The Palestinian Authority complains to the United Nations about the UAE
Emirates Leaks learned that the Palestinian Authority had submitted an official complaint to the United Nations against the UAE on the background of importing Israeli settlement products.
The complaint was submitted by the Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Riyad al-Maliki, to Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
A source within the Palestinian ambassador’s office to Geneva Ibrahim Khreisheh told Emirates Leaks that the complaint was formally addressed to Bachelet and demanded action against the Emirates.
The complaint stated that Israel, its colonial companies and their investments began this year with trade agreements with several Emirati companies.
The complaint indicated that these agreements contradict the blacklist launched by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prohibit dealing with settlements.
It emphasized that this constitutes a grave violation of international law, which amounts to international crimes, and that they must be held accountable.
On January 10, 2020, the Dubai distribution company, FAM Holding, imported the first shipment of Israeli settler products from settlement companies such as “Tura Winer” and “Paradise Honey Factory” located in the illegal settlements of “Relim” and “Hermesh”.
These agreements will be followed by other similar agreements under the pretext of “strengthening economic cooperation” between Emirati companies and illegal settlements.
These agreements violate the international law, including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and relevant United Nations resolutions, including Security Council Resolution 2334.
According to the Palestinian complaint, the Israeli settlement project has a systematic and destructive effect on Palestinian human rights.
It emphasized that at the core of the settlement project is a discriminatory system of two levels of laws that violate the Palestinians’ social, economic and political rights.
The complaint also stressed that these shameful and illegal commercial deals are the engine of both the Israeli settlement project and its gradual annexation of the lands of Palestine.
These commercial deals do not distinguish between the lands of the State of Palestine and illegal Israeli settlements.
Instead, it encourages the economic growth of the settlement enterprise and the involvement of businesses in gross violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that are part of the illegal and prolonged Israeli occupation.
The PA warned that Emirati companies are working on expanding the economic and political cover for an illegal project at a time when the Palestinian people are going through extensive and dangerous campaigns of forced displacement and are being systematically deported and uprooted from their lands and homes.
The complaint called on the United Nations to follow up and be held accountable for this illegal trade of the UAE with Israeli settlements.
And it demanded the issuance of UN warning letters to Emirati companies asking them to withdraw their businesses and end their illegal activities with the settlement project.
It also called for updating the United Nations database, communicating with the countries concerned and encouraging them to abide by international law, including by amending their domestic laws accordingly and prohibiting the entry of settlement products to their lands.
