“The HRC actually encouraged terrorism by damaging the right to self-defense of democracies dealing with terrorism and asymmetrical warfare”

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon urged visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay on Wednesday not to go ahead with a planned visit to Iran.

Ayalon said this will legitimize a regime that “maliciously violates human rights, executes its citizens and openly calls for genocide.”

Ayalon also took the opportunity to slam the UN Human Rights Council, which Pillay supervises, saying it is “sabotaging chances of renewing the political process with the Palestinians. The council’s “obsessive occupation with the Goldstone Report, as well as the use of the committee for the political hounding of Israel, have created an atmosphere of hostility and lack of trust which have caused the Palestinians to fortify themselves in their positions and prevents them from returning to the negotiation table,” Ayalon said.

“The Human Rights Council actually encouraged terrorism by damaging the right to self-defense of democracies dealing with terrorism and asymmetrical warfare,” Ayalon said. He also called for the UN to do more to secure the release of captured Israeli occupation soldier Gilad Schalit, and asked Pillay to do all in her power to meet with Schalit.