
