Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that investigators with the United Nations Human Rights Council will be barred from entering Israel and the West Bank. The Council voted last week to investigate Israeli actions in areas it acquired in the 1967 war – disputed land where Israel has been building communities since that time and which the Palestinians claim as a homeland. Conventional wisdom among diplomats holds that if and when a peace agreement is negotiated, Israel will vacate the vast majority of post-1967 land and compensate the Palestinians through land-swaps for whatever Israeli communities remain. The United States took Israel’s side in Geneva last week, voting against the investigation. American Ambassador Daniel Shapiro told students at Tel Aviv University on Monday that the UN “obsesses” on Israel and ignores much more significant human rights abuses. Israeli media is reporting that the Foreign Minister has instructed envoys to go so far as to ignore phone calls from the UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay.