{"id":89869,"date":"2017-04-03T12:01:36","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T11:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=89869"},"modified":"2017-04-01T18:56:22","modified_gmt":"2017-04-01T17:56:22","slug":"abbas-to-award-khalaf-with-palestinian-highest-medal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/04\/abbas-to-award-khalaf-with-palestinian-highest-medal\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbas to Award Khalaf with Palestinian Highest Medal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

UN Under-Secretary General and ESCWA Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf on March 15, 2017
[Ratib Al Safadi \/ Anadolu Agency]<\/p><\/div>\n

President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday [18 Mar 2017] said he would award the highest Palestinian medal to former UN official Rima Khalaf<\/a> for her courageous stand for Palestinians, local media reported.<\/p>\n

Abbas informed Khalaf about his decision in a telephone conversation in which he congratulated her for standing for humanity, true values and loyalty to international law, state news agency Wafa<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n

Rights group: UN pressured to withdraw report saying Israel \u2018apartheid\u2019 state<\/strong> <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Khalaf resigned Friday from her post as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for the Western Asia (ESCWA) after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres forced her to withdraw a report that accused Israel of operating an \u201capartheid\u201d regime.<\/p>\n

Abbas said Palestinians appreciated Khalaf\u2019s humanitarian and national stances as she refused to cover up crimes committed by the Israeli occupying authority against the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n

The ESCWA report released Wednesday said Israel \u201cestablished an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole\u201d and that there was \u201coverwhelming evidence\u201d Israel had committed the \u201ccrime of apartheid\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the same day of the report\u2019s release, Khalaf said the \u201cignorance of the international community\u201d in recent decades had \u201cencouraged Israel to continue its abuses of international law\u201d.<\/p>\n

The ESCWA report was prepared by Richard Falk, an international law expert and former UN human rights rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories and, Virginia Tilley, a political science professor and Israeli affairs expert.<\/p>\n

Established in 1973 to promote economic and social development among member states, ESCWA is currently comprised of 18 Arab nations.<\/p>\n

Download the full UN ESCWA report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 middleeastmonitor.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday [18 Mar 2017] said he would award the highest Palestinian medal to former UN official Rima Khalaf for her courageous stand for Palestinians, local media reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}