Video: Hillel Neuer rips 'Human Rights Council' on the flotilla 'investigation'
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, told RT that the results of the recent UN report on the flotilla incident were pre-determined.
"This report was determined in advance, the Human Rights Council held an emergency session only a day or two after the flotilla incident happened," Neuer said. "They declared Israel guilty of 'an outrageous attack', so the outcome was entirely pre-determined, and this is not something that's exceptional."
"In fact, Mary Robinson, who was the UN rights chief, said the Human Rights Council has a pattern of acting politically and not for human rights," Hillel Neuer added. "Let's remember who the membership is -- Saudi Arabia, China, Colonel Gaddafi of Libya is now a member of the Human Rights Council. This is not a body that cares about human rights. This is a body that is political, that is engaged in a constant campaign to de-legitimize Israel, and human rights is the last thing on the minds of members like Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Libya."
UN Watch: Human Rights Council's Mavi Marmara probe has a predetermined verdict
On Friday, the United Nations 'Human Rights Council' named three commissioners to investigate the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident that took place in May. But UN Watch's Hillel Neuer reports that the commissioners' verdict has been pre-determined.
“The mandate of the probe violates due process and objectivity by presuming Israeli guilt from the outset,” said Hillel Neuer, UN Watch executive director. “It’s another example of what former UN rights chief Mary Robinson recently described as the unfortunate and regrettable practice by the council to adopt resolutions guided not by human rights but by politics.”[See Note 1]
According to Neuer, “by declaring Israel guilty before any facts were even collected, the resolution taints the mission with prejudicial bias, and contravenes the UN’s own Declaration on Fact Finding, which requires objectivity and impartiality.”
“It speaks volumes that Khaled Mashaal, the leader of the Hamas terrorist group, asked for this probe-literally for the council to create ‘another Goldstone report’-while the Palestinian Authority actually opposed it,” said Neuer.
“The perception of the council’s one-sided approach and lack of credibility is so severe that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s office in New York has completely ignored this probe in seeking to establish their own.”
“Tragically, rather than contribute to defusing the Arab-Israeli conflict and bringing people together with an objective, human rights approach, the council has played a divisive role with inflammatory statements that only increase frictions,” said Neuer.
For more details about the probe, read the whole thing. If you're an American taxpayer, your tax dollars are paying for 22% of this.
Remember Muammar Gadhafi's representative to the United Nations 'Human Rights Council,' Najjat al-Hajjaji, who got a little surprise from UN Watch in the videos here? Well, now we have a story about Hajjaji herself: It seems that she's the UN expert on the use of mercenaries. This is from a press release I received via email from UN Watch.
With the Libyan regime deploying hired guns to massacre its own people, the UN Human Rights Council was urged today to fire Najat Al-Hajjaji, a long-time mouthpiece of Col. Muammar Qaddafi, from her post as a council investigator on human rights violations by mercenaries.
“Every day she stays with the UN Human Rights Council is an insult to the victims of Qaddafi’s murderous regime,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights group that initiated the successful campaign to suspend Libya as a member of the 47-nation council.
“At a time when Qaddafi is using mercenaries to kill his own people, it is outrageous that one of his long-time representatives would sit on the world’s highest human rights body as a supposed defender of human rights -- and, of all things, as a defender of victims of mercenaries,” said Neuer.
Since 2005, Ms. Al-Hajjaji has served on the council’s 5-person “Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights.”...
"For more than a decade, Al-Hajjaji whitewashed the crimes of the Qaddafi regime as its representative to UN human rights bodies in Geneva," said Neuer. In 2003, human rights groups universally condemned her election as Chair of the now-defunct UN Commission on Human Rights. Al-Hajjaji's tenure was widely seen as the last straw in the decline of the commission's credibility, with Kofi Annan saying soon afterward that member states had joined to shield their records of abuse and that it should be scrapped.
In April 2009, when Al-Hajjaji chaired the planning committee of the UN's World Conference on Racism, known as Durban II, she silenced testimony by a victim of the Qaddafi regime, who was tortured together with five Bulgarian nurses under trumped-up charges of infecting Benghazi children with HIV....
