The United Nations Has Lost It: Yair Lapid, Times of Israel, June 20, 2016— The United Nations has lost it. When it comes to Israel the UN has lost credibility, lost common sense, and more than anything lost its most important asset – its integrity.
Reform or Regression? Ten Years of the UN Human Rights Council: Hillel C. Neuer, UNWatch, May 17, 2016— Testimony of Hillel C. Neuer, Executive Director, United Nations Watch as Delivered Washington, DC May 17, 2016.”
Guess Which Country the U.N. Decries Now: Janice Halpern, Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2016— The World Health Organization seems to have its hands full. With the Rio Olympics only two months away, the Zika virus has become an international public-health emergency.
UNESCO Resolution Disfigures Jewish, and Western, History: Mordechai Ben-Dat, CJN, May 24, 2016— One would think, rather reasonably, that an organization whose mission is “to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information” would care about conveying truth.
On Topic Links
Israel Named Head of UN Body for First Time: Itamar Eichner, Ynet, June 13, 2016
Israel’s UN Envoy Empowers Students to ‘Fight and Win’ Against BDS: Shalle' McDonald, JNS, May 26, 2016
Why is the UN Human Rights Council Not Concerned About Slavery?: Michael Curtis, American Thinker, June 3, 2016
World in Chaos, Israel Gets Singular Focus at UN Rights Body: New York Times, June 13, 2016
THE UNITED NATIONS HAS LOST IT
Yair Lapid
Times of Israel, June 20, 2016
The United Nations has lost it. When it comes to Israel the UN has lost credibility, lost common sense, and more than anything lost its most important asset – its integrity. At the end of March, I stood in Geneva, with hundreds of protesters, wrapped in Israeli flags. We stood beneath the Broken Chair Monument which stands opposite the United Nations Human Rights Council. Inside, in the elegant hall, there was a debate, another debate, about Israel.
The UN Human Rights Council’s treatment of Israel strayed from the boundaries of legitimate criticism long ago. In the past decade the council has voted for 61 resolutions condemning human rights abuses across the world and 67 resolutions which condemned Israel. Let me repeat that — The council has condemned Israel, a democratic country which upholds international law, more times than the rest of the world combined.
Israel is the only country on earth which warrants its own agenda item in the UN Human Rights Council. Agenda item 7 dictates that every time the council meets there will be a ‘discussion of the human rights situation in Israel’. This discussion happens irrespective of whether or not there have been reports of human rights violations. It happens without a factual examination of the complaints lodged by Palestinians, usually allies or members of the various terror organizations that are sworn to destroy Israel. For the United Nations, this just doesn’t matter.
Together with me, under the Broken Chair, stood some of the victims: An impressive young man whose father, an Israeli peace activist, was murdered by a suicide bomber on a Jerusalem bus. A woman who went for a hike with a friend and her Labrador and was attacked by Palestinian terrorists. They stabbed her friend to death, stabbed her dozens of times and then stabbed her dog as well. “I don’t know why” she said to me quietly, “but most people are more shocked that they killed the dog than my friend.”
After the demonstration, they went to speak before the council. They received a cold reception. While they bore witness to the loss of their loved ones, the delegates ate, intentionally spoke loudly, and walked in and out. No one said a word about Israel defending women’s rights and gay rights. No one said a word about Israel’s Arab citizens, sitting in its parliament and on its Supreme Court. In short, no one said a word about Israel being a thriving democracy embodying as its way of life everything the UN exists to promote.
Israel’s enemies, on the other hand, hang gay people from telephone poles, believe women are the property of their husbands and obviously don’t believe in institutions like the United Nations. A few months after the embarrassing meeting in Geneva, the World Health Organization, another organ of the UN, held its annual meeting. As expected, the meeting dealt with questions of mortality, life expectancy, spread of disease and the need for vaccines. But the assembly also included one weird exception: It included a harsh condemnation of only one country, Israel.
The resolution condemned what it termed the “Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights.” There was no explanation how this might be relevant to health issues. Two hundred meters from the Israeli Golan, in Syria, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are being massacred and that wasn’t mentioned even once. In fact, the only connection between the Israeli Golan and health issues is that for the past few years Israel has quietly rescued hundreds of Syrian children who were injured in the fighting and treated them in our hospitals.
