The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP), created in 1975, the only United Nations organ devoted to a specific people, is the single most prolific source of material bearing the official imprimatur of the U.N. which maligns and debases the Jewish State. The CEIRPP has served as a forum for anti-Israel rhetoric and represents the worst example of institutionalized anti-Israel bias in the United Nations. The structural inclusion of such a body in the United Nations, the resolutions which created the committee and which have been promulgated by the committee, the statements and calls for actions made at conferences and meetings sponsored by the committee all convey that the agenda of the committee goes far beyond promoting Palestinian rights.

The meetings and conferences organized by CEIRPP are replete with anti-Israel statements such as false claims that Israel is an "apartheid state" and blatantly anti-Semitic comparisons to the Nazis. While the committee claims to endorse peace negotiations, their resolutions and calls to action omit any consideration of the Israeli perspective and prejudge many issues which both the Israeli and Palestinians have agreed must be negotiated. 

Today, 34 years after the CEIRPP was established, as Israelis and Palestinians sit at the negotiating table, the committee is an anachronistic forum for bias against Israel and the most disturbing manifestation of institutional prejudice against the Jewish State within the U.N. Indeed, the very existence of the committee negates a commitment to a negotiated peace, and undermines the efforts and steps both parties have made towards peace. It discounts the progress parties have made and the genuine steps the Israelis have taken to improve the lives of Palestinians. Furthermore, by focusing exclusively and stridently on Palestinian rights, it implies that the rights of Palestinians specified in the committee's mandate trump the rights of Israeli citizens to live in peace and security.

This report will examine and analyze the creation and current role of the CEIRPP in the U.N. system. By looking at the speeches, resolutions and meetings organized by the CEIRPP, the report will assess the committee's agenda and determine the impact it has on the larger U.N. system.

Introduction

The U.N. has long been criticized for its anti-Israel bias and its overly critical and often prejudiced resolutions and policies towards Israel. November 10, 1975, however, put the bias of the U.N. on full display when the General Assembly (GA), created the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and passed the infamous Zionism is racism resolution.

The U.N. has more often than not demonstrated hostility and antagonism toward Israel by disproportionately criticizing Israeli policies, singling out Israel for human rights offenses, and prohibiting Israel from the full participation enjoyed by other members. One need look no farther than GA, the main body of the U.N., to see the overwhelming bias: of 10 emergency special sessions called by the GA, six have been about Israel. No emergency sessions have been held on the Rwandan genocide, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, or the two decades of atrocities in Sudan. The bias and singling out of Israel is also apparent in the committees and councils which have often been more vocal and blatant about their political agendas. In 1968, the GA adopted Resolution 2443 which created the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories to ensure the "respect for and implementation of human rights in occupied territories." Additionally, the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC), which replaced the Commission on Human Rights in March 2006, has been even more hopelessly ineffective than its predecessor, and is permanently engaged in criticism of Israel while ignoring pressing international human rights crises. While items on the HRC's permanent meeting's agenda are thematic and general, Israel has its own agenda number and more special HRC emissaries have been assigned to report on Israel and to investigate alleged Israeli offenses than any other country. The Arab states have been a powerful force in ensuring that the HRC's resolutions and the rhetoric at the meetings are consistently incendiary and anti-Israel. The power of the Arab states is also evident in preventing Israel from obtaining membership in the Asian Regional Group, Israel's natural geopolitical grouping. As a result, Israel sought entry into the Western European and Others Group (WEOG) and in May 2000 was granted admission to that regional group in New York, but not in Geneva, the seat of several U.N. bodies and subsidiary organizations. Israel's participation in the U.N., therefore, is still limited and it is restricted from participating in U.N. Geneva-based activities. 

Starting with the successful repeal of the "Zionism is Racism" resolution in 1991, and continuing in recent years, the U.N. leadership has worked to improve the environment for Israel at the U.N. However, the CEIRPP remains an anachronistic yet active reminder of the U.N.'s prejudice.

The creation of the CEIRPP stemmed from a resolution adopted the previous year in which the GA confirmed and established the rights of the Palestinian people as: the right to self-determination without external interference, the right to national independence and sovereignty and to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return. The November 10th, 1975 resolution, Resolution 3376, stated that "no progress has been achieved" in ensuring the rights of the Palestinians and that in order to ensure the attainment of these rights, a Special Committee should be established.

The establishment of this committee for the sole purpose of upholding Palestinian rights and denigrating Israeli rights clearly demonstrates the pervasive bias which has existed within the U.N. since its establishment. Yet, considering the modern political climate and the advances and efforts made toward peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians the committee's continued operations highlight this bias and convey an anachronistic view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, the committee's very existence exclusively advocates for the rights of the Palestinian people while, in reality, the well being of the Palestinian people has been championed and advocated by the international community for decades. Peace plans, conferences and meetings such as the Madrid Conference, the Oslo Accords and negotiating process, the Road Map, and most recently, the Annapolis Conference, have all established mechanisms to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with recognition for the rights of Israelis and Palestinians. The committee's existence, continued meetings and declarations calling for recognition of Palestinian rights is superfluous and anachronistic, serving only to propagate a stridently one-sided view of the conflict, with no constructive mechanism for resolving the conflict. 

Furthermore, the creation of the committee within the U.N. system and its continued activity represents the institutionalization of this partiality and tacit complicity with this anti-Israeli agenda. When one examines the resolution establishing the committee, the subsequent actions and statements made by the committee, and the nature of the meetings and conferences organized by the committee, it is clear that this is not just a partiality for the Palestinians, but a bias against Israel.