Panel OKs human rights report hard on Israel, easy on Palestinians By Craig M. Kibler The Layman Online Tuesday, June 29, 2004 2004 General Assembly Richmond, Virginia June 26-July 3, 2004 General Assembly news index RICHMOND, Va. – A human rights report harshly critical of Israel, but what one commissioner termed "almost silent on Palestinian terrorism," received unanimous approval Monday. The General Assembly Committee on International Issues on Monday morning approved, with a comment, the report on a 58-0-0 vote that sends it to the full General Assembly. In addition to documenting human rights abuses in many areas of the world – Central and West Africa; Southern and East Africa; Central, South, and Southeast Asia; East Asia/Pacific; Europe; and Latin America and the Caribbean – the report provided a litany of condemnations against Israel. Those include such things as: Israel has been in defiance of more U.N. resolutions and for longer periods of time than Iraq. The U.S. opposed U.N. resolutions about Israeli's treatment of the Palestinians. The U.S. won't hold Israel accountable for its continued occupation, repression, settlement development, and the encirclement of Palestine by the construction of a wall designed to cut off the Palestinian people. One commissioner questioned the timing of his receipt of the report, saying he only received it when he arrived in Richmond on Friday. He asked how far in advance commissioners were supposed to receive the material. A committee member told him that "all deadlines were met" to ensure that the material was mailed to the commissioners before the convening of the General Assembly. "Unfortunately," he said, "there was a computer and mailing problem, which is why you didn't get it earlier. The error shouldn't have happened, but that's why it was late." The Rev. Gary Cecil, a minister/commissioner from Tropical Florida Presbyery, moved that the committee approve the Assembly Committee on Social Witness Policy report and send it to the full General Assembly. "I commend the actions that are advised and that we'll be recommending," he said. "I don't necessarily agree with everything within this document, but we should study the issue" and "hold up the people who are being persecuted for the church." Commenting on the report's extensive listing of Israeli human rights abuses while remaining "silent on Palestinian abuses," the Rev. John D.White, a minister/commissioner from Trinity Presbytery in South Carolina, said the report "seems a bit unbalanced and maybe not inclusive," and asked why, if the material comes from many sources, the report was "weighted more on the Israeli side than the Palestinian side? There is terrorism on the other side." Will Brown, the associate director of the Worldwide Ministries Division who said his department provided much of the material for the report, answered that the "preponderance of human rights abuses is on Israel's side." He also told commissioners that the report looks at "how people fare under an institution of power. Palestinians are not an institution of power. Perhaps in the future we can look at that."

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