B’Tselem chief slams Israeli government in Security Council speech

Hagai El-Ad, executive director of left-wing human rights group B’Tselem, rejects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criticism of his organization and calls for international action against Israel over the expected demolition of Khan al-Ahmar in his UN Security Council speech.

“You will never silence us – nor the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who reject a present founded on supremacy and oppression, and stand for a future built on equality, freedom, and human rights,” he says, addressing the government that called him a “traitor.”

“We do not focus on how many is the right number of states to achieve a ‘solution,'” El-Ad adds. “Instead we focus on the realization of human rights. That is why we reject the occupation. We reject it because the current reality is wholly and utterly incompatible with what is right and what is just. It is a reality wholly and utterly incompatible with a life of freedom and dignity for all 13 million people – both Israeli and Palestinian – living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. And that is the future we strive for.”

— with Raphael Ahren