JERUSALEM—The ambassadors of Belgium, Spain and Slovenia have been summmone dto the Israeli foreign ministry in Jerusalem to protest their country’s vote last week in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva in favor of establishing a commission of inquiry into “all alleged violations and abuses” during the incidents on the Gaza-Israel border fence.
The ambassador of Belgium, Olivier Belle, was called in for a reprimand on Tuesday by thefforeign ministry’s deputy director-general for Europe, Rodica Radian-Gordon, Mara Vigevani of TPS reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced the UNHRC as “irrelevant.”
More than 60 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,000 wounded during the clashes.
Two of the UNHRC’s 47 members, the United States and Australia, voted against the inquiry, while 14 countries abstained, including Britain, Switzerland, and Germany.
Responding to the summons, Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec told local media in Ljubliana that Slovenia would “respond” to the move but declined to give details.
“I regret that this measure has been taken. Given the number of the dead and injured and holding the chairmanship of the UN Human Rights Council, we are bound to investigate such matters,” Erjavec said.
The diplomatic reprimand against Belgium follows a tense exchange between Israel’s Ambassador to Belgium Simona Frankel and Anick Van Calster, the Deputy Director of the Belgian Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, when the former was summoned to the foreign ministry in Brussels following the events on the Gaza border. In a break with normative diplomatic protocol which calls for a visiting ambassador to remain silent during a diplomatic reprimand, Frankel told Van Calster that Belgium’s characterization of Israel’s response to the violence as “disproportionate” was one-sided and did not contribute to peace.
“There has never been an independent investigation when it comes to Israeli affairs. And Belgium is the last country that can claim the commission of inquiry would be independent. Prime Minister Charles Michel has already argued that Israel should be punished, so you have already come to your conclusions,” Frankel reportedly said.
The fact that three EU countries voted in favor of the commission at the UNHRC is a slide from 2009, when the same body voted in favor of the establishment of the Goldstone Commission to investigate the IDF’s 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. At that time, all 10 EU countries on the Council abstained in the vote that passed by a vote of 29-1, with 17 abstentions. Slovenia, Belgium and Spain were not members at the time