In letters sent today to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, UN rights commissioner Navi Pillay, and UNHRC president Sihasak Phuangketkeow, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer demanded that the officials take immediate action to expel Al-Hajjaji from the Human Rights Council. Neuer also urged action in letters sent to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EU foreign minister Catherine Ashton.
The council, which is now in session, has the power to trigger an urgent debate and immediately adopt a resolution removing Al-Hajjaji from her post.
UN Watch's Hillel Neuer confronts UN rights chief on Libya
Hillel Neuer of UN Watch confronts UN 'Human Rights' chief Navi Pillay on Libya. You just know this is going to be entertaining.
The head of the London School of Economics has resigned over his ties to the Qaddafi regime. Rock stars Beyonce, Nelly Furtado and Mariah Carey have expressed remorse for their paid peformances at Qaddafi family parties. Former Egyptian minister of culture Gaber Asfour renounced his 2010 “Gaddafi International Award for Literature.” Only at the UN, however, is no one yet willing to take any responsibility for their institutional embrace of the Qaddafi regime. In the plenary of the UN Human Rights Council yesterday, UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer urged U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay to begin the soul-searching; she refused to respond. See video above and text below.
In an earlier post, I mentioned that House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl) is hoping to kill the funding for the United Nations 'Human Rights Council.' But that's not all Ros-Lehtinen wants to do to the UN.
Let's go to the videotape.
Here's how the Republicans hope to reform the UN - or at least get the US to pay less of its bill.
One of the biggest reasons for the morass is also one of the most obvious. As Schaefer put it, “the bulk of the U.N. member states simply do not pay enough to the U.N. for waste, or corruption to trouble them.” The combined payments levied on 128 of 192 U.N. members “totals less than 1 percent of the regular budget and less than one-third of 1 percent of the peacekeeping budget,” he told the committee, even though they have enough votes to approve the budget and block U.S. attempts at reform.
So Byzantine has the U.N. become, in fact, that Schaefer says no-one in Washington really knows how much the U.S. spends on it. The U.N.’s biennial “regular” budget has more than doubled in the past decade from $2.49 billion to$$5.16 billion, Schaefer said, and the U.S. pays 22 percent of that.
But the peacekeeping budget has jumped higher and faster, from $1.7 billion in 2000-2001 to $7.2 billion in 2010-2011, and the U.S. pays 27 percent of that. Moreover, new missions could yet be added in Cote d’Ivoire or Somalia.
Then there are so-called “voluntary” funds where the U.S. contributions to a variety of sprawling U.N. funds, programs and agencies have also risen fast: according to sources cited by Schaefer, reaching $3.5 billion last year. (There are also independent funds, in such areas as climate change, that U.N. agencies also spend and manage.)
To combat the wasteful sprawl, Schaefer suggested that “Congress should not be shy in suggesting budget cuts.” Among other things, he proposed reinstating a long abandoned U.S. policy of pushing for “zero growth” for the U.N. regular budget, but also suggested pruning a variety of U.N. organizations, like a flock of U.N. regional economic commissions, that could be financed by their regional members.
Seemingly eternal U.N. mandated activities—there are more than 9,000 mandates in all—should also be chopped, he said.
Could that last line include UNRWA? Hmmm.
UN Watch's Hillel Neuer testified in front of the House Committee regarding the UN 'Human Rights' Council. This is from the first link again.
The same see-no-evil philosophy applies to the U.N.’s 47-member Human Rights Council, according to Hillel Neuer, head of a Geneva-based non-governmental watchdog, Human Rights Watch. With a handful of exceptions, he told the committee, “the council has systematically turned a blind eye to the world’s worst human rights violations. The council has failed the victims who are most in need of international attention.”
There have been no Human Rights Council resolutions against China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia or Zimbabwe, he declared, Nor has there been any against Iran “even as it massacred its own citizens while the council was in session.” Moreover, he testified, “no resolution has even been proposed regarding these gross violators.”
Israel, on the other hand, gets plenty of attention. In all, Neuer testified, the council has adopted 35 resolutions condemning alleged human rights abuses in Israel, and “a little over a dozen against the rest of the world combined.”
Some of the council’s special sessions have even been used to legitimize violations, he said. One example Neuer cited: a special session on Sri Lanka, after the alleged government massacre of 20,000 people, ended, he said, in a draft resolution that praised the Sri Lanka government for “promotion and protection of all human rights.”
The Human Rights Council’s favored experts also came in for scorn. One of them, Richard Falk, who has a permanent mandate to report on Israel’s alleged transgressions, is known as a 9/11 “denier” who has called for investigations of the U.S. governments role in the terrorist attacks. On the eve of the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon suddenly declared that Falk’s 9/11 remarks were “preposterous,” and “an affront to the memory” of the victims.
The Human Rights Council’s record is supposed to be reviewed by U.N. members this year, on the fifth anniversary of its founding. Neuer’s judgment is already in. He told the committee, “according to the U.N.’s own standards, the promises of the council’s founding resolution—improved membership, action for victims, an end to politicization and selectivity—have not been kept.”
UN 'Human Rights Council' holds special session on... Haiti?
The UN 'Human Rights Council' held a special session Wednesday on Haiti. According to UN Watch's Hillel Neuer, the session is a total waste of time and resources, and the Council should instead donate its cost to the Haitian relief effort.
Today's urgent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council regarding Haiti is "a harmful waste of the organization’s precious time, resources, and moral capital," said a human rights watchdog group.
"Haiti is certainly a dire emergency, but this council, which is supposed to address human rights violations, has no budget, authority or expertise on humanitarian aid, and is clearly the wrong forum," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitoring organization.
According to UN estimates, a day of conference and translation services costs up to $200,000. "Instead of being used for today's questionable exercise, that money should have gone to Haiti's needy victims," said Neuer.
“Unlike other UN bodies, the Human Rights Council has neither the power of the purse nor of the sword, only the power to turn a spotlight on the worst abusers," said Neuer. "Tragically, however, the council has refused to hold special sessions to try and stop Iran from massacring student protesters, terrorists from killing civilians in Baghdad and Kabul, or China and Cuba from arresting bloggers, journalists and dissidents. Yet today it convenes -- to do exactly what? Condemn the earth for quaking? It's nonsensical."
I haven't seen the results yet, but I'm willing to bet they find a way to condemn Israel for providing assistance.
The picture at the top of this post is the mural at the 'Human Rights Council's Geneva headquarters. It cost $23 million.
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.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, November 12.
1) Those who judge Israel
The Obama administration decided Tuesday to seek a seat on the U.N.
Human Rights Council, reversing a decision by the Bush administration to
shun the United Nations' premier rights body to protest the influence
of repressive states.
"Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign
policy," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement.
"With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human
rights system. . . . We believe every nation must live by and help shape
global rules that ensure people enjoy the right to live freely and
participate fully in their societies."
The United States announced it would participate in elections in May for
one of three seats on the 47-member council, joining a slate that
includes Belgium and Norway.
Last week the genocidal regime of Sudan was accepted to the U.N.'s
Economic and Social Council. This was a consolation prize after
activists managed to derail Sudan's acceptance onto the U.N.'s Human
Rights Council. In U.N. Watch's press release, its director Hillel Neuer explained the travesty:
"This is an outrage," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN
Watch. "On the same day we hear that Sudan is killing babies and burning
homes in Darfur -- precisely the kind of dire situation ECOSOC should
be urgently addressing -- the U.N. has now made vital human rights
protection less likely than ever."
"It's inexplicable that 176 of 193 U.N. member states voted to support
the blood-soaked regime of Omar Al-Bashir, failing to recognize that
electing genocidal Sudan to a global human rights body is like choosing
Jack the Ripper to guard a women’s shelter," said Neuer.
