John Dugard: The UN's Spokesperson for Suicide-Bombers
At Eye on the UN, director Anne Bayefsky takes us through another day with
the UN General Assembly's 'Third Committee.' On this day, John Dugard, the UN Commission/Council on Human Rights and the General Assembly's "independent expert" on Israeli human rights abuses is reporting to the General Assembly:
On October 19, UN-appointed "human rights" expert John Dugard told the General Assembly that "Palestinian suicide bombers" are "a consequence of occupation." In five years traveling on the UN payroll - twenty-two percent of which comes from American taxpayers - Dugard has now distinguished himself as the most fanatical spokesperson for terrorism at the UN outside the Arab and Moslem world.
His job description, or UN mandate, deliberately excludes Palestinian human rights abuses. As Dugard lectured the Israeli representative on October 19th: "I have a limited mandate, which is to investigate human rights violations by Israelis, not by Palestinians." The pre-determined outcome, however, has never been a problem for this lawyer. Far from being embarrassed, he launched into this year's diatribe this way: "Today I deliver my annual criticism of Israel's human rights record."
There is no perennial criticism at the UN of the human rights record of any other state, or terror organization for that matter. Just Israel.
Dugard's fanaticism is consistent with the UN reality that the more hysterical his claims, the more likely he is to keep his job. His usual modus operandi is to demonize Israel as the racist, blood-thirsty aggressor opposed by a hapless, freedom-loving people. This year he decided to outdo himself, taking aim at the Jewishness of the Jewish state itself. "The litany of human rights violations...is difficult to reconcile with Israel's...claim to be "a light unto the nations." Here is a sampling of his other remarks:
* "I wish we could get rid of the word "terror" in this debate...I appeal to the Israeli government:...If you label your opponent a terrorist, it becomes very difficult to start negotiating with him...I appeal to the Israeli government to discontinue using this term..."
* Referring to the situation of Palestinian farmers, he said: "in other countries this process might be described as ethnic cleansing but political correctness forbids such language where Israel is concerned."
* "IDF soldiers...seem to regard all Palestinians as terrorists."
* "Israel's desire for Palestinian land is insatiable."
* The West Bank has been made into "Bantustans" –a reference to apartheid South Africa.
Dugard's words Thursday were an instant hit with most of the UN representatives, who lined up to speak in an "interactive dialogue" conducted between him and the members of the General Assembly.
Oh, and in case you were wondering (as I was) what the General Assembly's 'Third Committee' is, the 'Third Committee' is composed of all 192 UN members.
In case it isn't obvious, this committee is the General Assembly's primary body for protecting human rights.
Why the US continues to contribute 22% of this monstrosity's annual budget is beyond my comprehension.
UN: Jews seek racial domination
Eye on the UN reports that
a report issued by the UN's "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967" John Dugard claims that the Jews (note - not Israel -
the Jews) are seeking 'racial domination.'
The IDF inflicts serious bodily and mental harm on Palestinians...Palestinians throughout the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territory] are denied freedom of movement. Can it seriously be denied that the purpose of such action is to establish and maintain domination by one racial group (Jews) over another racial group (Palestinians) and systematically oppressing them?
Hat Tip: Eye on the World via Maverick News NetworkEye on the UN's Anne Bayefsky comments:
Dugard's UN mandate is to demonize Israel. Palestinian human rights violations were deliberately omitted from the job description, first drafted by the UN Human Rights Commission in 1993 and continued by the "reformed" UN Human Rights Council. Dugard, a lawyer, not only accepted the one-sided mandate, he relished the opportunity to become an advocate of a one-state solution in the name of human rights. What Dugard fears most is not hate and the terrorism it fuels, but "Judaization" – the idea of a Jew living in claimed Arab land. Deliberately mirroring Nazi imagery, his report refers to Israel's security fence this way: "The Wall being built in East Jerusalem is an instrument of social engineering designed to achieve the Judaization of Jerusalem..."
The "Judaization" problem stands side-by-side with this UN champion of the Hamas government. According to Dugard, Israel has no right to refuse to transfer funds to the Hamas government. Why? "Predictably, Israel justifies its action on security grounds, but the real reason seems to be a determination to effect a regime change." A look at the Hamas Charter might help determine the wisdom of regime change: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it...There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad..." But according to this UN expert the problem is not a government dedicated to killing Jews, but the Jews themselves.
The primary tool of the UN's point-man for whipping up modern-day anti-semitism is to pillory the Jew as racist extraordinaire. Israel is the evil equivalent to apartheid South Africa. Referring to apartheid 24 times in his report, he proclaims: "Israel's laws and practices in the OPT certainly resemble aspects of apartheid." He fails to mention, predictably, that one-fifth of Israel's population is Arab – citizens who vote and hold seats in the Israeli parliament – while Arab countries are Judenrein. And Israel is the apartheid state?
But what really matters is Bayefsky's bottom line:
American tax dollars were used to pay for the Dugard report and its dissemination worldwide by the UN. Isn't it about time the tap was turned off?
She's right of course. It is time. With a Republican President in power who does not have to face re-election, now is the time to push to shut the UN off.
Read it all.
UN: 'Palestinian' terror 'inevitable'
A report commissioned by the United Nations 'Human Rights Council' claims that 'Palestinian'
terror is inevitable due to the 'apartheid' conditions under which 'Palestinians' live.
A report commissioned by the United Nations suggests that Palestinian terrorism is the "inevitable consequence" of Israeli occupation and laws that resemble South African apartheid - a claim Israel rejected Tuesday as enflaming hatred between Jews and Palestinians.
The report by John Dugard, independent investigator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the UN Human Rights Council, will be presented next month, but it has been posted on the body's website.
In it, Dugard, a South African lawyer who campaigned against apartheid in the 1980s, says "common sense ... Dictates that a distinction must be drawn between acts of mindless terror, such as acts committed by al-Qaeda, and acts committed in the course of a war of national liberation against colonialism, apartheid or military occupation."
While Palestinian terrorist acts are to be deplored, "they must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation," writes Dugard, whose 25-page report accuses the Jewish state of acts and policies consistent with all three.
He cited checkpoints and roadblocks restricting Palestinian movement to house demolitions and what he terms the "Judaization" of Jerusalem.
The checkpoints and roadblocks didn't exist until the mid-90's (no, there were none when I moved here), when they were set up to counter 'Palestinian' terror
which came first. As to the 'Judaization' of Jerusalem, Jerusalem has been a Jewish city and Israel's capital for 3000 years. Religious Jews pray three times daily for the restoration of Jerusalem to its former glory. Jerusalem is not even mention in the koran.
As long as there is occupation, there will be terrorism, he argues.
"Acts of terror against military occupation must be seen in historical context," Dugard says. "This is why every effort should be made to bring the occupation to a speedy end. Until this is done, peace cannot be expected, and violence will continue."
Considering that 'Palestinian' terror predates the existence of a State of Israel, I wonder which 'occupation' he means.
/Your American tax dollars at work.
Quit the quartet?
Yesterday, the United Nations' 'Human Rights Council's' 'special rapporteur' on the Middle East, John Dugard, urged the United Nations to
resign from the 'quartet' seeking a solution to the Arab-Israel dispute if the quartet "fails to have regard to the human rights situation in the Palestinian Territories."
Dugard said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Monday that the Quartet, which also includes Russia, the United States and the European Union, is “heavily influenced” by the U.S., weakening the international group’s effectiveness.
“Every time I visit, the situation seems to have worsened,” he said. “This time, I was very struck by the sense of hopelessness among the Palestinian people.” That hopelessness was also noted in a report by the Economist magazine, albeit attributed to different causes.
Dugard added that the U.N. “does itself little good” by remaining in the Quartet, due to human rights violations by Israel in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
I didn't realize that the UN was a part of the 'quartet' to 'do itself some good.' But the reality is that of the four partners in the 'quartet,' the only one that even comes close to being seen as an honest broker by Israelis is the United States. Russia continues to assist in Iran's quest for nuclear weapons that would be used to destroy Israel, and the European Union daily acts more like a branch of the
Organization of the Islamic Conference and less like a confederation of Western countries with Western values. As to the UN itself, and particularly its 'Human Rights Council,' which regularly condemns the defensive measures taken by Israel to prevent suicide bombings while failing to find the time to condemn genocide in the Sudan, murder in Egypt, the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia and in nearly all other countries in the Islamic world, it goes without saying that no Israeli would view them as an honest broker.
Let the UN quit the quartet. In fact, let the quartet be disbanded altogether. And then let the United States and any other nation (if there are any) that has an interest in finding a real solution and not just in precipitating Israel's destruction come to the table and try to find a solution. It won't happen overnight. But it won't ever happen with dishonest 'brokers' like John Dugard whose hatred of the Jews and the Jewish state drips from their lips every time they open their mouths.
South Africa conducting witch hunt for IDF soldiers
Back in August, I reported on efforts in South Africa to arrest IDF legal officer and Israeli - South African dual citizen David Benjamin while
Benjamin was in South Africa for a visit.
Russ H points me to
this story which claims that South Africa is actually conducting a witch hunt for IDF soldiers who fought in Operation Cast Lead and who hold South African citizenship.
Some 75 IDF soldiers are involved. Former Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Israeli-Palestinian Disputed territories John Dugard [pictured. CiJ] and the Media Review Network are considering an application to the International Criminal Court to bring the charge of war crimes against 75 South Africans who allegedly served in the IDF during the recent war in Gaza.
