Iran Slams Israel’s Election as Head of UN’s Legal Committee

The Iranian deputy permanent representative to the United Nations described appointment of Israel’s Danny Danon as head of the international body’s Legal Committee as “mockery” of the UN’s charter.

“This is a mockery of all principles of the UN Charter,” Gholam-Hossein Dehqani said on Thursday.

Stressing that Israel is “the principal violator of international law,” he said the Zionist regime’s election to the chair is a clear example of double standards on the part of the United Nations and the West, Press TV reported.

On Monday, Israel’s representative to the UN Danny Danon was elected to head the UN’s Legal Committee, also called the Sixth Committee, which oversees issues related to international law.

The UN has six permanent committees and its heads are normally elected by consensus without a vote but the US and the Europeans superseded the norm to have Israel at the helm of the legal panel.

Deputy US ambassador to the UN, David Pressman, reacted furiously when Muslim nations and the Palestinians objected to the choice.

“We need a United Nations that includes Israel, that brings Israel closer, not one that systematically pushes Israel away,” he said.

“Israel has shown, time and time again, that it is has much to contribute to the international community, to the benefit of the United Nations and of the world. The Sixth Committee’s work is critical to the progressive development of public international law,” Pressman further claimed.

The Arab League and 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) opposed the election, the chief Palestinian delegate at the UN, Riyad Mansour, said.

Mansour described Israel as “the biggest violator of international law,” saying the choice was “threatening the work of the Sixth Committee.”

This is while Human Rights Watch, the UN itself and local and international human rights organizations have repeatedly said Israel’s latest war on the besieged Gaza Strip amounts to apparent war crimes.

Israel launched its 50-day onslaught on Gaza in early July 2014. The military aggression, which ended on August 26, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including over 570 children.

Gaza has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.