Roundup: Israeli PM seeks to ban national service with rights group B'Tselem over UN row

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Saturday he seeks to ban young national service volunteers from working with one of Israel's most prominent human rights organizations after the watchdog criticized the Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza in the UN.

Netanyahu said in a statement that the participation of B'Tselem in a special session of the United Nations' Security Council on Friday was "inappropriate."

In the session, B'tselem's executive director Hagai El-Ad told the Security Council that Israel is hampering the possibility of achieving a peace agreement with the Palestinians by expanding the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

"Israel has systematically legalized human rights violations in the occupied territories through the establishment of permanent settlements, punitive home demolitions, a biased building and planning mechanism, taking over Palestinian land and much, much more. Israel's military law enforcement system -- if one can call it that -- routinely whitewashes hundreds of cases in which Palestinians were killed or abused," he said.

He also urged the Council to act to end the occupation. "The rights of Palestinians must be realized; the occupation must end; the UN Security Council must act; and the time is now," said El-Ad.

On Saturday night, Netanyahu lashed out at the B'tselem, calling it a "shoddy and unhinged" organization.

He said the group has joined the "chorus of mudslinging" and accused it of "recycling the false claim that 'the occupation and the settlements' are the reason for the conflict."

According to Netanyahu, "Palestinians attacked Israel for 50 years before there was a single settlement. They have continued to attack Israel from the Gaza Strip, even after we left it entirely."

He charged that the Palestinians reject the existence of a Jewish state "in any borders whatsoever."

A following statement released by the Prime Minister's Office said Netanyahu would "act to amend the national service law so that it will no longer be possible to do national service with the B'Tselem organization."

Netanyahu discussed the issue on Saturday evening with coalition chairman, David Bitan, in order to begin with the legislation process upon the start of the parliament winter session on Oct. 31.

Netanyahu has previously contacted the Attorney General on the matter, according to the statement, and "the latter said that the law needs to be amended and thus the prime minister intends to do," the statement read.

National service is the non-military alternative for those who do not want to serve in the Israel Defense Forces.

In August 2014, the director of the National Service Authority decided to bar young people from volunteering with B'Tselem, citing the group's "activities against soldiers." However, two months later, the Deputy Attorney General canceled the ban.

B'Tselem, established in 1989, is one of the largest human rights groups in Israel. It works with local Palestinian volunteers to document by video the daily life and alleged violations of human rights in the occupied territories.

B'Tselem and other Israeli anti-occupation groups have been under increasing criticism from home, with many in Netanyahu's right-wing coalition call to impose limitations on their political activities.

Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, home to millions of Palestinians, during the 1967 Mideast War, and has been controlling it ever since despite international criticism. The Palestinians wish to establish a state in these territories. Endit