...
Since the NPA [South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority. CiJ] has up until now not investigated the charges, Dugard is threatening to take the charges to the International Criminal Court.
Even though Dugard concedes that “except for one individual, whom he declined to name, there was scant proof that these soldiers actually participated in the fighting” he has nevertheless wasted the time of the NPA and intends to do the same with the ICC. Its not like the NPA are busy with a serious crime problem!
Since there is no attempt to call for charges against war crimes committed by Hamas, since there is no proof that the 75 South Africans actually took part in the fighting, and since there is no proof that even if they did that they were involved in war crimes, I can only conclude that this is nothing but a sinister witch hunt against South African Jews.
I'm not concerned with wasting the time of the ICC (I know little of the NPA). But I am concerned that Israeli dual citizens being prosecuted in their former home countries for actions taken in the IDF will have a chilling effect on the dedication of these soldiers and their fighting ethos. And while this would not catch Americans right now (the United States has not ratified the Rome Treaty that established the ICC, although under Obama one can never be sure), it obviously has implications for Americans living in Israel as well.
This is why -
again - it's important for Israel to draft a core of lawyers who can fight these cases and make it possible for IDF soldiers to freely travel abroad again.
Israel may bar Tutu mission to 'investigate' Beit Hanoun
The Jerusalem Post is reporting tonight that
Israel is considering denying visas to
Desmond Tutu and the 'investigators' who are to accompany him on his mission to 'investigate' the accidental killing of 'civilians' that took place in
Beit Hanoun last month. The 'investigation' was ordered by the United Nations' 'Human Rights' Council.
The 'mission' was supposed to start this weekend, but Israel has not yet decided whether or not to grant visas.
"A decision on visas is pending," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. "[The decision] is not about [Tutu] the person but the process is extremely problematic, because it singles out Israel for special treatment, and uses a human rights agenda to bash Israel."
Israeli government officials said last week that they would not cooperate with the mission, but would not bar entry into the country of Tutu, a longtime critic of Israel. They said that Tutu, who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-apartheid efforts, was by no means "persona non-grata" in Israel.
Three different officials connected to the talks between the council and Israel said they had yet to receive any indication from Israel that the mission would take place at all.
...
Diplomatic officials said the council had proven itself to be stridently anti-Israeli. The council passed an eighth resolution criticizing Israel on Friday, this time for failing to act on recommendations the body made in July, urging an end to military operations in the PA. Since it was founded in June, the council has condemned only Israel.
"Even UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has condemned the council for being biased against Israel so we don't need to again voice our dissatisfaction with their completely biased way of presenting issues," an Israeli government official said.
The council noted with regret that Israel has failed to release a group of Palestinian cabinet ministers it arrested earlier this year.
"Violations of the fundamental rights of the Palestinians continue unabated," said Pakistani diplomat Tehmina Janjua on behalf of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, which proposed the resolution. "The Palestinian ministers, officials and civilians have not been set free."
Janjua demanded that UN human rights expert John Dugard be allowed to conduct an "urgent" fact-finding mission in the region, which the council ordered at an emergency session only one month after it was called into existence to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission.
Criticism by the council brings no penalties beyond international attention. Countries, however, lobby hard to avoid having their rights records scrutinized.
Dugard, a former anti-apartheid civil rights lawyer from South Africa, has frequently clashed with Israel, which notes that he has been mandated only with investigating violations by the Israeli side. The United States - which along with Israel is only an observer at the rights body - also has dismissed Dugard's reports as one-sided.
Only Canada voted against Friday's resolution. Cameroon and Japan joined the 10 European members of the council in abstaining. The rest of Africa and Asia, along with all of Latin America, voted in favor.
More proof that the Europeans are a bunch of dhimmis. There's no other explanation for them not voting no.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the watchdog last month to deal with the Mideast conflict in an impartial manner, and said it was time to focus attention on "graver" crises such as Darfur.
Despite his plea, the council has passed only a watered-down resolution on the western Sudanese region proposed by African countries, which urged all parties to the conflict to end human rights violations.
When will the civilized nations of the world put an end to this?
'Lawfare' reaches the masses?
'Lawfare' is a
form of warfare waged by using the nascent field of international law to attack an opponent on moral grounds: "international law warfare (seizing the earliest opportunity to set up regulations), etc." Lawfare is used against Israel by NGO's and countries that favor the 'Palestinians.' Until now, however, lawfare has mostly been used against high-ranking IDF officers. In South Africa, at least, that may be about to change.
