Israel Matzav

Ban Ki-Moon criticizes 'human rights council'

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has criticized the UN's 'Human Rights Council' for singling out Israel as its only permanent agenda item. But if you read this carefully, you will see that it's still the same old UN. The objection is only to the fact that no other nation was singled out (and specifically that Cuba and Belarus were not singled out) but Ki-Moon has no objection to Israel being singled out.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined Western nations on Wednesday in criticizing the world body's own Human Rights Council for picking on Israel as part of an agreement on its working rules.

The European Union, Canada and the United States had already attacked the singling-out of Israel's role in the Palestinian territories for continued special investigation, under the deal reached in Geneva on Monday.

A UN statement said, "The Secretary-General is disappointed at the council's decision to single out only one specific regional item given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world."

The statement did not mention Israel or the Palestinian territories by name.

...

The Geneva meeting aroused further controversy after Cuba and Belarus, both accused of abuses, were removed from a list of nine special mandates, which included North Korea, Cambodia and Sudan, carried forward from the defunct commission.

I'd like to think this is 'progress' in Israel's relations with the UN, but then again, it's probably not.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:37 AM