In choosing members, according to the founding resolution for the
council, the General Assembly is supposed to “take into account the
contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of human
rights and their voluntary pledges and commitments” to do so. Moreover,
the “members elected to the council shall uphold the highest standards
in the promotion and protection of human rights.”
Venezuela under Mr. Chávez has no place at this table. According to
Human Rights Watch, the judiciary has largely ceased to function as an
independent branch of government. A human rights travesty has been
evident in the case of Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni. In 2009, she angered
Mr. Chávez with a ruling that gave conditional release to a businessman
who was a prominent critic of the president. The businessman had been
awaiting trial for almost three years. Soon after her ruling, the judge
was arrested, and Mr. Chávez denounced her as a “bandit” on national
television. She was held for more than a year in a two-by-four-meter
cell in a Caracas prison that included 20 women she had sentenced as a
judge. They confronted her with death threats. After she underwent
surgery for cancer in 2011, she was released to house arrest but under
onerous terms, including that she not be allowed to step outside for
exposure to the sun.
Mr. Chávez has an equally poor record on freedom of expression. He has
bullied and punished the news media for critical reporting on the
government’s handling of such things as water pollution, violent crime, a
prison riot and an earthquake.
At the end of the editorial, the Post observes, "In 2009 the Obama administration announced plans to join the Human
Rights Council and engage from the inside rather than criticize from
without." Quite clearly that hasn't worked.
2) The second term agenda
The editors of the New York Times, put forward The Foreign Policy Agenda for President Obama's second term. There are two items I'd like to focus on.
As for the Arab Spring countries, Mr. Obama has been wise to
recognize that Washington cannot dictate their democratic evolutions.
But he should be more engaged, offering more assistance to Islamic
leaders who need to build their economies quickly while reminding them
that American support will be calibrated based on their commitment to
human rights and the rule of law.
President Obama didn't even try to influence the outcomes of these revolutions, having cut funding
to programs designed to aid the democratic opposition. Instead he chose
to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization; in
agreement with the premises of the reporters and editors of the New
York Times. This is a huge mistake. But given the views of the Times,
it's not surprising that the editors praised the President's ignorance.
Many are pessimistic that anything can be done about an
Israeli-Palestinian peace deal as long as Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu is in office and Palestinians are divided between Fatah and
Hamas. It would be a mistake for Mr. Obama to cross this challenge off
his list. He needs to keep seeking openings to promote the two-state
solution.
Note what's missing from here. There's no mention of Mahmoud Abbas (or
Salam Fayyad). Also there's no mention of the latest terrorist
escalations of Hamas from Gaza.
In an opinion article on The New York Times’s Op-Ed page last year,
the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, wrote:
“Palestine’s admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the
internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a
political one. It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims
against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the
International Court of Justice.”
This time the Palestinians have been more circumspect, stating more
vaguely in a recent official document that enhanced status will “enable
Palestine to better use the U.N. and other international forums to
advance its just cause for freedom and independence” and help the
Palestinians “to reinforce the international position that does not
recognize Israel’s occupation and practices of colonization and
annexation as legitimate.”
Whether or not the Palestinians are more circumspect now, the Abbas
op-ed was a declaration that he had no intention of negotiating in good
faith, yet the editors of the New York Times couldn't bring themselves
to criticize him for carrying out a threat he made in the paper's own
opinion pages.
Furthermore the Times laments the lack of unity between Fatah and Hamas rather than decrying Hamas's ongoing escalation of its war
against Israel. If the editors really want peace why not at least some
words, however insincere, demanding a halt to Hamas's rockets? It is not
possible to view the New York Times charitably. It is demonstrably
anti-Israel.
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.
There's finally some good news on Libya. Good - but unfortunately, largely symbolic. Libya may be expelledcondemned by the UN 'Human Rights Council' on Friday.
In a [not so CiJ] strong stance against the violence that has engulfed Libya in the last eight days, at least 53 UN states signed their name to the call, including 31 nations who are not among the 47 members of the Human Rights Council.
Among the signatories were the US, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey and the “permanent observer mission of Palestine.”
