The Gaza flotilla imbroglio has provided the UN with the pretext for a new wave
of anti-Israeli incitement. The Security Council instantly summoned an emergency
meeting, which merely served as an arena to slander Israel and endorse a
US-modified resolution demanding an investigation of its actions. The bias of the
UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) was even more blatant. It immediately condemned
Israel, and only subsequently demanded an investigative commission which, like
the notorious Goldstone Report, would simply be a kangaroo court.
The
idealists who founded the UN and crafted the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights would turn in their graves were they aware that the noble institution
they created has been hijacked by rogue states.
Today the majority of the
189 UN members consistently turn a blind eye to the abuse of human
rights and
outright massacres, frequently even among their own citizens.
Examples
abound: Russia’s response to the Chechnya insurrection in which Grozny
was razed
to the ground leaving 700,000 corpses; China’s brutal suppression of
dissent in
Tibet; the genocidal killing of more than a million Christians and
animists by
the Islamic government in Sudan; the barbaric crimes committed by Saddam
Hussein
against his own people.
UN international initiatives have also culminated
in disaster. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the UN recalled its
peacekeeping
force, facilitating the brutal massacre of more than a million Tutsis.
Subsequently, a UN force mandated by the Security Council provided a
safe haven
for the Hutu killers. This was under the watch of secretary-general Kofi
Annan,
who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.
During the cruel ethnic war in
Yugoslavia, a UN battalion in July 1995 handed over 8,000 Muslim
civilians to
the Serbs, who promptly slaughtered them. In fact, it was only after
250,000
people had been killed that the Americans bypassed the Security Council
and
intervened to end the conflict.
THE MOST damning UN humbug is the
ferocious hatred directed against Israel, the sole UN affiliate whose
right to
exist remains under threat. Efforts to demonize and delegitimize the
Jewish
state serve to unite the Islamic world, rogue states and Third World
countries.
They effectively resurrected the rescinded notorious Soviet UN
resolution which
bracketed Zionism with racism, harnessing the entire bureaucracy of the
UN to
portray Israel as the primary source of the evils threatening
mankind.
Alas, motivated by realpolitik and a desire to curry favor, most
democracies either stand on the sidelines or support such unethical
conduct.
It is particularly distressing that the US which, prior to the
Obama administration, represented somewhat of a barrier against such
perfidious
behavior has muted its opposition, conforming to its new policy of
“engaging”
Islam.
The appallingly misnamed UNHRC is the principal subcommittee
driving the anti- Israel campaign, with more than 80 percent of its
condemnatory
resolutions directed against the Jewish state. Whereas the Bush
administration
boycotted the UNHRC, one of President Barack Obama’s first foreign
policy
initiatives was to join it.
Today, democracies comprise only 40% of UNHRC
membership. Last month, seven additional authoritarian regimes were
elected –
unopposed – joining other “human rights devotees” such as Saudi Arabia,
China,
Cuba and Russia.
The most notorious, Libya, is a dictatorship which
sanctions torture and lethal amputations, executes women for violating
moral
codes and criminalizes homosexuality. Currently, the Libyan envoy,
notorious for
his anti-Semitic outbursts, is president of the UN General Assembly.
Libya’s
flaky dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, provided a state welcome to the
perpetrator of
the 1988 Pan Am flight bombing over Lockerbie which killed 270 people,
and
behaved like a buffoon at the UN General Assembly, where he delivered an
incoherent two-hour speech.
The brutal Iranian regime of Holocaust denier
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (a frequent speaker at the General Assembly)
withdrew its
nomination for UNHRC membership in return for a backroom deal to obtain a
seat
on the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women. To enable Iran, which
probably
holds the world’s worst record of abuse of women, to participate in an
organization purportedly advancing women’s rights transforms the UN into
a total
farce. It also highlights the growing clout of the Organization of the
Islamic
Conference, which allegedly brokered the deal.
The venom of the UNHRC is
almost exclusively directed against Israel, while the other member
states get a
free pass. The murder of innocents in Iran, Pakistan, Kenya, Zimbabwe,
China,
Nigeria or Afghanistan is ignored.
Sudan, the site of the Darfur genocide,
was cited in 2009 for its “progress” in human rights. After the horrific
slaughter of civilians that took place when the government subdued the
rebel
Tamils, the UNHRC passed a resolution praising Sri Lanka. It refuses to
take
action against human rights abuses in Iran.
The UNHRC has created a number
of subcommissions exclusively for the purpose of bashing Israel. There
is also
an advisory committee chaired by Halima Warzazi, who shielded Saddam
Hussein
from UN censure after the 1988 gassing of Kurds. The deputy chair is
Jean
Ziegler who, following the Libyan bombing of the Pan Am airliner,
recommended
Gaddafi for a human-rights award.
The UNHRC Durban II Conference,
purportedly launched to combat racism, was transformed into an
anti-Israeli
hate-fest.
The most recent UNHRC initiative was the notorious Goldstone
Report, which brands Israel a criminal state and accuses the IDF of
deliberately
murdering Palestinian civilians.
This is now being augmented by the
“investigation” of Israeli “barbarism,” “banditry,” “piracy,” “massacre
of
civilians,” etc. in relation to the Gaza flotilla.
The UNHRC also promotes
anti-Semitism on its Web site. It currently reproduces a document
accusing
Israeli physicians, medical centers and rabbis of “plucking organs of
dead,
kidnapped and killed Palestinians” – a monstrous replay of the medieval
blood
libels.
REGRETTABLY, DESPITE outstanding UN ambassadors like Dan
Gillerman, the government fails to take the offensive. It is scandalous
that an
impending appointment of a new UN ambassador has been delayed for over a
year,
allegedly because the prime minister and foreign minister cannot agree
on a
candidate. In this context, we should note the valuable contribution
toward
exposing the scandalous behavior of the UN by the NGO UN Watch, headed
by Hillel
Neuer.
The US together with European countries funds the bulk of the $20
billion plus budget.
Unfortunately, despite the UN concept of human rights
having become a macabre travesty, the Obama administration avoids
confronting
the antidemocratic bodies. It even failed to formally object to the
inclusion of
Libya on the UNHRC. This month it announced that it would join the UN
“Alliance
of Civilization,” another body whose agenda is driven by Islamic nations
purportedly to combat Islamophobia, but in fact to institutionalize
limitations
in freedom of speech.
Were it not for the Obama administration’s obsession
to “engage” with rogue states, it would now be timely to question
maintaining
this sham body which primarily serves the interests of tyrannies, and
consider
forming a new multilateral association limited to countries that are
broadly
democratic and share genuine respect for human
rights.
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