UN investigator Miloon Kothari on Thursday apologized for saying that social media were controlled “by the Jewish lobby” and for questioning Israel’s status in the United Nations.
Speaking in a podcast for the Mondoweiss website earlier in July, Kothari, who is a member of the UNHRC’s permanent Commission of Inquiry (COI) into human rights abuses in Israel and the Palestinian territories, said that the commission was “very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by – whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs.”
The remarks were criticized by the office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and were condenmed by nearly 20 countries, including the US, as antisemitic. Kothari apologized in a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council President Federico Villegas.
“It was completely wrong for me to describe social media as being controlled largely by the Jewish lobby,” Kothari wrote.
“This choice of words was incorrect, inappropriate, and insensitive,” he added.
Israel called an apology by UN investigator Miloon Kothari “pathetic and unconvincing” and reiterated its demand to disband the inquiry commission on the 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict over his “antisemitic” remarks.
“The hollow apology of commission of inquiry member Miloon Kothari is a pathetic and unconvincing maneuver, which doesn’t compensate for the long record of anti-Israeli and antisemitic statements made by him and the other COI members,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “In light of the antisemitic and anti-Israeli statements of the commissioners, and the fact that they do not meet the minimal standards of neutrality and impartiality required from individuals in these positions in the UN, Kothari and his colleagues must resign immediately.”