The resolution also contained a series of false “facts” based on disgraceful Palestinian propaganda in a report presented to the WHO. For example the report argues that “Israel injects Palestinians with viruses which cause cancer.” This is a monstrous accusation which wouldn’t be out of place in Der Sturmer, and yet it was published without a shred of proof.
The report was also decorated with photographs meant to enhance the drama. One, which was captioned “Taken during the Israeli war on Gaza 2014,” is an image of a simulated attack on Tehran which appeared on a popular blog a few years ago. The mountains surrounding the Iranian capital were removed using Photoshop to increase credibility. Another photograph is captioned, “The devastation caused by the Israeli war on Gaza in 2014.” It was actually taken in Beirut in early 2000s. All this, in an official United Nations report.
If you’re still not convinced that something twisted and irrational is happening you can visit the United Nations headquarters in New York. There you will find a permanent exhibition which deals with the Palestinian refugee problem. If you look carefully at the statistics, you’ll notice something strange: In 1948, during Israel’s War of Independence, around seven hundred thousand Palestinians fled or were exiled. Each one is an individual tragedy but it’s worth remembering that Israel wasn’t the aggressor in that war…
[To Read The Full Article, Click the Following Link–ED]
REFORM OR REGRESSION? TEN YEARS OF THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
Hillel C. Neuer
UNWatch, May 17, 2016
Testimony of Hillel C. Neuer, Executive Director, United Nations Watch as Delivered Washington, DC May 17, 2016
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We meet on the 70th anniversary of the UN Commission on Human Rights, whose creators gathered this week, in May 1946, one year after the Nazi atrocities. Eleanor Roosevelt became the founding Chair, and René Cassin, the eminent legal philosopher, the Vice-Chair. The founders had a dream: to reaffirm the principle of human dignity, and to guarantee fundamental freedoms for all.
Over time, however, dictatorships hijacked the Commission—even electing the murderous regime of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi as Chair; 1946, Eleanor Roosevelt; 2003, Colonel Qaddafi. Two years later, UN Secretary-General Annan called for scrapping the commission, identifying its politicization, selectivity, and credibility deficit—all of which “cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole.”
By contrast, the UN promised that the new body would elect members committed to human rights, and address the world’s most severe abuses. Ten years later, we ask: Is the new body living up to the UN’s promise of reform, and to the original dream, from 70 years ago, of Eleanor Roosevelt?
Let us consider the Council’s record in responding to gross violations. Thanks to the U.S., an important inquiry was created on North Korea. Yet over fifty sessions, only a tiny minority of countries have been condemned — less than what even the discredited old Commission accomplished.
To the vast majority of abusers, the Council grants impunity. In China, 1.3 billion people are denied freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion. Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo languishes in prison. Tibetans are trampled and tortured. The Council’s response? Not one resolution, special session, or commission of inquiry. No protection for one-fifth of the world’s population. On the contrary, in violation of the criteria guaranteed in the Council’s 2006 charter, China was elected as a member.
In Russia, dissidents are harassed, arrested, even assassinated. Vladimir Putin’s regime has sparked deadly wars, invading Ukraine and swallowing Crimea. The Council’s response? Silence. Over ten years, the Council never attempted to pass a single resolution condemning Russia—when even the discredited commission managed to adopt two. Nor did the Council create a single special session, monitor or inquiry. On the contrary: Russia, too, was elected a member.
In Saudi Arabia, women are subjugated, Christians are arrested for practicing their religion, democracy blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a thousand lashes, and beheadings are at an all time high. The Council’s response? Silence. A recent attempt to investigate Saudi Arabia’s carpet bombing of Yemeni civilians was quashed. On the contrary: Saudi Arabia, too, was elected a member. And faced with compelling reports of torture in Algeria, forced child labor in Congo, attacks on dissidents in Cuba, abuse of foreign workers in Qatar, incommunicado detentions in the United Arab Emirates, the imprisonment of Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma and other democracy leaders in Venezuela, and arbitrary arrests in Vietnam, what has the Council done, over its ten years, to protect these victims?
Absolutely nothing. On the contrary: the UN elected every single one of these abusers as a Council member. With 62% of the current membership failing the basic standards of a free society, the Council’s democracy credentials are, in 2016, the lowest in history.