Two pro-'Palestinian' NGO's in South Africa are seeking the arrest of some 70 IDF soldiers who hold both South African and Israeli citizenship - what are known as dual citizens - for alleged 'war crimes' committed during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. And while
this article discusses one high-ranking officer who is currently in South Africa, it ought to be clear to everyone that among 70 soldiers there are likely many who are not officers.
The Palestinian Solidarity Alliance (PSA) and the Media Review Network (MRN) are listed as complainants in an affidavit handed to the NPA. [Jewish former intelligence minister Ronnie] Kasrils [pictured. CiJ] was speaking in support of the initiative at the briefing hosted by the MRN.
About 70 individuals are listed in the affidavit for prosecution. Their names have been withheld as they are suspects.
The only person who has been named is Lieutenant Colonel David Benjamin, who is currently in South Africa for Limmud, a series of dialogues on Jewish opinion and belief. Kasrils said Benjamin "appears to have associated himself with the planning and commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Operation Cast Lead".
The PSA and MRN have called for Benjamin's immediate arrest; their legal teams have already made three requests to the NPA for the South Africa-born Israeli soldier's arrest.
If you're a South African citizen and you fought in Operation Cast Lead, are you on the list? Maybe. Don't go to South Africa, that's for sure.
The basis for this is the Rome Treaty that established the International Criminal Court. Israel is not a party to that treaty (neither is the US).
The request to file charges was made in terms of section five of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Act, which was domesticated through the Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Act in 2002. The NGOs say the government has a legal obligation to act on the statute. South Africa is one of only three countries to have domesticated the Rome Statute. Yousha Tayob, an attorney acting for the NGOs, said the matter is likely to "test our foreign policy".
The NGOs' request is supported by approximately 3 500 pages of evidence, including evidence by Human Rights Watch on the "brutal military onslaught on Gaza by the Israeli Defence Force".
The MRN and the PSA sought legal advice from international jurists Professor John Dugard and Professor Max du Plessis.
Well, we all know how fair
Human Rights Watch is. And
Dugard is a known quantity as well. But whether or not the NGO's win is almost not the issue here. If anyone who serves in the IDF faces the prospect of being '
haled into court' for actions taken in the IDF anytime he or she travels abroad, it would be a disincentive for Israelis to travel, with serious consequences for our economy. Of course, that's exactly what the 'Palestinians' - and their self-hating Jewish allies like Ronnie Kasrils - want.
By the way, as I have noted in the past, American soldiers who have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan could be subject to
the same type of harassment. The difference is that a much higher percentage of Israelis serves in the IDF than Americans who serve in the US armed forces.
Aren't you glad he doesn't chair the US National Intelligence Council
For those who didn't figure out yet what happened, no I am not on a plane to the US. I collapsed in exhaustion last night. For those who recognize the picture in this post, you may even know why. For those who don't recognize the picture in this post, you will understand shortly.
Very early in his term, President Obama nominated Chas Freeman (pictured) to chair the US National Intelligence Council. Had Freeman gotten the position, he would have provided Obama with intelligence analysis like you are about to see below. Fortunately for all involved, Freeman was forced to decline the position by
powerful bloggers like yours truly who exposed his disregard for the lives of Chinese dissidents and the extent to which he was (and is) in the pockets of the Saudi royal family.
On Wednesday, Chas gave the
Hisham B. Sharabi memorial lecture to the Jerusalem Fund at the 'Palestine Center' in Washington. He thus joined other notable Jew haters in academia like
John Mearsheimer,
Richard Falk and
John Dugard who have been deemed anti-Israel enough to give the Sharabi lecture. All of the other lecturers except for one have been 'Palestinians' or 'Israeli Arabs.' Here's a sampling of what Chas had to say:
Over the course of centuries, the Jews of the diaspora were grievously persecuted by Christians. This experience helped to inspire Zionism. It culminated in the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. Meanwhile, under Byzantium and the Caliphate, all but a few of the Jews of Palestine sought refuge in conversion to Judaism’s successor faiths: Christianity and Islam. As an ironic result, the homegrown descendants of Palestine’s original Jewish population – the Palestinians –now suffer because newcomers proclaim them to be interlopers in lands they have inhabited from time immemorial. And yet another Jewish-descended diaspora – this time, Christian and Muslim – has been ejected from Palestine to suffer in exile. Not even the most imaginative writer of fiction could have composed an account of traumatic suffering and human tragedy comparable to that which Zionists and Palestinians have undergone and continue to inflict on each other.
In other words, the 'Palestinians' have rights to the Land of Israel ahead of the Jews because they are Jews who chose to stay here but converted to Islam (there are very few Christians left here - forget that one). Got it?
Obfuscatory euphemisms are, unfortunately, the norm in the Holy Land. But rhetorical tricks can no longer conceal the protracted moral zero-sum game that is in progress there. A people without rights confronts a settler movement without scruples. A predatory state with cutting-edge military technology battles kids with stones and resistance fighters with belts of nails and explosives. Israel’s Cabinet openly directs the murder of Palestinian political leaders. There have been about 850 such extrajudicial executions over the past decade. Israel is vigorously engaged in the collective punishment and systematic ethnic cleansing of its captive Arab populations. It rails against terrorism while carrying out policies explicitly described as intended to terrorize the peoples of the territories it is attacking or into which it is illegally expanding. Meanwhile, the elected authorities in Palestine – indeed, most Palestinians – associate themselves suicide bombers and unguided missiles that indiscriminately murder Israeli civilians. Each side has suspended moral constraints in order to cause the other to suffer in the hope that it will capitulate to such coercion. To a distressing extent, moreover, each side has also been able to enlist unreasoning support for its cause and the indiscriminate condemnation of the other by powerful supporters abroad.
Holy moral equivalence Batman! I can tell you that I live here, and this paragraph is so detached from reality, it's pathetic.
As always in such mayhem, truth and the law have been the first to go missing. Israel regularly attributes to others the very things it itself is doing. It has become notorious for its refusal to accept objective scrutiny or criticism. It routinely rebuffs international investigators’ examination of allegations against it, even when mandated by the U.N. [United Nations] Security Council. Instead, it stages self-indulgent acts of self-investigation calculated to produce exculpatory propaganda. As a result, Israeli government spokesmen – who once were presumed to represent the intellectual integrity for which Jewish scholars have always been renowned – now have no credibility at all except among those committed to the Zionist cause. Meanwhile, regional and international respect for the rule of law, especially humanitarian law, has been greatly degraded. This is a special irony.
That assumes the the UN is objective. I don't believe anyone outside of the Third World and the 'non-aligned' countries considers that to be the case. Let's start with the most blatant indicator: Guess which UN member is the only one that can never serve on the Security Council. And guess which UN member is the subject of as many UN resolutions as all other countries combined. And no, it's not because we're so terrible. Far more Arab civilians have been killed in the 'Arab spring' than have been killed in the last 20 years in Israel.
Humanitarian law and the law of war are arguably the supreme moral artifacts of Atlantic civilization. Jewish lawyers made a disproportionate contribution to the crafting of both. The resulting legal principles were intended to deter the kinds of injuries and injustices that European Jews and other minorities had long suffered and to protect occupied populations from persecution by their occupiers. Both objectives are very relevant to contemporary Palestine. It is, however, hard to find any principle of due process, the several Geneva Conventions, or the Nuremberg trials that has not been systematically violated in the Holy Land. Examples of criminal conduct include mass murder, extra-judicial killing, torture, detention without charge, the denial of medical care, the annexation and colonization of occupied territory, the illegal expropriation of land, ethnic cleansing and the collective punishment of civilians, including the demolition of their homes, the systematic reduction of their infrastructure and the de-development and impoverishment of entire regions. These crimes have been linked to a concerted effort to rewrite international law to permit actions that it traditionally prohibited, in effect enshrining the principle that might makes right.
And that's just what Hamas has done....
For those who can stand it,
read the whole thing.
Labels: Chas Freeman
Setting the record straight
Hillel Neuer makes the UN 'Human Rights Council' look bad for one of their more
biased mandates.
We write to ask for the correction of a significant error in a UN Media statement published yesterday by the OHCHR, and diffused throughout the UN system, in which you were listed as the contact person. The text stated that Mr. Richard Falk “is mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor the situation of human rights and international humanitarian law on Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.”
This statement is incorrect. The unchanged mandate as spelled out in Article 4 of Commission on Human Rights resolution 1993/2 is as follows: “To investigate Israel’s violations of the principles and bases of international law, international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967.”
The mandate as you described it would be of universal application to all actors, be they Israeli or Palestinian. The mandate as it is actually is, however, applies only to Israeli actions, with violations presumed in advance. As I am sure you will agree, there is a substantial difference between the two.
Indeed, on 16 June 2008, current mandate-holder Richard Falk acknowledged the one-sided nature of the mandate, saying it was open to challenges regarding “the bias and one-sidedness of the approach taken.” He added: “With all due respect, I believe that such complaints have considerable merit.” Several states expressed themselves on the matter, however no change was made. The summary is available here.
Likewise, Mr. Falk’s predecessor, John Dugard, noted in an August 2005 report that the mandate “does not extend to human rights violations committed by the Palestinian Authority.”
Finally, the one-sided nature of the mandate has been criticized by many democracies, including the European Union, as well as by human rights NGOs. For example, on 11 July 2008, Amnesty International stated that, “The current mandate’s focus on limitation to Israeli violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories undercuts both the effectiveness and the credibility of the mandate.”
