Obama administration: 'We stopped sanctioning Iranian human rights abusers after the nuke deal'
Remember how the Obama administration promised us last summer that sanctions would be 'snapped back' into place in the event of violations by Iran of the (still unsigned) JCPOA? Well, they're now admitting that in at least one area, the sanctions are gone - permanently. Not one Iranian human rights abuser has been designated as such since the P 5+1 (but not Iran) signed the JCPOA. And Congress is awakening to the reality that it was fooled.
Republicans and Democrats alike are now accusing the administration
of misleading Congress about its commitment to sanctions and saying that
it has avoided such designations in order to prevent the Iranian regime
from walking away from the deal.
“We were told during this process that getting the nuclear issue off
the table was so critical and we could actually expect Iran to engage in
additional destabilizing activity,” Rep. David Cicilline (D., R.I.)
said during a House Foreign Affairs Committee examining the
administration’s promises regarding Iran.
“We were assured that this would give us an opportunity to push back
hard in these other areas because the danger of a nuclear Iran would be
off the table, and I was very persuaded by that,” said Cicilline, a supporter of the nuclear agreement.
Cicilline asked Ambassador Stephen Mull, the administration’s lead
coordinator for implementing the nuclear deal, what the administration
has “done since the signing of the [nuclear deal] with regard to
imposing sanctions on human rights violators in Iran.” Mull admitted
that the U.S. has not taken any action.
“There has not been a specific sanction on human rights cases since the signing” of the deal, Mull said.
Cicilline questioned why, since the administration promised to take
action, it had not done so in the face of rising human rights abuses by
Iran.
Mull emphasized that the administration is concerned about human
rights in Iran and has raised the issue in meetings with regime
officials.
In case you missed it, Cicilline is a Democrat and supported the deal.
Meanwhile, the White House plans to block any attempt to impose new sanctions on Iran, because... you know... the legacy....
“Congress wants to impose new pressure against Iranian human rights
violations, but the Obama administration keeps blocking new action. The
administration’s excuse is they already have all the tools they need,”
said one source who works closely with Congress on the Iran issue. “What
today’s admission shows is that they might have those tools, but
they’re certainly not using them.”
Make sure to read the whole thing. The unsaid problem in this whole affair is that reimposing sanctions is like closing the barn door after the cow has escaped. It would take years to new sanctions to begin to have the effect that the old ones had. As one Presidential candidate asked, "What difference does it make?"
For those who still don't believe that Hamas uses human shields, get a good look at the picture above. It's a group of 'Palestinian civilians' (perhaps that is becoming an oxymoron too) on the roof of a building that Israel wanted to destroy. In this case, the human shields accomplished Hamas' purpose: Israel did not destroy the building.
In a screenshot of a television broadcast from July 8, civilians
gather on the roof of the home of a Hamas terrorist who was targeted by
the IDF. They did so in order to act as human shields and deter an
imminent IDF attack, explained the military blog.
An IDF bird's eye video shows civilians gathering on a roof of a
terrorist's house after the IDF fired a warning shot to indicate it was
about to bomb it. Hamas achieved its aim in this case, because the IDF
decided not to bomb the home.
Let's go to the videotape.
Here's a video about human shields that the IDF did during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09.
Let's go to the videotape.
Why aren't the 'human rights' groups criticizing Hamas? Because they're not about human rights. They're about anti-Semitism and Jew hatred.
And they call themselves a 'human rights' organization
B'Tzelem is one of Israel's better known 'human rights' organizations. One of the things that they fight is 'administrative detention,' which is a remnant of the British Mandate that allows persons suspected of crimes to be held without trial for several months. In this video, you will see two interesting things about B'Tzelem.
First, you will see that B'tzelem managed to get the leader of the terror cell that carried out the Bat Yam bus bombing last month released from administrative detention just a few months ago.
And second, you will see that B'Tzelem only objects to administrative detention when 'Palestinians' are being detained. When Jews are detained - as has been happening regularly going back to the early protests against the 'peace process' in 1993-94 - B'Tzelem isn't interested.
UK names Israel a 'country of concern' for 'human rights' violations twice as bad as Iran
The British Foreign Office on Thursday released a 'human rights' report that named Israel a 'country of concern' alongside such serial human rights violators as Iran, Bahrain and Belarus.
