B’nai B’rith International denounced the fact that a UN meeting on the Mideast issue this week in Brussels doesn’t include official representatives of Israel.
The "UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People" is hosting June 28 and June 29 what it is calling the United Nations International Meeting in Support of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process.
The meeting is titled: "The role of Europe in advancing Palestinian statehood and achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians."
"How can the United Nations, a member of the Mideast Quartet, back a meeting with the explicit agenda of advancing Palestinian statehood? This goes to the very heart of the biased mechanism that the United Nations has become," B’nai B’rith said in a statement.
"Efforts to achieve peace in the region must include direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians. A meeting such as this circumvents the peace process and delegitimizes Israel. Marginalizing Israel will not lead to any breakthroughs in the peace process," the Jewish human rights group added.
B’nai B’rith said that for more than 35 years, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People "has sought to undermine Israel."
"This meeting starts from a faulty premise. Its conclusions would be tainted."
Speakers in the meeting’s program include Michel Goffin, Deputy Director-General at the Belgian foreign ministry, Véronique De Keyser, a Belgian member of the European Parliament, Neve Gordon, a professor at Ben-Gurion University, Leila Shahid, Palestinian Delegate to the European Union, Nawaf Salam, permanent representative of Lebanon to the United Nations and Former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg.