A watchdog group, UN Watch, reports that staffers at a major United
Nations agency with a long history of encouraging Palestinian terrorism,
the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), is inciting the latest spate of attacks in Israel. From the UN Watch press release:
UN staffers are using the imprimatur of their official positions to incite Palestinian stabbing and shooting attacks against Israeli Jews, with one UN-identified employee calling on Facebook to “stab Zionist dogs,” according to a new report issued today by UN Watch, the Geneva-based non-governmental organization that is accredited by the United Nations with the mandate to monitor the world body’s compliance with its charter.
UN Watch submitted the report today to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNRWA chief Pierre Krähenbühl, and U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power, whose government’s $400 million annual grant makes it the largest funder of UNRWA.
“The UN and top funders of UNRWA such as the United States government must act immediately to terminate employees who are inciting murderous anti-Semitism and fueling the deadly pandemic of Palestinian attacks against Israeli Jews that have claimed innocent men, women and children, aged 13 to 78,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
“Despite UNRWA’s promise, in the wake of our previous report, to take action and dismiss UNRWA perpetrators of incitement, there has been no accountability whatsoever,” said Neuer. “On the contrary, UNRWA’s main response has been to try and intimidate UN Watch.”…
Although we are over $18 trillion in debt (officially, with the unofficial total many times higher), the U.S. government not only redistributes $400 million a year to support the UNRWA’s promotion of terrorism; our government also redistributes a staggering $5 billion per annum to Palestinians: the people carrying out the yet another intifada, the people who elected Hamas – a formally designated terrorist organization under American law – to govern Gaza, and the people whose U.S.-supported Palestinian Authority has voluntarily formed a unity government with Hamas.
I can think of one place where the next President of the United States can look to cut the budget. But will s/he?
Pigs fly, EU walks out of Israel debate at 'human rights council,' Islamic states seethe
This is incredible. The European Union has decided to boycott the anti-Israel agenda item that is part of every meeting of the United Nations 'human rights council.'
Must see: Colonel Richard Kemp on Operation Protective Edge
Invited by UN Watch, Col. Kemp, former commander of British forces in
Afghanistan, speaks on self-defense and war crimes. Tel Aviv, Aug. 3,
2014. Co-sponsors: Tel Aviv Int'l Salon and StandWithUS.
Video: Hillel Neuer destroys PLO's Diana Buttu and 'human rights watch's Bill van Eswald
Al Jazeera tries to silence UN Watch's Hillel Neuer, but even a bit of
truth managed to throw ex-PLO lawyer Diana Buttu & Human Rights
Watch's Bill van Esveld on the defensive.
Video: Hillel Neuer speaks out at the 'human rights council's emergency session on Gaza
Dictatorships attempt to silence UN Watch's Hillel Neuer at the July 23,
2014 UNHRC emergency session on Gaza. Interruptions came from Iran,
Syria, Egypt, the "State of Palestine," Cuba and Venezuela. The U.S.
and Canada defended Neuer's right to speak.
Video: Racheli Frenkel - mother of kidnapped teenager - addresses the UN 'human rights council'
Rachel Frankel, accompanied by the mothers of the two other teenaged
Israeli kidnap victims, appealed for international support for the boys'
safe return. Full text here.
Despite this, the UNHRC meeting
held just before Frenkel spoke featured an ongoing barrage against
Israel, with several countries making wild claims against the Jewish
state, including that it had occupied Syria and Lebanon and that it is
participating in ethnic cleansing.
In a Russian Television segment that was played repeatedly on television and on the internet, UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk has once again accused Israel of being 'genocidal.'
Let's go to the videotape.
That video is an incredible collection of anti-Semites and nut cases. UN Watch's Hillel Neuer adds:
Falk uses his imprimatur as a UN official to
make the grievously false accusation that Israel is acting with
“genocidal intent” and perpetrating a “Holocaust.”
If Israel really is “genocidal,” it only follows logically that Falk will justify violence against Israelis, as he did in a recent blog post,
berating “demands by Israel that Palestinians renounce violence” while
Israel “sustains a structure of occupation and oppression.”