The foreign office identified the Jewish State as a "country of
concern," making a special mention of the recent Gaza escalation,
Israeli settlement policy and the Israel government's withholding of
Palestinian custom revenues.
Israel’s inclusion on the list of 28
countries perpetrating violations is likely to cause its incoming
government some concern, in light of its close British ally’s repeated
cautions in recent months that Israel’s “illegal” pursuit of settlement
expansion risks alienating its international allies.
'Close British ally'? Says who?
The update of the climate between October and December 2012 concluded
that despite Hamas receiving widespread condemnation from foreign
leaders at the time of November’s escalation for instigating the
exchange of hostilities, “the violence has resulted in a number of
humanitarian needs, including a worsening of the already precarious
humanitarian situation in Gaza”.
On the issue of Israel’s
contentious settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the
report recalled British Foreign Minister William Hague’s warnings that
the continued policy “undermines trust between the parties” as it
“constitutes a serious provocation and an obstacle to peace.” It further
concluded that the planned expansions “would have an impact on the
economic development, transport links and the ability of the Palestinian
Authority to deliver services to its citizens,” as well as displacing
Palestinians from the region.
The report also quoted an EU
statement from December 17 stressing that “incursions by Israeli forces
into Palestinian cities where the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo
Accords assumes the powers and responsibilities for internal security
and public order, put in jeopardy the internationally recognized success
of Palestinian institution building efforts”.
And how much of a double standard is this report employing? Consider this:
By contrast, the corresponding report on human rights violations in Iran
measured half the length of that accumulated on Israel, with concerns
about the continued use of the death penalty, as well as reports of
violation of minority rights, including freedom of religion, being
detailed.
This past week, Freedom House named Israel the only free country in the Middle East, but that apparently had no effect on the Brits, who are as determined as ever to pursue their agenda of extirpating the state whose founding they did all they could to prevent.
UN Watch, the Geneva-based non-governmental human rights group, urged UN chief Ban Ki-moon, rights commissioner Navi Pillay, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice and the EU’s Catherine Ashton to condemn today’s U.N. election of “genocidal, misogynistic and tyrannical” Sudan to its 54-member Economic and Social Council, a top U.N. body that regulates human rights groups, oversees U.N. committees on women's rights, and crafts resolutions from Internet freedom to female genital mutilation.
The United States doesn't seem to be overly concerned.
Although the U.S. took important action in September to pressure Sudan into withdrawing from this Monday's elections to the 47-nation Human Rights Council -- boosted by a massive campaign led my film star Mia Farrow and UN Watch -- the Obama Administration has been surprsingly silent on today's vote.
By contrast, in 2004, the U.S. ambassador famously walked out of ECOSOC after Sudan was elected.
According to insiders, Washington's silence on Sudan may stem from fear of upsetting African and Arab states in advance of America's own fragile bid for a UNHRC seat in the Nov. 12 vote.
Priorities man, priorities. But wouldn't it be great if Obama loses that 'human rights council' seat?
Al Bashir's regime will now help select the members of the Commission on the Status of Women, the executive board of UN Women, and UNICEF, which protects children’s rights.
Under the U.N. Charter, ECOSOC is the principal organ legislating on matters related to “promoting respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.”
Importantly, ECOSOC is also the body that accredits and oversees human rights groups at the U.N., deciding who can participate at the UN Human Rights Council.
The dominant influence of tyrannies in ECOSOC's notorious 19-member "Committee on NGOs" has often led to the rejection or expulsion of human rights groups that dare to criticize China, Cuba or other repressive U.N. member states, or which speak for minority ethnic groups or for gay rights.
But don't you just feel what a great effect Obama has had on the UN? What could go wrong?
The Obama administration is seething over a decision by UNESCO to keep Syria on its 'human rights committee.' The vote was 35-8 in favor of a resolution condemning Syria, but the US, Canada and Arab countries could not even get UNESCO to vote on expelling the Assad regime from the 'human rights' committee.
The failure by the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) drew particularly harsh criticism from Washington as the Assad regime continues a crackdown that has killed thousands.
“More than 500 children have been killed. Some children have been killed or wounded by snipers and other state forces, including those 10-years-old or younger,” said Ambassador David Killion, U.S. Permanent Representative to UNESCO. “Others have been arrested, tortured and sexually abused in detention. Children cannot go to school. The streets are not safe and more than 1,000 schools have been vandalized, burned or destroyed.