A draft of the resolution to be debated on Friday condemns the “grave human rights violations,” which may have led to the death of more than 1,000 people in Libya, and it calls for an immediate UN investigation.
It slammed the “extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, detention and torture of peaceful demonstrators, which if wide-spread and systematic, may amount to crimes against humanity.”
But the draft language does not condemn the Libyan government, which carried out the acts. Nor does the draft resolution recommend that the UN General Assembly vote to strip Libya of its council membership.
The resolution was submitted on Wednesday by Hungary on behalf of the European Union.
Julie De Rivero, a spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch in Geneva, said that her organization was “happy” that the resolution called for a probe.
“It is what we wanted from the council. It is important to document what happened, identify who is responsible and if they have committed crimes against humanity.”
But Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said that while he appreciated the EU’s efforts, the draft resolution must be strengthened by including a call to strip Libya of council membership and by condemning Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his government.
“First, the moral outrage of Libya’s membership on the world’s top human rights body must end immediately.
Even the Arab League ejected Libya. With bodies piling up on the streets of Libya, the EU and the international community must not stay silent on this pernicious moral hypocrisy,” Neuer said.
“Second, the EU must explain why its draft – breaking with council practice on condemnatory resolutions – studiously avoids naming the Libyan government or its leader as the perpetrators of the ongoing atrocities,” he said.
Diplomats are expected to hold a number of meetings to work on the draft’s language before Friday’s session.
There is some fear in Geneva that there might not be enough support within the council to pass a strong resolution against Libya, despite the many international voices, including that of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who have condemned the country’s government.
It remains a possibility that the measure might not pass at all. African and Asian members of the Human Rights Council have in the past blocked criticism of abusive governments except when it has been directed at Israel, which has been the subject of six emergency meetings in five years.
This is pathetic. Do the numbers - only 22 of the 47 Council members signed the call to condemn Libya. A 'probe' is meaningless. Even if it happens, what are they going to do? Condemn Gadhafi? What makes anyone think he or any of his sons will be taken alive? People are being murdered by the hour and 'Human Rights Watch' wants to do a probe - why? So they can go raise money for their budget?
Hillel Neuer has got it right. I would add to what he said that the fact that there's any fear at all that this milquetoast resolution may not pass says a lot about the lowly state of real human rights advocacy in the world today.
Condemning the Libyan government and Gadhafi ought to be a no-brainer. Unfortunately, it's not.
And what about kicking Libya off the Council? Well, maybe....
Independent of diplomatic efforts at the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva, there is a simultaneous push to sway the UN General Assembly to call for a vote to strip Libya of its council membership. Human Rights Watch, which has been advocating for such a measure, said that it was complicated because no member had ever been kicked off the council.
It's long past time to close the dysfunctional United Nations. Simply pathetic.
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.
UN Watch's Hillel Neuer rips UN 'High Commissioner' of Human Rights
In this video, UN Watch's Hillel Neuer rips the UN's 'High Commissioner' of Human Rights in a session of the 'Human Rights Council' in Geneva earlier this month. His complaint is that the organizers of the Durban II conference of next month are blaming its victims for the bad media it has gotten, rather than blaming the anti-Semitic perpetrators.
UN Watch's Hillel Neuer rips the 'Human Rights Council's special rapporteur for Israel and the 'Palestinians,' Richard Falk. Falk is a 9/11 'truther.' This is masterful.
Video: UN Watch's Hillel Neuer testifies before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Last week, UN Watch's Hillel Neuer testified before the US House Committee of Foreign Affairs regarding human rights protections at the United Nations 'Human Rights Council.' It's called "the State of Human Rights at the United Nations," and it is devastating.
Let's go to the videotape.
The full version of the written testimony was entered into the Congressional record and is available here.
Here's guessing that the Republican House will not fund the United States' membership in the 'Human Rights Council' anymore.
Hillel Neuer takes on the 'UN Human Rights Council'
This is an amazing video. It's a speech given last March at the UN Human Rights Council by UN Watch director Hillel Neuer. At the end of the speech, the Council's President, Luis Alfonso de Alba pronounces it 'inadmissible.' Watch this video. It's the best four minutes you'll spend today.
UN 'human rights council' ignores Syria poison gas attack, slams Israel
"Let us state the truth: if the UN allocated just one-hundredth of the
moral outrage it uses against the only democracy in the Middle East,
murderous dictators like Assad might have been shamed, isolated and
weakened, instead of elevated, celebrated and strengthened as champions
of human rights." - UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, addressing
UN Human Rights Council, Sept. 10, 2013.
Let's go to the videotape.
Hillel Neuer is right, of course. But does anyone expect otherwise anymore?
Hillel Neuer: UN obsession with Israel harms the 'peace process'
Interviewed by Russian TV's Paula Slier, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer slams the U.N.'s Human Rights Council for ignoring violations worldwide, electing Qaddafi as a member, and scapegoating Israel. He said the biased approach harmed the peace process, failed to help Palestinians on the ground, and encouraged extremists. All in a day's work for the UN, where the goal is not to help the 'Palestinians' but to destroy Israel.
Let's go to the videotape.
When the history of this era is written, it will be interesting to see how much in money and resources was spent trying to destroy Israel.
'Human Rights Council' vote on Goldstone postponed to March
With the consent of the 'Palestinian Authority,' the 'Human Rights Council' agreed on Thursday to postpone a vote on referring the Goldstone Commission Report to the United Nations Security Council to March.
The deferral came after unsuccessful negotiations to find a compromise text that would be acceptable to the six Western countries on the 47-member council: the United States, Belgium, France, Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom.
...
There were reports of US pressure on the PA to defer the vote, with some sources claiming that US President Barack Obama had personally intervened behind the scenes, impressing upon the Palestinians that the diplomatic process would be adversely affected if the vote were not shelved.
The PLO ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ibrahim Khraishi, told The Jerusalem Post he was interested in a compromise text because it was important that the report, which condemned Israel's military actions in Gaza last January, received the widest range of support possible.
"It will help us to explain to the Israelis that the international community is with the Palestinians to achieve their hopes and their dreams," said Khraishi.
When the hour grew late and no compromise was in sight, he said, "we decided to defer the matter" to the council's next session in March.
Israel was pleased with the outcome.
"What happened today is proof that their strategy of not cooperating" with the four-person fact-finding mission led by South Africa jurist Richard Goldstone "was correct... Israel insisted from the beginning that this was about politics against the State of Israel and not human rights. It emphasized the primacy of the peace process. It is a precedent for all states fighting terror," said Leshno-Yaar.
He added that "it shows above all that the priority of the international community is to bring Israelis and Palestinians together to relaunch negotiations."
At a press conference with the international media on Thursday, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon slammed Fatah for its hypocrisy.
He noted that Fatah, which "pushed us to do away with Hamas" in Gaza, is "now trying to take us into the international courts" for Israel's military actions against Hamas.
"Not to mention the fact that the ones who are benefiting from this report are the extremists anywhere and everywhere, especially in Gaza," said Ayalon.
UN Watch's Hillel Neuer called Thursday's postponement a 'massive defeat' for Goldstone.
"This constitutes a massive defeat for Mr. Goldstone's biased report, a slipshod piece of work whose scattershot recommendations to the entire world threatened to ...harm, not help, the peace process," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva human rights monitoring group.
I suppose that a postponement is the best outcome. I don't see anything changing in six months unless the West decides to vote against us (I'm sure Norway will and probably wanted to already, but they are the least influential of the six nations listed). The 'Palestinians' are not going to let up on a referral to the UN General Assembly (where there is no veto), to the Security Council (where the United States will be pressured not to use its veto) and to the International Criminal Court.
But Goldstone is paving the path for 'peace.' What could go wrong?
UN Watch's Hillel Neuer rips the farce of only investigating Israeli 'human rights violations'
In this video, UN Watch's Hillel Neuer rips the 'Human Rights Council' for only investigating Israeli 'human rights violations' in Judea and Samaria while ignoring human rights violations by 'Palestinian' terrorists.
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
