The UN Human Rights Council is expected to place Israel under permanent investigation for its "violations" of international law in the territories - until such time as it withdraws to the pre-1967 border. This new UN body was created in June to replace the old Human Rights Commission, which was scrapped because it had a faulty membership composition and repeatedly singled out Israel. Its interesting to note that the change of name was only that.
The United Nations history is replete with one sided General Assembly Resolutions singling out and condemning Israel for just about everything. Everyone is aware of the automatic anti-Israel Arab/Moslem voting bloc. Even UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan admitted at the opening of the 61st General Assembly on September 20, 2006, that Israel is often unfairly judged at the United Nations. "On one side, supporters of Israel feel that it is harshly judged by standards that are not applied to its enemies," he said. "And too often this is true, particularly in some UN bodies." Most egregious was the condemnation of the right of the Jewish people to national self determination pushed through the UN by the Arab states and the Soviet Bloc in the form of Resolution 3379, which slandered Zionism by branding it a form of racism. Of course as Abba Eban stated,""If Algeria introduced a [UN] resolution declaring that the Earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164-13 with 26 abstentions."
Since its inception, the new UN Human Rights Council has continued to single out Israel, the sole Jewish State for condemnation. Thus far the UN Human Rights Council has issued eight anti-Israel resolutions, and none against any other nation. It has also held three special sessions focused solely on Israel while ignoring far more obvious and patent violaters of human rights, (many of whom are in fact represented on the council!)
It becomes obvious that the agenda for the Un Human Rights Council is something far different than human rights. The "permanent probe" of Israel is simply yet another blatant attempt to attack Israel on a permanent basis by her enemies in the UN. Its just another case of the politics being war by other means. If one were to judge by the accumulated UN resolutions, then according to the U.N., Israel is the only country in the world and member nation whose right to exist and right of self defense are an issue.
Maybe if everyone should just agree that the UN permanently condemns all actions or inactions by Israel, no matter who, what or when, past, present and future, at the start of every session. It wouldn’t even require a vote, just a literal rubber stamp. Then perhaps UN would have the luxury of getting on to other business.
You should also mention that travesty in Durban in 2001 (the racism conference), at which Israel was, predictably, called a racist entity or some such, and condemned left right and centre, while the third-world nations and the Arabs kept criticism of anybody else to a minimum.
ReplyDeleteI seem to also recall that African nations wanted the west, particularly the US, to pay damages to Africa for the slave trade - ironic, as the descendants of the enslaved live here, not there, and any payment would have come out of taxes.... meaning that the victims of slavery would have paid the descendants of those who sold them for the privilege. Not that this is particularly germane, but it does shed perspective on UN conferences.
the other thing that most people miss is the difference between non-binding general assembly resolutions, and binding security council resolutions. the former, as you've noted, are notoriously anti-israel. the latter have been more balanced. but people talk about UN resolutions in general, and they claim that israel doesn't abide by them; those people are talking about GC non binding resolutions.
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