“Syrian villages, towns and cities are facing devastation, and Syria’s rich cultural heritage is imperiled. How many dead and wounded journalists must be carried out of Syria before we recognize that the situation in that country is an affront to the very purposes for which UNESCO was founded?”
Russia and China even voted against the condemnation.
I wonder whether this will make President Obama reconsider his moves to restore US funding to UNESCO. Nah. What does one thing have to do with the other? /sigh.
By 86 votes to 32, with 59 abstentions, the committee on Monday approved a text that “expresses deep concern at serious ongoing and recurring human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The text also cites a wide range of violations.
The 32 countries voting against the resolution were Arab, Islamic, communist and autocratic states, along with Tehran’s left-wing Latin American allies, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua (full list below).
Of the ten countries that received the most U.S. foreign aid in fiscal year 2011, only one – Israel – voted for the resolution critical of Iran’s human rights record.
Afghanistan and Pakistan, the two biggest aid recipients in FY2011, voted against the resolution. Six of the other seven biggest beneficiaries of U.S. aid – Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa – abstained.
The remaining country among the top ten U.S. aid recipients, Iraq, did not vote (although Iraq’s representative did take part in other votes during Monday’s session.) The Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad balances its relationship with the United States with close ties to neighboring Iran.
Some of those voting against also displayed some rank hypocrisy.
During Monday’s session, a number of countries tied voting intention to their opposition to country-specific” resolutions at the U.N. – critical resolutions focusing on a single country. They included Kazakhstan, speaking on behalf of the OIC, as well as Cuba, and Malaysia (which abstained).
Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based monitoring group U.N. Watch, accused countries claiming to object to “country-specific” resolutions of double standards.
“These countries are being completely hypocritical because they are the same ones who annually sponsor or support 20 one-sided resolutions against Israel in the U.N. General Assembly, having made a virtual cottage industry of passing ‘country specific’ resolutions against the Jewish state,” he said.
Neuer also singled out Afghanistan for its decision to vote in support of Iran.
“People in many Western countries with troops in Afghanistan may be alarmed to note that, after all the blood and treasure expended there to help that country build a democracy, it continues to vote with Iran in opposing the Western-led effort to denounce the Islamic Republic for – in the words of one of the resolution’s sponsors – a ‘continued deterioration’ in Iran’s human rights record,” he said.
The full General Assembly will take up the resolution in December. A similar outcome is expected.
The US needs to rethink its foreign aid package and stop supporting repressive regimes.
This video is mainly about 'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen's partnership with Hamas, but there's a lot more here than needs to be addressed: The lack of freedom in the 'Palestinian Authority,' Abu Mazen's undemocratic rule, and his terrible human rights record. No wonder he wants you to pay attention only to his effort to gain 'statehood' while avoiding negotiations with Israel.
'Palestinian' journalists forbidden from reporting on 'Palestinian' human rights group findings
'Palestinian' journalists have been forbidden from reporting on the findings of a report by the Independent Commission for Human Rights, a 'Palestinian' human rights group that was established by a 'Presidential decree' by Yasser Arafat in 1993. The group found that over the past year, 'Palestinians' in Judea, Samaria and Gaza were subjected to an almost systematic campaign of human rights abuses by the PA and Hamas.
According to the report, security forces belonging to the PA and Hamas were responsible for torture, arrests and arbitrary detentions.
Palestinian journalists complained that the PA leadership issued instructions to their editors forbidding them from reporting about the findings of the report.
“We were surprised that all the newspapers and news web sites refused to run stories about the human rights group’s report,” said one journalist.
He said that the PA justified its decision by arguing that it did not want to jeopardize the Egyptian-brokered reconciliation accord between Fatah and Hamas.
Journalist Mustafa Ibrahim pointed out that the decision to ban PA-affiliated media outlets from covering the story about the report was in the context of violations and assaults against freedom of media and journalists in the West Bank.
“Assaults on journalists and censorship and restrictions on freedom of expression are still a dreadful nightmare for the journalists,” he said. “Journalists avoid covering events out of fear of being targeted or arrested by [Palestinian] security forces in the West Bank.”
Mustafa said that many journalists were assaulted “physically and morally” and had their cameras destroyed and confiscated by members of the PA security forces while carrying out their duties.
But just 'give them a state' and they'll suddenly become paragons of human rights.
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