Amnesty noted that the current mandate “fails to take account of the human rights of victims of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law committed by parties other than the State of Israel” - i.e, the mandate excludes all violations — including acts of incitement or terrorism — by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian actors.
I know that the UN Secretariat, the OHCHR and the media department are committed to providing accurate information to the media and the larger public, and assume that this was an oversight.
Heh.
UN-sponsored meeting equates Israelis with Nazis
Nothing the United Nations does to Israel should surprise us anymore. And so, this should come as no shock. The United Nations has sponsored an event at which
Israel was equated to Nazis. Anne Bayefsky reports.
Over the past two days, the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People has sponsored a two-day conference on the topic of Palestinian “political” prisoners held in Israeli prisons. The Committee was created by the U.N. General Assembly back in 1975 to implement the infamous Zionism-is-racism resolution. While the resolution was rescinded 16 years later, the committee marches on, boasting 49 U.N. states and observers as members and unending funds courtesy of the General Assembly [22% of which is paid for by the United States. CiJ].
...
The “keynote” address was delivered by Issa Qaraqe, the Minister for Prisoners’ Affairs of the Palestinian Authority. He blithely asserted that “there was a call at the highest level of the Israeli state for concentration camps to be set up for the rounding up and extermination of Palestinian people.” To ensure his message was widely available the U.N. posted on their website his speech claiming that “the Chief Rabbi of Israel” has called “for the establishment of extermination camps for Palestinians,” that Israelis advocate “prisoners should be gassed and exterminated,” and that “Israel is waging a war of ethnic cleansing against all humanity.” As to why there are any Palestinian prisoners, “the prisoners only crime is to struggle for freedom and independence,” said Qaraqe.
John Dugard, who served as U.N. “Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” from 2001 to 2008, openly embraced the destruction of the Jewish state by force, using the one-state-solution lexicon of “Palestine/Israel.” He referred to “Palestinian resistance fighters” as “freedom fighters.” He railed against Israel for using the term “terrorists” — which he put in quotation marks — to describe “those who engage in resistance activities as combatants” or who “take up arms in pursuance of the right of self-determination.”
...
When the combination of U.N. experts and officials, diplomats and non-governmental participants, had finished analogizing Israelis to Nazis and Palestinians to Holocaust victims, claiming Jews have no historical ties to the land of Israel, and declaring open season on Israeli men, women, and children in the name of self-determination, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian’s lead U.N. representative, was given a final word: “We thank the U.N. for organizing this very important conference in this very important location of the U.N. . . . the capital and center of human rights.”
Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Issa Qaraqi, United Nations, United Nations Committee for the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People
Bias by the (Turtle) Bay
Just two weeks ago, I told you about the blood libel coming from the United Nations' "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967" that Jews - note
Jews, not even Israelis - are
seeking 'racial domination.' Today, the UN 'Human Rights Council' - whose membership includes such 'bastions of freedom' as Cuba (where no one is allowed to leave), Saudi Arabia (where no one is allowed to believe in any God but the Islamic one in public) and China (where no one is allowed to have more than one child and where criticizing the government can get you tortured and/or shot) - is poised to place Israel under 'permanent investigation' for its
"violations" of 'international law' in Judea and Samaria.
It's one of at least four anti-Israel actions he expects the council to take during its fourth session, which started in Geneva on Monday and runs through April 5, Neuer told The Jerusalem Post from Geneva.
The UN body was created in June to replace the Human Rights Commission, which was scrapped because it had a faulty membership composition and repeatedly singled out Israel.
But since its inception, the 47-member body - which includes Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China - has continued to single out the Jewish State. It has issued eight anti-Israel resolutions, and none against any other nation. It has also held three special sessions on Israel.
...
Neuer said Israel would be rapped for the Antiquities Authority's construction of an access ramp to the Temple Mount's Mughrabi Gate.
The work has been widely condemned throughout the Muslim world.
Neuer said the council would also take Israel to task for refusing entry to inquiry teams in July and in November. The first team was sent to investigate Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip following the kidnapping by Hamas of Cpl. Gilad Schalit in June.
The second team was dispatched to investigate the accidental discharge of an IDF artillery barrage that killed 19 civilians in Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip in November.
Levanon said the investigators were denied entry because they were overtly biased against Israel.
The Human Rights Council is also set to hear a report compiled by UN Special Rapporteur John Dugard that compares Israeli actions in the territories to that of the former apartheid system in South Africa.
Ironically, another UN body, UNESCO, decided today that Israel
did not damage the Temple Mount. Maybe UNESCO needs to be told to get with the program?
Not just another United Nations agency
It's no secret that the United Nations is biased against Israel, and has been for a long time. "
Oom Shmoom," said Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion. But what you may not realize is that the United Nations' 'human rights council' brings anti-Israel bias to a whole other level, partly because it wraps itself in the cloak of human rights, and partly because of the way the council is structured. Yoram Ettinger explains
why the 'human rights council' is different than other UN agencies.
The council welcomed a report by Professor Richard Falk, who accused the U.S. administration of complicity and a cover-up in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” Falk – a Hamas sympathizer, who justifies suicide bombing as a legitimate struggle – was appointed in 2008 to a six-year term as U.N. Special Rapporteur. Falk succeeded Professor John Dugard, who shares his worldview.
The council is assisted by an advisory committee, chaired by Morocco’s Halima Warzazi, who, in 1988, blocked a U.N. initiative to condemn Saddam Hussein’s chemical warfare against Iraq’s Kurds. The vice chairman is Switzerland’s Jean Ziegler, who co-established the “Gadhafi International Prize for Human Rights” and authored books accusing the U.S. of being responsible for global malaise. Another adviser is Nicaragua’s Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, former president of the U.N. General Assembly, an admirer of Ahmadinejad, a defender of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, a friend of Fidel Castro and self-hating Americans such as Ramsey Clark and Noam Chomsky.
Since June 2007, Israel has been the only country to be listed on the council’s permanent agenda. Out of the 10 permanent items on the council’s agenda, eight are organizational and procedural, one deals with global human rights and item no. 7 – “the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories” – is the only one that is country-specific. The outcome of the investigation is prejudged, not subject to review. Israel – the only Middle Eastern democracy -- is the only U.N. member to be ostracized annually, while its enemies are exempt from scrutiny.
...
Eighty percent of all U.N. resolutions criticizing specific countries for human rights violations in 2010 were directed at Israel. Only six other U.N. members faced human rights criticism at all, one of them the U.S. The council subjected the U.S. to harsh criticism – by Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Russia – for supposed human rights violations. It criticized the elimination of Osama bin Laden and Israel’s defense against PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists.
Simultaneously, the council has ignored Islamic terrorism, which has afflicted Asia, Africa, Europe and the U.S. No emergency sessions and inquiries were held and no resolutions were adopted. Fifty-five percent of the council’s members are Muslim countries, which contribute little to the U.N. budget while dominating policy-making. The council is formally the guardian of human rights, but its members – Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Cuba, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, Djibouti, Senegal, Mauritania, Malaysia, Russia and China – deny their peoples’ fundamental civil liberties.
At the 'human rights council,' the anti-Israel bias is structural. The council issues pious platitudes against Israel, while allowing real human rights abusers to cloak themselves in false concern for the rights of others. It doesn't get much more hypocritical than that.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: UN hypocrisy, United Nations Human Rights Council
'Human Rights Council' appoints 'investigator' who has compared Israel to Nazis
This is another story of your tax dollars at work. If you pay taxes in the United States, you are paying for 22% of the United Nations' budget, including its 'Human Rights Council.' The 'Human Rights Council' has appointed Richard Falk, a professor at Princeton University, to be its '
special investigator' of Israeli actions in Judea and Samaria for the next six years. Falk's qualifications for the position are that he is (a) a self-hating Jew, (b) who has compared Israel to the Nazis and (c) has accused Israel of planning a 'holocaust' against local Arabs. Sounds like another
Obama foreign policy adviser, doesn't he?
Falk replaces John Dugard, an apartheid expert who compared Israeli policies in Judea and Samaria to South Africa under apartheid.
Here's
an example of Falk's writing. He should fit right in with the corrupt dictatorships that dominate the 'Human Rights Council:'
Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy. If ever the ethos of 'a responsibility to protect,' recently adopted by the UN Security Council as the basis of 'humanitarian intervention' is applicable, it would be to act now to start protecting the people of Gaza from further pain and suffering. But it would be unrealistic to expect the UN to do anything in the face of this crisis, given the pattern of US support for Israel and taking into account the extent to which European governments have lent their weight to recent illicit efforts to crush Hamas as a Palestinian political force.
Even if the pressures exerted on Gaza were to be acknowledged as having genocidal potential and even if Israel's impunity under America's geopolitical umbrella is put aside, there is little assurance that any sort of protective action in Gaza would be taken. There were strong advance signals in 1994 of a genocide to come in Rwanda, and yet nothing was done to stop it; the UN and the world watched while the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Bosnians took place, an incident that the World Court described as 'genocide' a few months ago; similarly, there have been repeated allegations of genocidal conduct in Darfur over the course of the last several years, and hardly an international finger has been raised, either to protect those threatened or to resolve the conflict in some manner that shares power and resources among the contending ethnic groups.
But Gaza is morally far worse, although mass death has not yet resulted. It is far worse because the international community is watching the ugly spectacle unfold while some of its most influential members actively encourage and assist Israel in its approach to Gaza. Not only the United States, but also the European Union, are complicit, as are such neighbors as Egypt and Jordan apparently motivated by their worries that Hamas is somehow connected with their own problems associated with the rising strength of the Muslim Brotherhood within their own borders. It is helpful to recall that the liberal democracies of Europe paid homage to Hitler at the 1936 Olympic Games, and then turned away tens of thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. I am not suggesting that the comparison should be viewed as literal, but to insist that a pattern of criminality associated with Israeli policies in Gaza has actually been supported by the leading democracies of the 21st century.
That sound you just heard was my lunch leaving me. I wish I could tell you he's kidding. He's not. It's too bad that the Israeli government lacks the fortitude to declare him persona non grata and make him stay away.
'Experts': 'International law' has no answer to terrorism
Some of you may wonder why I keep telling you that it's okay to go after terrorists hiding among civilians even if some of those civilians are hurt. Especially when everyone keeps condemning Israel every time it does that. It seems that most 'experts' in international law believe that
international law is a suicide pact.
A SHORT WHILE ago I met with a group of eminent jurists who were on a fact-finding mission, examining Israel's military operation in Gaza. After listening to their concerns and criticisms, I asked them: "Considering the rocket attacks launched against Israel by terrorist groups in Gaza, what in your view would have constituted a lawful response?" The answer was total silence.
The troubling notion that international law has no practical advice for a state facing terrorist attacks other than to grin and bear it is increasingly pervasive. John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian territories, issued eight reports on Israel's responses to terrorism and never found a single measure adopted by Israel to be lawful or proportionate. His successor, Richard Falk, recently issued a report that goes one remarkable step further. In the conditions existing in Gaza, he asserts, any Israel military response would be "inherently unlawful." According to Falk's understanding of international law, Israel has no right whatsoever to defend itself.
Contrary to the impression created by such experts, international law is not a suicide pact. For all its limitations - which are many - it offers practical guidance to a state seeking to respond responsibly and effectively to threats to the lives of its civilians.
Read the whole thing.
Of the eighteen comments on that story, two were intelligent (one was very intelligent). The rest showed a level of anti-Israel derangement that makes me glad that I no longer live in that newspaper's local circulation area.
A sovereign nation can only give up its sovereignty and subject itself to international law of its own free will. If international law is a suicide pact, I sure hope my country will withdraw from it.
New Human Rights Council hits bottom, digs deeper
I predicted that the 'new' United Nations Human Rights Council would
continue to bash Israel just like the old Human Rights Commission did. So did US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton (who, by the way,
still has not been confirmed), which is why he
urged the US to stay off the Council. But what's amazing about this New York Sun story is
how blatant it is. So blatant that even Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and UN Secretary General
Kofi Goofy Annan want it stopped.
The council is expected to hear reports today by several envoys, known as "rapporteurs," who during the last session were sent on missions to Lebanon and Israel. The special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, will report only on the human rights situation in Lebanon; he did not even visit Israel on his trip to the region.
Last week, the rapporteur John Dugard issued a report to the council on the situation in Gaza. After Israel turned the area over to the Palestinian Arabs, it transformed Gaza into a "prison," he said. "In other countries this process might be described as ethnic cleansing, but political correctness forbids such language where Israel is concerned," he added.
Amnesty International, usually a critic of Israel, has chided members of the council for focusing on what it termed their "narrow political objectives." And Human Rights Watch has said the new council's "one-sided approach" on the Israeli-Arab dispute is a "blow to its credibility and an abdication of its responsibility to protect human rights for all."
Although Human Rights Watch supported the creation of the Geneva-based council last spring, its global advocacy director, Peggy Hicks, told The New York Sun yesterday, "We are not satisfied at all" with the way its has functioned so far.
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Secretary-General Annan has hailed the creation of the council as a major achievement. But since its inception, the only country-specific resolutions the Human Rights Council has passed have concerned Israeli violations.
In an address to the U.N. General Assembly last month, Mr. Annan said, "Supporters of Israel feel that it is harshly judged" at Turtle Bay.
"Too often this is true, particularly in some U.N. bodies," he added, and urged the Human Rights Council to widen its focus beyond one country.
"Anyone observing the council's agenda this week might easily mistake it for a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference," the executive director of U.N. Watch, Hillel Neuer, said.
So far, the 47-member body — where a voting bloc composed of OIC members controls the agenda with an automatic majority in regional groups — has conducted two regular sessions and two emergency sessions on the Arab-Israeli dispute; it has passed resolutions condemning Israel in each of these sessions without addressing violations elsewhere, Mr. Neuer noted.
Who is funding the Council anyway? Is the US taxpayer paying for this Israel bashing? (I will bet that the answer is yes).
