UN Human Rights Council exposed (ISRAEL HAYOM OP-ED) Yoram Ettinger 03/21/12)
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1594
Israel Hayom
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The U.N.’s Human Rights Council and human rights constitute an
oxymoron. The council – elected by the majority of the U.N. members --
constitutes an authentic reflection of the U.N.
On Friday, the council will conclude a month-long deliberation by
submitting four more resolutions condemning Israel.
In formulating one of the resolutions, the council heard testimony
from a representative of the Assad regime, which denounces Israel for
alleged human right violations in the Golan Heights. At the same
time, the Assad regime has already murdered 8,000 Syrian dissidents
and rebels, creating tens of thousands of refugees, some seeking
asylum in Israel’s Golan Heights.
The council was privy to testimonies from Palestinian
representatives, while an increasing number of Palestinians attempt
to relocate to Jerusalem, in order to avoid the ruthless rule of the
Palestinian Authority. The council never discussed intra-Palestinian
violence, which has caused substantially more fatalities than those
produced during Israel’s confrontation with Palestinian terrorism. It
failed to act against the PLO/Hamas-led hate education, brainwashing
Palestinian children to become suicide bombers; rewarding Palestinian
mothers for raising suicide bombers; executing rival Palestinians by
throwing them off high-rise buildings; spraying them with bullets
from the waist down; torturing, maiming and executing Palestinian
opponents; abusing Palestinian civilians as human shields; physically
abusing critical Palestinian journalists; suppressing Palestinian
civil liberties; and systematically and deliberately targeting
Israeli civilians with terrorism, missiles and mortars.
The council welcomed a report by Professor Richard Falk, who accused
the U.S. administration of complicity and a cover-up in the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks, on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian
territories occupied since 1967.” Falk – a Hamas sympathizer, who
justifies suicide bombing as a legitimate struggle – was appointed in
2008 to a six-year term as U.N. Special Rapporteur. Falk succeeded
Professor John Dugard, who shares his worldview.
The council is assisted by an advisory committee, chaired by
Morocco’s Halima Warzazi, who, in 1988, blocked a U.N. initiative to
condemn Saddam Hussein’s chemical warfare against Iraq’s Kurds. The
vice chairman is Switzerland’s Jean Ziegler, who co-established
the “Gadhafi International Prize for Human Rights” and authored books
accusing the U.S. of being responsible for global malaise. Another
adviser is Nicaragua’s Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, former president of
the U.N. General Assembly, an admirer of Ahmadinejad, a defender of
Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president indicted by the International
Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, a friend of Fidel Castro
and self-hating Americans such as Ramsey Clark and Noam Chomsky.
Since June 2007, Israel has been the only country to be listed on the
council’s permanent agenda. Out of the 10 permanent items on the
council’s agenda, eight are organizational and procedural, one deals
with global human rights and item no. 7 – “the human rights situation
in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories” – is the only one
that is country-specific. The outcome of the investigation is
prejudged, not subject to review. Israel – the only Middle Eastern
democracy -- is the only U.N. member to be ostracized annually, while
its enemies are exempt from scrutiny.
According to former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, “There
are permanent members of the Security Council and non-permanent
members, but Israel is the only permanent non-member.”
Eighty percent of all U.N. resolutions criticizing specific countries
for human rights violations in 2010 were directed at Israel. Only six
other U.N. members faced human rights criticism at all, one of them
the U.S. The council subjected the U.S. to harsh criticism – by
Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Russia – for supposed human
rights violations. It criticized the elimination of Osama bin Laden
and Israel’s defense against PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists.
Simultaneously, the council has ignored Islamic terrorism, which has
afflicted Asia, Africa, Europe and the U.S. No emergency sessions and
inquiries were held and no resolutions were adopted. Fifty-five
percent of the council’s members are Muslim countries, which
contribute little to the U.N. budget while dominating policy-making.
The council is formally the guardian of human rights, but its
members – Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Cuba, China, Kyrgyzstan,
Uganda, Djibouti, Senegal, Mauritania, Malaysia, Russia and China –
deny their peoples’ fundamental civil liberties.
In view of the track record of the U.N. in general, and the council
in particular, and in light of the intensifying threat of Islamic
terrorism, the free world should grow independent of the U.N., both
militarily and in policy. The members of the free world should heed
Bolton’s assessment that “the U.N. was marginal during the Cold War,
and is well on its way to marginalizing itself when it comes to the
world’s greatest threat, terrorism.”
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