A UN agency report, that accuses Israel of imposing an “apartheid regime” of racial discrimination on the Palestinian people has created a political firestorm.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson

described the report as a Nazi propaganda publication that was strongly anti-Semitic.

The United States also expressed its outrage.

The paper was published by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.

Under Secretary General Rima Khalaf has since resigned:“It was to be expected that Israel and its allies would put enormous pressure on the United Nations Secretary General to renounce the report, and the United Nations Secretary General gave me his instructions to renounce it,” she said.

The authors said the report had been established on the “basis of scholarly inquiry and overwhelming evidence.”

The commission promotes economic and social development in 18 Arab countries, and is based in Beirut.

The UN said it did not seek to bury the report, which has since been removed from its website.

The spokesperson for the Secretary General Stephane Dujarric said:

“This is not about pressure. This is about the Secretary-General having the authority to manage the organization in a way that is done effectively and can deliver on its goals.”

The report entitled ‘Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid’ accuses Israel of having established “an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinian people as a whole”.