It’s time for
the the U.S. to at least attempt to remove the 9/11 conspiracy theorist
and Hamas supporter from his post—and to eliminate his prejudicial and
outdated Human Rights Council mandate.
UN Watch today sent a letter to
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging him to condemn Falk. When the
name of the world body is misused to promote specious canards—and as an
odious warrant for terrorism—the UN chief has a moral duty to speak out.
But the truth
is that Falk, like other Human Rights Council appointees, answers only
to the U.S. and the 46 other member states of the UNHRC. In this case, the buck does not stop with Ban Ki-moon; it stops with Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the UN. That is why I have urged her, in a UN Watch letter sent today, to take action.
(You can do it too, by clicking here to send Ambassador Power a message.)
And to think that Russia Today interviewed me nearly four years ago. I haven't seen anything this anti-Semitic on the web from a non-Nazi website in a long time.
Name and Shame: The 'human rights council's worst list ever
United Nations Watch exposes the list of candidates for seats on the United Nations' 'human rights council,' which it calls the 'worst ever.'
As a United Nations meeting is right now hearing live campaign pitches (webcast link) from the UK, France and other democracies vying for seats on the world body's Human Rights Council, the Geneva-based non-governmental human rights group UN Watch revealed its "List of Shame" -- naming some of the world's worst abusers who are also running in the Nov. 2013 election, and expected to win seats: Algeria, Chad, China, Cuba, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam. Though unconfirmed, reportedly Iran and Syria may also be running. Click here for full report (PDF).
"This is a recipe for disaster," said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer. "By electing massive abusers of human rights to the very body charged with protecting them, the UN is about to add more rotten ingredients into the soup. We should not be surprised by the results."
The council currently includes Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Mauritania, Venezuela, and many other countries with dismal human rights records.
Is anyone really surprised at this? And yet, the Obama administration continues to insist that the United States be a member of the 'council,' and Israel recently announced that it will resume previously suspended cooperation with the 'council' (although one has to wonder whether, if this is the 'council's makeup, Israel will actually agree to a universal periodic review). Why? Does anyone really believe that the 'human rights council' promotes human rights (note - without scare quotes!). Not with those regimes as members.
"Candidates like Algeria, China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia have one thing in common: they systematically violate the human rights of their own citizens," said [United Nations Watch director Hillel] Neuer, "and they have consistently voted the wrong way on UN initiatives to protect the human rights of others. Chad has child soldiers -- how can it be a candidate?"
"It's not only that these governments are unqualified; they are the ones who should be in the dock of the accused, not sitting on high as prosecutor and judge."
"It is an insult to their victims -- and a defeat for the global cause of human rights -- when the UN allows gross abusers to act as champions and global judges of human rights," said Neuer.
"When the U.N.'s highest human rights body becomes a case of the foxes guarding the henhouse, the world's victims suffer."
Indeed they do. And this is precisely why the Bush administration refused to join the 'council' or have anything to do with it. The Obama administration - the supposed 'liberals' - have chosen to give cover to the 'council' and to the human rights violators who sit on it instead.
Whose policy was more effective? Bush's policy may not have changed anything, but at least it didn't give an American stamp of approval and US taxpayer money to the 'council.' Obama's policies do both while making matters worse.
'Human rights watch' to give top prize to terror tweeter, advocate of murdering Israelis
Greetings from London Heathrow....
Given what we already know about 'human rights watch,' it should not be too surprising that they are choosing to honor a tweeter for terror and an advocate of murdering Israelis with their highest honor.
GENEVA, April 30, 2013 – A jury comprised of Human Rights Watch and nine other NGOs has nominated an Egyptian activist for the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, even though shetweeets for terror, reports theGeneva-based UN Watch.(See below UNW's open letter to Ken Roth, head of Human Rights Watch, a key member of the jury.)