Let us consider the Council’s new Universal Periodic Review, which purports to examine every country. While the U.S. uses it to apply real scrutiny, the vast majority abuse it to praise each other. I was there when China praised Saudi Arabia for respecting religious freedom, and when the next day Saudi Arabia praised China for respecting minority rights. That’s why our detailed study, available at unwatch.org, is entitled Mutual Praise Society.
Let us consider where the Council is active. Despite the promise of ending selectivity, the Council’s pathological obsession with demonizing Israelis, and denying their human rights, has never been worse. Since its creation, the Council has adopted 67 resolutions condemning Israel—and only 61 on the rest of the world combined. The texts on Israel are uniquely suffused with the suppression of any countervailing facts that might provide balance.
Its commissions of inquiry like the Goldstone Report, which excoriated Israel while exonerating Hamas, initiated a new era whereby a terrorist group has come to rely on the Council as an effective international tool to achieve its deadly goals. Hamas is incentivized by the UN to launch rocket attacks against Israeli civilians while placing its own civilian population in harm’s way.
And just now, the Council instituted a UN black-list of Israeli companies, to have the UN implement the anti-Israeli BDS campaign—boycott, divestment and sanctions—and to strangle the economic life of Israeli citizens…[To Read The Full Article, Click the Following Link–ED]
Hillel Neuer is a former Editor of CIJR’s Dateline Middle East student magazine.
GUESS WHICH COUNTRY THE U.N. DECRIES NOW
Janice Halpern,
Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2016
The World Health Organization seems to have its hands full. With the Rio Olympics only two months away, the Zika virus has become an international public-health emergency. Ebola’s embers still glow in West Africa, and yellow fever besieges Angola.
Yet the WHO found time at its annual meeting in May to tackle what it must consider a particularly pressing item: Israel, specifically conditions in “the occupied Palestinian territory” and “the occupied Syrian Golan.” A resolution, reported by the Geneva-based UN Watch, proposed that a field assessment be conducted to investigate. It passed 107-8, with eight abstentions.
The resolution, sponsored by the Palestinian delegation and the Arab bloc, was the only country-specific one considered. The WHO’s session neglected to address the bombing of Syrian hospitals by Syrian and Russian warplanes. It skipped the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, where the Saudi-led bombings and blockade have left millions without food and water.
Israel, like any country, makes mistakes. Its actions should be scrutinized, but it shouldn’t be held to an arbitrary, higher standard. Far from being outraged, the WHO should laud the Jewish state for its treatment of Syrians in the Golan. Israeli hospitals have stepped up to provide medical treatment to more than 3,000 refugees from the brutal civil war.
This typifies the Jewish state’s humanity. Palestinians regularly go to Israeli hospitals for treatment. Two years ago, the daughter of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh underwent emergency treatment in a Tel Aviv facility shortly after Hamas-Israel fighting ended.
Health outcomes in the West Bank and Gaza might surprise many readers. Take life expectancy at birth, a classic benchmark. In 2014, the figure for these territories was 73, according to the World Bank. Compare that with Libya (72), Iraq (69), Egypt (71) and Jordan (74).
The WHO’s constitution talks of fostering the “highest possible levels of health” by eradicating disease, standardizing diagnostic procedures and even preventing accidental injuries. Taking sides on long-simmering geopolitical issues exceeds its mandate. In singling out Israel, the WHO chooses politics over progress and undermines its own credibility.
Yet the WHO has gone this route before. In 2009, an executive-board resolution called out Israel for its actions during hostilities with Hamas. But the document failed to hold Hamas accountable for launching thousands of rockets at Israel, which had triggered the conflict.
This kind of selective attention to facts is wearily familiar to longtime observers of the U.N. In April, its cultural body, Unesco, adopted a resolution condemning Israel’s actions on and around Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and nearby Western Wall. Moreover, it ignored the Jews’ historical ties to their most sacred sites, while detailing their religious significance for Muslims.
The few countries that opposed the recent WHO resolution—including the U.S., Canada, Australia, Paraguay, Guatemala, Micronesia and Papua New Guinea—deserve applause. It is troubling, however, that France, Germany and the United Kingdom voted “yes”—especially since the last two voted against the Unesco resolution in April.
