UN report catalogs Israeli attacks on Palestinian children, but leaves Israel off child rights abusers ‘list of shame’
Months ago journalists leaked that Israel would be kept off a United Nations list of the worst violators of children’s human rights in 2014 following frantic lobbying by Israel and the United States. The Guardian reported Israeli officials placed phone calls to the UN, the Jerusalem Post acknowledged Netanyahu spoke to Ban Ki-moon personally, and Foreign Policy found that the Obama administration dispatched Ambassador Samantha Power—all to pressure the UN into changing the draft.
“Top officials have buckled under political pressure,” a UN official told the Guardian back in March, “As a result, a clear message has been given that Israel will not be listed.”
Even so, Israel is preeminently featured throughout
the report published yesterday and called out as one of the worst child
rights abusers in the world with “devastating impacts” on minors. Last
year the Israel military killed 200 more children in Gaza than the total
number of children killed in Syria, the report noted. However, Israel
was—as media outlets said at the beginning of the week when early
releases of the final draft circulated—excluded from a list in the
annex, a blacklist of the most egregious child abusing parties.
the report published yesterday and called out as one of the worst child
rights abusers in the world with “devastating impacts” on minors. Last
year the Israel military killed 200 more children in Gaza than the total
number of children killed in Syria, the report noted. However, Israel
was—as media outlets said at the beginning of the week when early
releases of the final draft circulated—excluded from a list in the
annex, a blacklist of the most egregious child abusing parties.
