Israeli officials say a UN fact-finding mission “will not be allowed
to enter” the country and its occupied territories. On Friday, the
Geneva-based Human Rights Council appointed three officers to probe
Israel’s West Bank settlement activity.
­The UN's top human rights body has commissioned three jurists to find out how Israel's West Bank settlements affect “the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people.” The body called on Tel Aviv “not to obstruct the process of cooperation.”


This
resonated harshly with Israel, who took no time to dub the mission
“biased and flawed,” vowing not to support the officials.
"The
fact-finding mission will find no cooperation in Israel, and its
members will not be allowed to enter Israel and the territories,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor. “Its
existence embodies the inherent distortion that typifies the UN Human
Rights Council's treatment of Israel and the hijacking of the important
human rights agenda by non-democratic countries.”
Israel
cut all ties with the council in March after the 47-nation body passed a
resolution establishing the settlement probe. Israel accuses the
commission of a “disproportionate focus” on Israel.
"The establishment of this mission is another blatant expression of the singling out of Israel in the UNHRC," a Foreign Ministry statement said on Friday.


Now that the team is to be prohibited from Israel, it will have to gain evidence from second-hand sources, like local media.


But
even if the mission finds that the settlements violate human rights,
any attempts to punish Israel will most probably be defused by the US,
Israel’s key ally.
The UN considers Israeli settlements
illegal under international law. The Human Rights Council says Israel's
plans to build more houses in the West Bank and East Jerusalem undermine
the peace process and pose a threat to the two-state solution.
The
West Bank settlements are at the core of dispute between Israelis and
Palestinians. Some 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in
the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a territory that Israel expropriated
from Jordan in 1967. Palestinians claim the West Bank is part of their
future state, and object to any settlements there.Israel cites
historical and biblical links to the West Bank, saying the status of the
settlements should be decided in peace negotiations.

http://www.rt.com/news/israel-settlements-ban-un-614/