Israel is the first country to boycott the annual human rights review presented
at the bogus United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Despite being tacitly
rebuked by the US, Israel was justified in doing so. For years, while ignoring
the rampant denial of human rights and the butchering of hundreds of thousands
of innocent civilians throughout the world, the proceedings of this despicably
biased body were concentrated on relentlessly condemning, demonizing and
delegitimizing the Jewish state.
Recent examples include the defamatory
2009 Goldstone Report – subsequently recanted by Goldstone himself – accusing
Israel of willfully engaging in war crimes, despite having a track record of
minimizing civilian casualties in war unmatched by any other country. A year
later it again condemned Israel for “attacking” Turkish terrorist
“humanitarians” on board the Mavi Marmara, one of the vessels in the Gaza
“peace” flotilla.
Israel’s decision to boycott the hearings was
vindicated on January 31 when, based on largely fabricated Arab and hostile NGO
sources, the UNHRC proclaimed that Israel’s settlements over the green line were
in breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and accused it of indulging in gross
“violations of human rights law.” The review made no reference to the deliberate
targeting of Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorists.
It warned that
if Israel failed – with no preconditions – to dismantle construction and
withdraw from these areas, charges of war crimes at the International Criminal
Court could ensue. This amounted to a UN body purporting to promote human rights
demanding the ethnic cleansing of disputed territories.
The Council also
called on governments and multinational corporations to withdraw investments and
sever all dealings with settlements – effectively providing notice of intent to
impose sanctions.
Had Israel submitted its case in advance to such a
kangaroo court, it would merely have legitimized the procedure.
THE
PASSIONATE idealists who in 1945 created the United Nations to promote global
peace and universal human rights would turn in their graves were they aware of
how this once noble institution has been hijacked by an alliance of radical
Islamists, rogue states and tyrannies notorious for trampling human rights, even
denying their own citizens basic human rights such as freedom of expression and
worship.
The farcical assignation of rogue states to prominent roles at
the UN has transformed this purported human rights organization into a sick
joke. A representative of Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya was elected president of the
UN General Assembly in 2009; in 2011 Qatar was elected president and Iran became
vice president; both North Korea, the notorious proliferator of nuclear arms,
and Iraq chaired the UN Commission on Disarmament; Iran, notorious for stoning
women, was appointed to the UN Commission on the Status of Women; in 2011,
Bashar Assad’s Syria was elected to a UNESCO commission dealing with human
rights and to this day Syria remains on the committee of UNESCO; Libya
introduced a UN resolution to “end all forms of racial discrimination”; Iran
called on the US to implement international humanitarian law; China demanded an
end to “excessive force by law enforcement bodies.”
The genocidal
Holocaust denier Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is treated deferentially
when he addresses the General Assembly and calls for the destruction of a UN
member state, employing demonic Jew-hatred unprecedented since the Nazi
era.
Only last week, on January 28, the UN elected Sudan as vice
president of its Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the body which regulates
human rights groups. That President Omar Bashir is wanted by the International
Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur failed to
preclude Sudan’s election.
The UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC),
boycotted by Israel, is a gross caricature of its title, blatantly undermining
every aspect of human rights. Libya was elected chairman of this august body in
2003 and as recently as 2010 the UNHRC produced a report praising the human
rights record of Libya.
The UN, the UNHRC and the Security Council have
spent infinitely more time debating and condemning Israeli settlements and
construction in Jerusalem than reviewing issues of human rights violations in
Arab states, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, China,
Congo or even Mauritania where slavery is still practiced. Even the civil war
bloodbath in Syria, which has now claimed over 60,000 victims and created
700,000 refugees, receives considerably less attention than Israel.
THE
BUSH administration boycotted the UNHRC on the grounds that US involvement would
provide legitimization for this sham body. However, the Obama administration, as
part of its campaign to “engage” with all countries, renewed its
membership.
Since the 1970s, the bulk of UN debates and condemnations of
human rights infringements have been directed against Israel, the nation state
of the Jews. This climaxed in November 1975 when at the UN General Assembly, the
Soviet Union and its satellites, supported by Islamic and Third World countries,
carried Resolution 3379 equating Zionism with racism.
Yet 16 years later
in 1991, the US, headed by president Bush Sr., harnessed its immense resources
as a superpower and acted as a powerful force for decency by achieving the
repeal by 111 nations of what Hillary Clinton described as a “criminal”
resolution.
This act underlines the potential power of President Barack
Obama who, if he so determined, could enforce reforms at the UN and orientate it
toward moral objectives.
But the repeal of UN Resolution 3379 – while
important – as of now fails to prevent Islamists utilizing their numerical
superiority to continue exploiting the UN as a launching pad to demonize and
delegitimize the Jewish state.
It was thus not surprising that the UN
endorsed the three Durban conferences against racism, which were transformed
into anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic fests, or that last year the UN General
Assembly adopted 22 anti-Israeli resolutions, while only approving four other
condemnations against all other countries.
The European countries, which
at one stage demonstrated token moral resistance to some of these one-sided
anti-Israeli resolutions, have reverted to the role they assumed in the 1930s
and ‘40s when they stood aside as the forces of darkness assaulted the Jewish
people.
Israel must reconcile itself with the reality that it will never
achieve justice from this dysfunctional assembly of nations dominated by
tyrannies and dictatorships.
ON THE positive side, Israel’s current UN
ambassador, Ron Prosor, brilliantly articulates the moral case for the Jewish
state and effectively exposes the hypocrisy and double standards of the UN. His
role is extremely important in enabling Americans to appreciate the bias and
duplicity of the ongoing UN assaults.
Hillel Neuer, operating UN Watch –
one of the most effective nonprofit bodies promoting the case for Israel abroad
– also deserves kudos for systematically highlighting the humbug at the United
Nations.
Hopefully, as US public opinion becomes increasingly
disillusioned and angered with the hypocrisy and double standards employed by
the immoral, tyrannical forces dominating the current United Nations, President
Obama may be persuaded to act. Alternatively, Congress could employ its own
clout and if necessary deny funding in order to stem the UN’s obscene
activities. If it fails to do so, it may even ultimately decide to encourage the
creation of a new global association of democratic states.
The writer’s
website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com.
He may be contacted
at ileibler@leibler.com
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