It starts: US threatens to leave 'human rights council'
The times, they are a changing. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has issued a clear threat to one of the 'achievements' of the Obama administration - the decision to join the United Nations 'human rights council.' In a letter obtained by Foreign Policy Magazine, Tillerson has told the council that unless it reforms itself,
the United States will leave.
Tillerson, in his letter to the U.N.
advocates and human rights groups, said that while the United States
“continues to evaluate the effectiveness” of the Council, it remains
skeptical about the virtues of membership in a human rights organization
that includes states with troubled human rights records such as China,
Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
“We may not share a common view on
this, given the makeup of the membership,” Tillerson told the
organizations, who have urged continued U.S. membership. “While it may
be the only such organization devoted to human rights, the Human Rights
Council requires considerable reform in order for us to continue to
participate.”
If the United States ultimately were
to withdraw from the Council, that would mark a victory for one of two
factions within the Trump administration debating the future of U.S.
policy at the United Nations.
“Many who despise the Council want the
U.S. to stay in and undermine efforts by others to obsesses over
Israel—and put the spotlight back on human rights abusers the Council
regularly ignores,” said a GOP congressional aide. “But there are others
who see that as fruitless and wasted diplomatic effort.”
...
For the time being, Tillerson wrote,
the U.S. will participate in the ongoing session of the Human Rights
Council, to “reiterate our strong principled objection to the Human
Rights Council’s biased agenda against Israel.”
“Our aim is to fix the organization,” the Tillerson aide told FP.
Tillerson said U.S. priorities
including renewing the mandate of a U.N. Commission of inquiry into
atrocities in Syria, and underscoring U.S. support for U.N. special
rapporteurs for Iran, North Korea, and Burma. He also said Washington
would seek to renew the mandates of special rapporteurs investigating
the use of torture and promoting freedom of expression.
UN advocates said it was unclear
whether the administration is really mulling a withdrawal, or simply
putting more pressure on for reform.
Sadly, the United Nations and its constituent bodies, including the 'human rights council,' exist only to give prominence to an anti-Israel agenda. They have long since outlived their usefulness, and ought to be shut down. The land that they currently occupy on the east side of Manhattan would be worth far more as condominiums or office buildings. Labels: anti-Israel bias, Barack Hussein Obama, Donald Trump, Rex Tillerson, United Nations Human Rights Council
Did Target block Israelis from its website?
I know I haven't been on in a few days, but greetings from Boston.
On my last trip here (two weeks ago!), I went to Target, found significant discounts that required me to download their app onto my smartphone, downloaded the app (two of them in fact), got the discounts, and started receiving a flood of emails and push notices from Target.
That's kind of expected - but when I clicked on them I couldn't access anything from the emails or from the apps on my phone.
I assumed this was because I was in Israel, because when I tried to access the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' E-Z pass web site (I have now acquired a transponder which I schlep with me from rental car to rental car rather than paying the outrageous fees that the rental car companies charge to rent one), I couldn't do that from Israel either.
Silly me. I assumed that just like the Commonwealth blocked the E-Z pass site to anyone outside the US (they did, didn't they?), so did Target. I was wrong. Dead wrong. It seems that
Target was targeting Israelis, although having been discovered, they have quickly opened up the site (Hat Tip:
MFS001).
When Jennifer Bayer tried to access Target’s site she got an “Access
Denied” message. After her friends confirmed that they were having the
same problem, she contacted Target directly for an answer.
Tho company responded:
“The reason you’re unable to place orders on Target.com from Israel is to ensure the data security of all our guests. Target.com has made the conscious decision to block IP addresses originating from Israel, as it is one of the top 5 countries from which malicious attacks against our website originate.
Although you can’t access the site from Israel, our team is more than happy to help you place a domestic order over the phone. Please
don’t hesitate to give us a call at your convenience, our Target.com is
available 24 hours a day, every day of the week. To place an order on
Target.com you can call 1(800) 591-3869.”
Well, maybe except I'll tell you a secret: Many US toll free numbers don't work from Israel either. Not even with your VoiP line (of course I have one!).
It only took a few hours of sunlight for Target to see the error of their ways.
We at Janglo want to publicly acknowledge Target.com‘s decision today to unblock Israeli access to their site this evening after countless Israeli users complained.
Just about a year ago, we were very happy to see Target begin
offering shipping to Israel, and we’ve hoped to see them expand their
presence here. In fact, their web site currently offers a discount of
NIS 80 when purchasing NIS 400 or more with coupon code ISRAELSHIP.
Check it out at http://intl.target.com
Target has never indicated any signs of being antisemitic or
anti-Israel, and we hope the store felt no ill intentions by today’s
campaign. Now that you see how strong your customer base in Israel is,
we hope you’ll consider opening a store here soon!
But given that Mrs. Carl and I are both currently in the US (and will actually be staying in the same place for a few days - no, not a vacation - starting tonight), I guess we don't need a discount on shipping to Israel right now anyway....