Several Egyptian human rights activists expressed shock at the nomination. Amr Bakly, who heads the Cairo Liberal Forum, tweeted: "The Martin Ennals Award is not for terrorist supporters. . . Mona Saif is a terrorist supporter!" Maikel Nabil, a former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, jailed by Egyptin 2011for
his human rights activism, also expressed alarm: "The Martin Ennals
Award can be awarded to Mona Seif if its committee is able to explain to
the victims of terrorism why they deserve to be killed by those whom
Mona supports."
UN official justifies Boston Marathon terror, blames US and 'Tel Aviv'
A United Nations official has justified the Boston Marathon terror attack as "due retribution” for American sins, warned of “worse blowbacks” unless America changes its foreign policy, and blamed American foreign policy on “Tel Aviv” having the "compliant ear" of the American political establishment. That official, of course, is the 'human rights council's special rapporteur on the Middle East, Richard Falk.
The American global domination project
is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world.
In some respects, the United States has been fortunate not to
experience worse blowbacks, and these may yet happen, especially if
there is no disposition to rethink US relations to others in the world,
starting with the Middle East. Some of us naively hoped that Obama’s
Cairo speech of 2009 was to be the beginning of such a process of
renewal, and although timid in many ways, it was yet possessed of a
tonality candidly acknowledged that relations with the Islamic world
needed fundamental moves by the US Government for the sake of
reconciliation, including the adoption of a far more balanced approach
to the Palestine/Israel impasse. But as the months passed, what became
evident, especially given the strong pushback by Israel and its
belligerent leader, Bibi Netanyahu, were a series of disappointing
reactions by Obama, which could be described as an accelerating
backpedaling in relation to opening political space in the Middle East.
Now at the start of his second
presidential term, it seems that Obama has given up altogether,
succumbing to the Beltway ethos of Israel First. Obama has acknowledged
the constraints on his freedom to maneuver on these foreign policy
issues, and seeks to confine his legacy ambitions to such domestic
concerns as immigration, gun control, and health care. In so doing, he
is virtually abandoning the international agenda except to manage crisis
diplomacy in ways that do not disturb the global status quo or weaken
America’s global reach. Obama’s March trip to Israel was highlighted by
his March 21st speech in Jerusalem, which was delivered as a love letter
to the Israeli public rather than qualifying as a good faith effort to
demonstrate his belief in a just peace. Such obsequious diplomacy was a
disappointment even to those of us with low expectations in what the
White House is willing to overcome the prolonged ordeal of the
Palestinian people.
In a letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Watch's Hillel Neuer has urged Ban to condemn Falk's comments.
First, its thesis is that Americais to blame for last week’s atrocity. Falk approvingly cites comments justifying the Boston Marathon bombings as “retribution” for the actions of the U.S.military in Afghanistan,IraqandPakistan. “The American global domination project,” says Falk, bears responsibility for provoking “all kinds of resistance” in the post-colonial world. He calls for “courage” to “connect some of these dots.” Crystallizing his justification of the terrorist attacks, he writes: “Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.”
...
Second, Falk conjures up the sinister specter of another global menace by blaming the Boston bombings on the Jewish state: “[A]s long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy.”
President Obama is accused of having delivered “a love letter to the Israeli public” during his recent trip there, and of practicing “obsequious diplomacy.” Falk predicts “worse blowbacks” if the U.S.does not change its Middle East policy.
Third, the essay alludes to the same 9/11 conspiracy theories that caused you and other world leaders to condemn him in 2011. Falk speaks of “holy war fevers espoused by national leaders, the media, and a vengeful public after the 9/11 attacks” which “embraced Islamophobic falsehoods.” This was exploited by Bush White House officials “openly seeking a pretext to launch a regime-changing war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.” According to Falk, “[T]he 9/11 events, as interpreted and spun, provided just the supportive domestic climate needed for launching an aggressive war against the Baghdad regime.”
