Pillay's Pogrom:

The UN's "Commission of Inquiry" Targeting Israel

The Budget of Pillay's Pogrom

The UN budget to implement the resolution creating the "Inquiry" consists of an unprecedented amount of cash and human resources, all coming from the UN’s regular budget. As part of the regular budget, it will be charged to every taxpayer of every UN member state every year for eternity.

The original budget only surfaced at the UN Human Rights Council four months after the vote on the resolution was taken, so voters didn’t know the “Inquiry’s” financial ramifications. It was quietly posted after-the-fact on the UN website at the end of September 2021.

At a second-stage, the human resources were somewhat reduced by the General Assembly from the Secretariat’s initial demand. And on December 24, 2021, the General Assembly approved funding the “Inquiry” – at an initial cost of $4,151,800 in 2022, and millions more annually thereafter.

Israel put forward an amendment to the funding resolution that would have reduced funding to zero. The vote on the Israeli amendment at the General Assembly's budget committee (Fifth Committee) was 125 against, 8 for (Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, United States), and 34 abstentions (Albania, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burundi, Canada, Central African Republic, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Fiji, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Italy, Lithuania, Madagascar, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Republic of Korea, Rwanda, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia). The vote on the amendment at the General Assembly as a whole was 109 against, 8 for (Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, United States), and 35 abstentions (Albania, Australia, Austria, Bhutan, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Fiji, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Italy, Lesotho, Lithuania, Madagascar, Mauritania, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Republic of Korea, Rwanda, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Togo, Tonga, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia).

The “Inquiry” will cost more than all but one of the thirty-three investigative mechanisms ever created by the Human Rights Council in its 15-year history. (The single exception is the distinguishable case of Myanmar, where the inquiry was created in 2018 after a year in which 25,000 Rohingya Muslims were killed, 700,000 were forced to flee the country, those remaining faced genocide, and crimes against humanity had already been found to have occurred.) The original budget sets the cost of the "Inquiry" as at least $11,812,700 total in its first 3 years, and $5,475,600 each year thereafter ($1,016,500 in 2021, $5,320,600 in 2022, and $5,475,600 in 2023 and beyond).

As of December 15, 2021, there are six other investigative mechanisms of the Human Rights Council having similar tasks as the "Inquiry" on Israel: 1 on Burundi, 1 on Libya, 1 on Myanmar, 1 on South Sudan, 1 on Syria, and 1 on Venezuela. (The six exclude two current investigations by the OHCHR itself that did not create a new body to conduct the investigation (Sri Lanka 2021, Belarus 2021). The six also exclude the current implementation and monitoring body concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (2021) addressing findings and recommendations made by a previous team of experts.)

When the Israel “Inquiry” budget was approved, therefore, the median cost of the Human Rights Council resolutions creating the other six such investigative mechanisms was $2,622,950. The original budget for the Israel “Inquiry” puts the cost at almost five times that – $11,812,700 and counting (since the "Inquiry" is in perpetuity).

The UN Secretariat said that implementing the Israel “Inquiry” requires hiring a whopping 24 people as permanent staff, a number later reduced by the General Assembly to a whopping 18 permanent staff. To put this in perspective, the regular budget of the UN provides the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights with 20 permanent staff for the entire “Asia, Pacific and Middle East Branch” – a branch covering more than 60% of the world’s population or four and a half billion people.

In fact, Israel will now be only one of two of 193 UN member states to have any permanent staff at the Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights devoted to “investigating” it. (The only other state with a permanent presence at OHCHR is Myanmar.)

A point of comparison: millions of North Koreans suffer from “one of the most repressive and totalitarian states in the world,” with 100,000 prisoners being tortured in political prison camps. But there will shortly be three times as many permanent staff dedicated to investigating, condemning, and isolating Israel than there were temporary staff assigned to the inquiry set up on North Korea in 2013. And the North Korea inquiry lasted only one year.

Here is another shocking component. The Israel "Inquiry" is the largest boondoggle in the history of the UN human rights system: the original budget funds 790 days of travel for experts and staff every year from 2022 on – forever. In effect, (and very unlikely to change with the modest staff reduction), that's at least two UN employees provided food and accommodation and airfare to roam around demonizing the Jewish state every day of every year. That's also more travel days than any of the Council’s current human rights investigations about anything, anywhere.

Another part of the bill for global taxpayers: Pillay's pogrom will now pick up the tab for food, accommodation and travel for each of Pillay and her two associates 50 days a year.

Especially insidious is an amount the UN has budgeted for lawfare. There will be three full-time lawyers, plus a “forensic expert” to “report on medico-legal issues,” and a “military advisor” to pronounce on “de jure command responsibility” and liaise with law enforcement officials. Lawfare in the UN-Palestinian context will consist of falsifying, misrepresenting, and abusing law to criminalize (a) the self-defense of Jews and the Jewish state, and (b) Jews living, cultivating, or even being on land whenever or wherever Arabs object. In effect, the budget of this UN inquisition funds the creation of an "in-house" law firm inside the UN dedicated to manufacturing charges and mounting a global chase to arrest and incarcerate Israeli Jews. A legal pogrom.