Despite opposition from the UK and 12 other countries, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) voted on Monday to grant official status to the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), a London-based group that Israel outlawed in 2010, claiming it had ties to Hamas.
Alarmingly, the PRC is now recognised as a non-governmental organisation by the UN, allowing its activists to acquire official UN badges, access UN facilities and participate in debates of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Worse, an organisation that is widely accused of being Hamas's primary European front group won a new veneer of global legitimacy.
But PRC now faces unintended consequences. Its UN bid has turned a global spotlight on Hamas's growing efforts to penetrate influential political and legal circles in Europe, under the innocent-sounding banner of "the right of return".
Moreover, the fact that Israel's motion to reject the group won an unprecedented amount of support for a UN vote concerning the Jewish state will be lost on no one. Co-sponsored by Canada, Australia and the US, Israel's preemptive move to block the PRC won the support of 13 countries on the 54-nation ECOSOC, including Austria, Botswana, France, Germany, Greece and Italy.
Israel's move to reject PRC won sizeable support
PRC backers amounted to a mere 16 countries - including Sudan, Pakistan, Kuwait, China, Sudan and Russia - less than a third of the ECOSOC membership. Another 18 countries abstained. Shamefully, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa backed the PRC.
Ahead of the vote, UN Watch revealed worrying social media posts in Arabic by several PRC leaders, prompting chairman Majed Al-Zeer and executive director Tarek Hamoud to hurriedly delete the material and lock down their accounts. Sadly for PRC, UN Watch took screen shots of the material before they were taken down, and reproduced them on its website.
Removed tweets by Mr Hamoud include one depicting a hand with three fingers raised in salute, posted on June 14, 2014, just two days after Hamas kidnapped three Israeli boys who were later found murdered.
Another deleted Hamoud tweet from last summer's war threatened PLO President Mahmoud Abbas - pictured with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu - with "punishment".
Likewise, PRC chair Majed Al-Zeer took down a Facebook post which showed a bearded Jewish man guzzling fuel from a pump that was being used to hang a Palestinian woman.
PRC is celebrating its UN win. But now that its true face has been exposed, this may yet prove a Pyrrhic victory.
