01 March 2022; MEMO:The Palestinian Authority said on Monday that international double standards are the main reason for more injustice around the world, Wafa news agency has reported.
The PA Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Riyad Al-Maliki, told the 49th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that the Palestinians have long suffered the injustices and frustrations of double standards applied by the international community. The context was the discussion on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where hundreds of civilians have already been killed and wounded.
Al-Maliki said that the occupying power, Israel, "is granted an indefensible status of exceptional treatment that allows it to continue committing crimes with complete and abject impunity."
He stressed that the suffering of hundreds of Palestinian families in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank is due to living with the intolerable anxiety of pending dispossession. In Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, for example, Palestinian families "are in the middle of the battle of their lives to protect their homes from confiscation or demolition and stop their ongoing Nakba."
The PA official accused those who attend the annual meeting of simply talking and issuing statements.
"However, the reality for millions of victims of egregious human rights violations continues to deteriorate, their right to justice continues to be denied, and the culture of impunity is further entrenched," he explained. "This year, I invite all my colleagues to examine and remedy the reason behind this state of affairs, which can be summarised in two words: double standards."
The truth, added Al-Maliki, is that respect for international law, including international human rights law and humanitarian law, is ensured selectively, not universally.