Labels: anti-Israel bias, cyberwar
George Soros' anti-Israel portfolio
In case you haven't heard yet, George Soros' files have been hacked, and over the weekend a group calling itself DCLeaks released this list of Soros-supported anti-Israel causes.
Labels: anti-Israel bias, anti-Israel lobby, anti-Israel obsession, DCLeaks, George Soros
Israeli report on Gaza operation shows something UN report won't
The government of Israel has released a 277-page report on its investigation into last summer's Operation Protective Edge today, the same day that the United Nations is releasing its report. What does the Israeli report have that the United Nations report doesn't? Here's one example:
Labels: anti-Israel bias, anti-Israel obsession, Gaza, human shields, IDF, Islamic terrorism, Muslim schools, Operation Protective Edge, United Nations, UNRWA
The day after
Note that's the day after the
kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by 'Palestinian' terrorists this past summer. If that stands, it means that the kidnapping and murder would not by justiciable by the International Criminal Court.
Not that it's
likely to matter. The court is likely to be institutionally biased against Israel anyway.
There is no reason to think the prosecutor or Court are eager for
Israel/Palestine cases, and a lot of reasons to think they are not,
given the disproportionate political headaches they entail.
Yet
there is cause to think that the the Court is a most improper venue for
sorting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, even absent any bias,
the Court is structured in a way that cannot do equal justice, and is
thus properly seen as a Palestinian tool against Israel. Moreover,
recent statements by the Prosecutor give troubling evidence that she may
be willing to replace legal analysis with the off-the-shelf views of
the “international community” on the conflict.
To be clear, I
think the most likely outcome from the Palestinian effort is no full
investigation of either side, at least any time soon. Rather, I am
trying to explain why the Palestinians see the ICC as a good bet – one
more likely to break their way than not. This is important because many
distinguished jurists and academics
not unsympathetic to the Palestinians have warned them that they have
more to loose than gain from ICC proceedings. But they went ahead
anyway, which means they have a different analysis – one that I try to
reconstruct here.
The Court’s track record suggests it is
incapable of rendering impartial justice in an ongoing bilateral
conflict. The Court is not some well-established, Olympian seat of
judgment. Rather, it is a weak, conflicted and floundering institution, beset by profound embarrassments that might affect its decision-making.
It has completed only three cases, with two convictions. Most recently,
it has seen two of its highest-profile matters – the only ones
involving sitting heads of state – disintegrate. These were the
prosecutions of Kenya’s president for election violence, and of Sudan’s
president Bashir, for genocide. Both proceedings failed because of the
persistent, and in the case of Kenya, subtle, non-cooperation of the
target regime. (Despite their current embrace of the ICC, the
Palestinians have long been on record opposing the ICC’s arrest warrant
against Bashir.) The ICC has proven itself completely incapable of
prosecuting a case against an unwilling regime, especially an
authoritarian or illiberal one.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Israel bias, Eugene Kontorovich, International Criminal Court, kidnapping, murder
A betrayal of international criminal law
In a JPost op-ed, Mordechai Kremnitzer, vice president of research at the Israel Democracy Institute and
former dean of the Law Faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explains how the commission of inquiry into Operation Protective Edge established by the UN's 'human rights council' (sorry guys - I cannot type that terms without scare quotes and lower case - it's just such a farce), headed by the implacably biased William Schabas, is
betraying the cause of international criminal law.
The body that established a committee to investigate suspected war
crimes – the UN Human Rights Council – has a reputation for singling out
Israel. The committee it appointed is suspected in advance of not
having the pursuit of truth as its goal. What is more, even the
resolution that set up the committee was worded in a way that suggests
“sentence first, verdict afterwards.”
This suspicion is only
augmented by the fact that its members do not include a single citizen
of the country whose military conduct is the focus of its inquiry - even
though Israel has no shortage of retired judges and jurists of
international repute. The damage to the inquiry is redoubled when its
chair has already declared his desire to see the prime minister of
Israel in the dock at the International Court of Justice - that is, the
committee’s chair has already formed a negative judgment about the head
of the political system that oversees the military whose conduct is to
be investigated. He cannot be perceived as an unbiased investigator.
These
circumstances guarantee that Israel will find it very difficult to
cooperate with a committee that can by no means be seen as objective and
fair minded. Even Israeli civil rights organizations - whose role is to be critical
of and a check on Israeli government actions - will not be able to see
the committee as anything but a kangaroo court. The result is that the
inquiry will rely on the narrative of only one side - Hamas.
The
partiality of the inquiry will inevitably lead to biased findings
devoid of real value. The conclusions based on these findings, too, will
necessarily be worthless, as happened with the Goldstone Commission.
Such a report will only undermine the credibility of international
criminal law.
The committee’s chair has stated that Israel would
have been against it even were his place taken by the web-slinging
superhero Spiderman.
This defames the Israeli people.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Israel bias, Operation Protective Edge, United Nations Human Rights Council, William Schabas
