A United Nations investigation into the Gaza conflict will be used as a political weapon to undermine Israel and could lead to an upsurge of international antisemitism, the head of a Geneva NGO has warned.

Hillel Neuer, director of the highly respected UN Watch, has said the group is preparing to challenge the report, which is due to be formally presented to the UN Human Rights Commission at the end of the month.

It is widely believed that the report will result in calls for Israel to be prosecuted for alleged war crimes.

Egypt’s culture minister, Farouk Hosni, who last year said he would burn any Israeli books he found in the country’s libraries, is the favourite to win the UN’s top cultural post in an election that begins next week.

Surprisingly, Mr Hosni’s chances of becoming head of Unesco have been boosted by Israel, of all countries, despite being for years an object of his scorn.

A row has broken out over the inclusion of a UK law professor in a United Nations inquiry into the Gaza conflict.

The monitoring group, UN Watch, claimed the LSE professor, Christine Chinkin, was biased against Israel and demanded that she should be removed from the UN’s fact-finding mission into alleged human rights violations, headed by the South African judge Richard Goldstone.

But this week a spokesperson for the mission dismissed as “misplaced” the claims by UN Watch against Professor Chinkin.

Israel has been placed a dismal 141st out of 144 on a list of the world’s most peaceful countries, beating just Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

Countries which ranked higher in the 2009 Global Peace Index included Sudan, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, North Korea, and Iran.

The index was compiled by the think-tank Vision of Humanity, with the data compiled and analysed by the Economic Intelligence Unit.

The survey is endorsed by ex-United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Anan, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former US President Jimmy Carter.

Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu may speak at the UN's General Assembly session in September, which could see him go head-to-head with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The meeting of world leaders, including the US President Barack Obama, will open on September 23, and Mr Ahmadinejad plans to give a speech at the opening.

If he does attend, Mr Netanyahu will use the opportunity to meet Arab leaders such as Jordan's King Abdullah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will attend the United Nations anti-racism conference in Geneva next week.

The news increased Jewish concerns about the conference, which is a follow up to the 2001 conference held in Durban dominated by heated rows over the Middle East.

It became an iconic image: a book by an award-winning writer burned on the streets of Britain. In September 1988, Salman Rushdie published his novel The Satanic Verses, which contained an irreverent alternative life of the Prophet Muhammad. While literary critics debated its artistic merits, elsewhere a storm was gathering. Many Muslims felt deeply affronted by what they saw as an assault on their faith and, in January 1989, some took to the streets in Bradford to demonstrate, culminating in the now notorious book-burning.