ISRAEL'S MEMBERSHIP IN JUSCANZ: LIECHTENSTEIN

C O N F I D E N T I A L BERN 000382 SIPDIS DEPT FOR IO/RHS (A.OSTERMEIER/C.MUSSER/C.NEVILLE) AND EUR/CE (Y.SAINT-ANDRE) E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/11/2019 TAGS: PREL AORC PHUM IS LS SUBJECT: ISRAEL'S MEMBERSHIP IN JUSCANZ: LIECHTENSTEIN REVIEWING AND WOULD LIKE TO DISCUSS WITH OTHER JUSCANZ MEMBERS REF: STATE 91302 Classified By: Acting POLE Counselor Chris Buck; reasons 1.4(b) and (d) . ¶1. (C) Acting POLE Counselor pressed reftel message on September 9 with Andrea Hoch, Coordinator for UN Human Rights Affairs at the Liechtenstein Foreign Office. Hoch took the USG's arguments on board, but said that the GoL had not focused on this issue since last year, and would need to review the matter. ¶2. (C) Hoch recalled vaguely that during the discussion of this topic last year in Geneva, there were JUSCANZ partners who maintained that the prospect of Israeli JUSCANZ membership should be restricted to Geneva, and that New York should be treated as a separate question, since "Israel is less isolated there" (i.e., "is a UNGA member, and has other sources of information about developments, as opposed to Geneva, where Israel is not a member of the UNHRC"). Hoch asked whether the USG would be willing to consider a Geneva-only scenario at this point. Acting POLE Counselor reiterated reftel points. Hoch said that Liechtenstein would find it useful to have a meeting of JUSCANZ members in Geneva to discuss the matter, and meanwhile undertook to review the issue within the GoL. BEYER