B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith International is outraged that a meeting convened supposedly under the auspices of the United Nations to discuss the Middle East peace process does not include official representatives of the State of Israel

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People—the only U.N. body which is devoted to a specific population—is hosting what it is calling the United Nations International Meeting in Support of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process. This meeting, scheduled for June 28 and June 29 in Brussels, Belgium is titled: “The role of Europe in advancing Palestinian statehood and achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

How can the United Nations, a member of the Mideast Quartet, back a meeting with the explicit agenda of advancing Palestinian statehood? This goes to the very heart of the biased mechanism that the United Nations has become.

Efforts to achieve peace in the region must include direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians. A meeting such as this circumvents the peace process and delegitimizes Israel. Marginalizing Israel will not lead to any breakthroughs in the peace process.

To support the peace process, the United Nations must engage both sides. For more than 35 years, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, with the full endorsement of the United Nations, has sought to undermine Israel. This meeting starts from a faulty premise. Its conclusions would be tainted.

B’nai B’rith International will monitor the meeting.