The international spokesperson for the Jewish community of Hebron, Yishai Fleisher, accused United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories of committing war crimes by “denying our [Jewish] history.”
Speaking from Hebron, Fleisher told Fox News that Michael Lynk lacks a basic knowledge and understanding of history, and is himself guilty of committing war crimes by his denial of history of the Jews and the Jewish Nation, Israel.
“The Jewish people are indigenous to Judea, we had two commonwealths here and we are now in the period of the third commonwealth,” Fleisher said.
“We hail from this land, our language is filled with idioms from this land, our whole identity is tied up with this land, and the only war crime that should be discussed right now is the war crime that Michael Lynk is perpetrating by denying our history.”
Fleisher’s accusation comes in response to remarks by UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk – long known to oppose the existence of the State of Israel – who said on Friday at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council that he wanted to “make it clear to Israel that its illegal occupation and its defiance of international law and international opinion can and will no longer be cost free. . .I conclude that the Israeli settlements do amount to a war crime.”
Lynk’s made the remarks while presenting the findings of his report.
Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and president of Human Rights Voices, told Fox News, “Missing from his so-called 20-page exert report is a single reference to Hamas using human shields, to any of the Palestinians killed by misfired Hamas rockets, or in fact to any Palestinian having committed any war crime at all.
“The real question is why the Biden administration has decided to join and legitimize this Council and its preposterous human rights authority figures, knowing full well neither the Council nor Lynk’s platform can be, or will be, changed.”
Bayefsky said Lynk is “a notorious extremist.” She noted that Lynk “constantly challenges the legitimacy of a Jewish state at all, repeatedly reverting to the supposed affront of 1948. . .Today’s revolting example of promoting antisemitism under the guise of protecting human rights is par for the course – both of the UN’s top human rights body and its representative, Michael Lynk.”
According to the UN, there are “close to 300” Israeli Jewish communities populated by more than 680,000 Israelis in areas that came under Israeli control following the 1967 Six Day War. Lynk called the Israeli communities “the engine of Israel’s 54-year-old occupation, the longest in the modern world.”
In his report, Lynk also called on the international community to “call upon Israel to fully dismantle its settlements,” among other steps.