Nobel peace laureate blasts 'human rights council' investigation of 'settlements'
Nobel Peace Laureate David Trimble, member of the British House of Lords, took the floor on Monday morning at the UN Human Rights Council—in a debate with its commission of inquiry into Israeli settlements—to deliver the following statement on behalf of the Geneva human rights group UN Watch, which also organized a UN press conference where Lord Trimble addressed the international media.
Let's go to the videotape.
I hope none of you is expecting anything to change at the council....
UN 'human rights council' holds moment of silence for Hugo Chavez
Given that they lowered all of the UN flags and held a moment of silence at the General Assembly for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, no one should really be surprised that the UN's 'human rights council' held a moment of silence on Wednesday for Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. But UN Watch's Hillel Neuer is plenty upset about it anyway.
"Protocol did not require today's ceremony," said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, "and the world body must not forget that its founding purpose is to defend basic human rights. Sadly, that message is at serious risk of being blurred today."
"Now should be a time for the UN to show solidarity with the victims -- like Judge Maria Afiuni who was jailed and raped for the crime of releasing a political prisoner arbitrarily detained by Chavez -- and not with the perpetrators."
"Instead of praising an autocrat who persecuted his country's independent judges, journalists, human rights activists and students -- and who vocally supported mass murderers, tyrants and terrorists in Syria, Libya, and Iran -- the U.N. should be apologizing for having just elected the Chavez regime to its human rights council, and it should begin to call for accountability, reform and an end to impunity in Venezuela," said Neuer.
The UN is incurable. It's long past time for them to go.
The speakers were never meant to live and tell their stories. Their
torturers expected them to either submit or die. But somehow these men
and women managed to escape from their dungeons and concentration camps
to gather at the seat of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
They came to bear witness to the crimes committed by some of the very
members of this esteemed UN body. Naturally, at the Palace of the
Nations, where over 80 international officials, including Foreign
Secretary William Hague, will over the coming days address the Council,
there will be no space for these brave freedom fighters.
This is why UN Watch, together with over 20 other NGOs, organized the
Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy last week. Now in its fifth
year, the annual summit does the sort of work the UN shies away from.
It gives the victims, not the perpetrators, of state terror a podium.
We are shocked to discover that Richard Falk—the U.N. official whose antisemitic remarks and 9/11 conspiracy theories have been condemned by British Prime Minister David Cameron, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay—is a board member of your organization.
By legitimizing this racist and enemy of human rights, your organization undermines its own founding principles. We urge you to remove him immediately.
According to your website, Mr. Falk is a member of Human Rights Watch's prestigious Santa Barbara Committee, composed of prominent citizens who play a key role in your organization’s global work.
We find it astonishing that Mr. Falk would be rewarded by such a prestigious position with Human Rights Watch, one of the world's largest human rights organizations.
As a keen follower of the U.N. and its Human Rights Council, you surely know the following:
That Falk is so extreme in his support for the Hamas terrorist organization that even the Palestinian Authority—as revealed in a Wikleaks cable, and which Falk himself admits—has sought to remove him, on grounds that he is a "partisan of Hamas";
That Falk last week published an article attempting to downplay, reinterpret and justify the latest call by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to destroy Israel;
That Falk last year published on his website an antisemitic cartoon showing a dog wearing a Jewish head covering, and with "USA" written on its body, urinating on a depiction of justice and devouring a bloody skeleton;
That Falk was condemned for this antisemitic act by British Prime Minister Cameron;
That UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also condemned Falk's cartoon as "antisemitic";
That Falk now provides the cover endorsement of a virulently antisemitic book, “The Wandering Who,” whose author, as documented by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz in The New Republic,
boasts about drawing "insights from a man who... was an anti-Semite as
well as a radical misogynist,” a hater of “almost everything that fails
to be Aryan masculinity,” declares himself a “proud, self-hating Jew,”
writes with “contempt” of “the Jew in me,” and describes himself as “a
strong opponent" of "Jewish-ness”;
That, only two months ago, Falk was condemned
for endorsing this antisemitic book by the British Foreign Office,
which protested to the U.N. and expressed its “serious concerns”;
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
