Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Monday Israel's entrance into the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development saying it was a "seal of approval" which would attract many financial investors.

"Joining [the OECD] is like receiving a university degree," Netanyahu said. "Just as it is significant to have a degree from the Technion, for example, when entering the job market, entering [the OECD] will open doors and provide access to many fields. It's a seal of approval."

Earlier Monday, the 31 members of the OECD unanimously voted in favor of accepting Israel as a member of the group, a senior Jerusalem source said...

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/whiskey-dips-and-human-ri...

Miri Weingarten of J-News, the IJV/J-Street close relation that was set up in London in March.

Here is the email she sent round today:

Hi all,

You will have already seen that Haaretz has reported a unanimous vote for Israeli accession to the OECD this morning.

FYI, the Palestinians hope to achieve a small technical delay based on a *legal argument* (below) by getting the legal advisors of one of the MFAs of a member country to request a legal opinion on this issue from the OECD legal department, and asking that the accession process (due to be finalised May 27) be suspended until this legal question is answered.

The bottom line of this argument is that the OECD would itself be breaching the 4th Geneva convention if it admits Israel under current conditions (i.e with settlement data, but without data on Palestinians in the OPT). By including settlement data it has actually forced itself to apply the rules of occupation (Geneva 4) to Israel, which include responsibility of the Occupying Power for the welfare of the occupied population. The only way that accession would be legal is a) if settlement/OPT data is totally excluded [total disaggregation] or b) if data from both settlements and OPT Palestinians is included.

A brief based on this argument has been sent to all Ministries of foreign affairs of member countries.

The legal argument will now be important for press purposes. Please feel free to send it around as another point of messaging to your lists.

(There follows the legal argument)

*best
Miri

--

Miri Weingarten, Director
JNews
60 Farringdon Road
London EC1R 3GA
Tel. xxxx

This surely puts the lie to any claim that J-News - or its close relations J-Street or IJV - have Israel's best interests in mind...