As a physician, I know the value of the World Health Organization. As a Jew, I also know the danger of being targeted unfairly. The WHO ought to return to its constitutional mission, which is too important to be sidetracked by politics.
UNESCO RESOLUTION DISFIGURES JEWISH, AND WESTERN, HISTORY
Mordechai Ben-Dat
CJN, May 24, 2016
One would think, rather reasonably, that an organization whose mission is “to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information” would care about conveying truth. Normally, one would think that.
But if you did, you would be wrong. At least insofar as UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is concerned. The words of its mission statement, reproduced above, have been rendered meaningless. They are no longer a statement of high purpose, but rather a cloaking slogan. They cleverly hide sinister motives and malign behaviour.
No other conclusion makes sense in light of the resolution UNESCO’s executive board adopted last month that stripped the Temple Mount in Jerusalem of any historical, theological or cultural connection to the Jewish People.
The resolution was a hodge-podge of condemnations against the Jewish state, which is referred to throughout the document as “the occupying power.” UNESCO’s executive board condemned the Jewish presence and activities on the Temple Mount, in Hebron and at the tomb of Rachel, all of which are identified only by their Arabic names. The resolution also mentions Gaza.
As Alan Baker, Israel’s former ambassador to Canada, wrote in a sharp rebuke of the resolution, UNESCO “pointedly and deliberately denies, ignores, and seeks to delete from history, any historic, cultural and religious link between the Jewish People, the Jewish religion and Jerusalem, including specifically its holy religious site of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, the Machpela Cave in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem.
“It ignores and denies the age-old indigenous Jewish historic linkage of the area to Judaism, Jewish history and religion and ignores the existence of the remnants of Jewish holy sites and the fact that this area is universally recognized by all as ‘Temple Mount,’ attesting to the fact that this was indeed the site of the Jewish Temples, and as such the cradle of all Jewish existence and history.”
In his commemoration of Yom Hashoah v’Hagvurah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out the true essence of the travesty perpetrated by the UNESCO executive board.
“Pay attention to what is happening here. A global organization responsible for preserving history is offhandedly rewriting a basic fact of human history. This is willful ignorance. Even worse, it is an addiction to a lie and its dissemination around the world until it is accepted as fact. This is precisely how Jew haters have acted throughout the ages.”
But, of course, this was the aim of the countries – Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, and Sudan – that put forward the resolution. Their intention is to place on the record of international institutions that are considered credible by most people worldwide a falsified history of the Jewish People, a history bereft of a Jewish presence in ancient Israel and an ancient Israel bereft of its Judaism.
However, to deny the presence of Judaism in ancient Israel is also to deny the presence of Christianity there. If there is no Jewish history in Jerusalem, there is no Christian history. Period.
By altering Jewish history, the supporters of this UNESCO resolution are altering, indeed disfiguring, western history, too. This may not bother the Muslim-majority countries who were among the 33 states that approved the resolution. But it should have bothered France, Russia, Spain and Sweden, who also voted for the resolution. In so doing, they effectively repudiated their own heritage, their own historical, theological and cultural origins. But at what cost to them?
The six countries that opposed the resolution – the United States, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom – understand that the hatred directed at the Jewish state ultimately rebounds against them, too.
Israel Named Head of UN Body for First Time: Itamar Eichner, Ynet, June 13, 2016—After months of behind-the-scenes diplomatic struggles, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon was elected to head the UN Legal Committee (officially named the Sixth Committee) on Monday. The committee deals with sensitive topics including fighting global terrorism.
Israel’s UN Envoy Empowers Students to ‘Fight and Win’ Against BDS: Shalle' McDonald, JNS, May 26, 2016—The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel might be garnering the most headlines when it comes to college campuses and the business world, but representatives from the Israeli government and advocacy organizations are taking the battle against BDS to the United Nations.
Why is the UN Human Rights Council Not Concerned About Slavery?: Michael Curtis, American Thinker, June 3, 2016—Commentators may debate whether the United Nations Human Rights Council is or is the world’s most ludicrous international organization, but all will agree it is the most misnamed. Human rights, with one exception, is foreign territory to it.
World in Chaos, Israel Gets Singular Focus at UN Rights Body: New York Times, June 13, 2016—Wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen have killed hundreds of thousands of people. Enforced disappearances, torture and extremist attacks infringe on human rights worldwide.
