By: Aryeh Pekker
Watching the UN today, it is difficult to believe that this is the same institution that created the Jewish State of Israel we have today. The horrors of the Nazi Holocaust made it clear to the world that not only did the Jews need a place they could call home, but that the concept of human rights be respected by all nations. With the help of people like Eleanor Roosevelt, the UN Commission on Human Rights was founded in 1946. Sixty years later it was replaced by the current UN Human Rights Council. These may very well be the most ironically named institutions world politics has ever seen, because as the dissolved Commission proved and as the disgraceful Council demonstrates on a daily basis, these two institutions have been an embarrassment to the very idea of human rights and a shame for the entire human race.
The original Commission had to be dismantled thanks to its bias against Israel and ignorance to actual human rights violations committed by other nations. It sunk so low that Libya was elected the chairmanship of the entire Council in 2003. Yes, that Libya, the one currently being ruled by the viscous dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi; the man who in 1996 had 1200 political prisoners rounded up and shot within a matter of hours then buried in mass graves and the man who is currently paying mercenaries from around the world to come and drop bombs on his own people.
When the former Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan, proposed the new Human Rights Council he stated that:
“We have reached a point at which the Commission's declining credibility has cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole [...]”
I would say it cast much more than just a shadow, but still an accurate assessment. Unfortunately for Israel and Mr. Annan, the Council was not part of the UN for five minutes before it decided to adopt every negative aspect of its predecessor and then some. According to Freedom House, a non-governmental organization based in Washington D.C., 57% of the Council's members fail to meet basic democratic standards. After one year since its founding in 2006, the Council had ignored eighteen of nineteen nations deemed “worst of the worst” according to Freedom House. The only report on the government of Sudan was rejected by the Council. Sudan of course is where the horrible genocide in Darfur occurred, where over 300,000 innocent people were systematically raped and slaughtered and almost three million were made homeless all under the order of President of Sudan and now indicted war criminal (about time) Omar al-Bashir. No, genocide is not an issue for the UN, but Israel is. In fact, Israel was the only nation condemned and more than once. Eleven separate resolutions were passed condemning Israel, almost one a month. This prejudice became so open that in his speech on International Human Rights Day in 2006 Kofi Annan had to remind the Council of its job yet again saying:
“But, I am worried by its disproportionate focus on violations by Israel. Not that Israel should be given a free pass. Absolutely not. But the Council should give the same attention to grave violations committed by other States as well.”
As it seems to be the pattern with the Council, even after being publicly criticized by their own Secretary-General it decided to take another plunge into bias and depravity. Shortly after Mr. Annan retired his post the Council then decided to make Israel a permanent agenda item, meaning that at every session of the Council Israel will be put under scrutiny, not one of the other 191 UN member states is subjected to this. Ban Ki-Moon, Annan's successor, released a statement criticizing this as well:
“The Secretary-General is disappointed at the Council’s decision to single out only one specific regional item, given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world.”
So we know that Israel, in the eyes of the Council, is forever in the wrong and therefore must be penalized at every session, who then, would the Council recommend as a model of human rights protectors? For starters, Libya. Yes, the same Libya mentioned above. In 2009 Libya was made chair of the Durban 2 conference on racism and discrimination. Who knows, maybe this is actually a conspiracy by UN reformers secretly trying to get this Human Rights Council enough embarrassment and shame that they will have dissolve it just like they did the first one. Or, and this is just a guess, maybe lobbying by groups like the Arab League, The Organization of the Islamic Conference (the largest voting bloc in the Council, with 56 member states), OPEC, the Non-Aligned Movement (basically a group aligned against Israel and its allies) and others, has been so powerful that they got the Council so politicized that they actually managed to make the vicious regime of Libya, a chairmanship in the Council a second time. To be fair, this time Libya was not chair of the whole Council but simply of an event about one of the most major issues the UN is expected to deal with (I do not know about you but that makes me feel a whole lot better). 2009 is also when the Sri Lankan army was accused of killing an estimated 20,000 civilians in its war against the Tamil Tigers because of indiscriminately firing shells and mortars into areas with civilians in the hopes of killing rebels. How did the Council respond to these gross violations of humanitarian and human rights law? They praised the Sri Lankan government. No, I am not joking.
The Council passed a resolution describing the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers as “domestic matter that doesn't warrant outside interference.” 20,000 dead civilians does not warrant outside interference? Then what does? At its worst, the war was taking the lives of over 1000 civilians a day, as opposed to an average of 25 a day in the Gaza War that same year with Israel. So where is the praise for Israel? If the Council is in such a jolly mood to pat nations on the back how about passing a resolution honoring Israel's relentless campaign to indiscriminately provide aid to civilians in Haiti after a 7.0 earthquake?
You know, that campaign? When all those evil Zionists went around performing surgeries, delivering babies and pulling people out of rubble. Yes, that campaign.
Although the Council has dug itself into a hole filled with the worst smelling foul one could think of, it keeps on digging (you have to admit, it is very persistent). Recently in November of 2010, Libya (again), Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were all elected to a new board of a UN agency on women's rights. Believe me, I desperately wish this was a joke. All of these nations are routine human rights abusers but the last two are real jewels when it comes to women.
According to the Global Gender Gap Index of 2010, Saudi Barbaria Arabia and Pakistan are the 6th and 3rd , respectively, worst nations in the world to be a woman. Saudi Arabia is the only nation where it is illegal for women to drive. In 2007 a 19 year old woman, brutally gang-raped by at least seven men, was later sentenced to 90 lashes for being in a car with her male friend when they were both attacked. When she went public with her story the courts increased her sentenced to 200 lashes and a six month prison sentence. Thankfully after international outcry the dictator (also known as the “King”) of Saudi Arabia pardoned this poor woman. In 2009 another woman, aged 23, was gang-rape and impregnated by her attackers. She was sentenced to one year in prison and 100 lashes, to be given after she delivers the baby, how merciful. Within a few weeks of that case, a 75 year old women was sentenced to 40 lashes, four months in prison and deportation. Why? Because she asked two men, one of whom she breastfed when he was a child, to help her carry her groceries to her home.
And of course, Pakistan. A nation where in 2008 report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan found that:
“[...] 80 percent of wives in rural Punjab feared violence from their husbands, and nearly 50 percent of wives in developed urban areas admitted that their husbands beat them. The HRCP reported 52 cases of women doused with kerosene and set afire. Women who tried to report abuse faced serious challenges. Police and judges were reluctant to take action in domestic violence cases, viewing them as family problems.”
Well isn't that good to know. Women are routinely abused and the police tell them to deal with it. Wonderful. Yet despite such institutionalized discrimination against half the population of each of these nations, no resolutions condemning them have been passed. Condemnation is reserved only for Israel and a few other nations if the Council finds time in its busy Israel-bashing schedule.
We have just passed the fifth anniversary of the UN Human Rights Council and so it is important to look back at what has been accomplished. For one, the Council has achieved officially condemning Israel 35 times out of about 50 resolutions that have condemned nations. That is 70 percent of condemnations for one state out of 192. I really do not like math but I need to point out that Israel is 445 times more likely to be condemned than any other UN member state.
This Council has made a point of excusing the most atrocious and blood thirsty regimes on this planet while actively singling out and and delegitimizing an open and free democracy, Israel. The UN Human Rights Council is an Inhuman Rights Council, because it has harbored the worst fugitives guilty of human rights abuses this world may have ever seen. In 2008, the Council spent millions of dollars, originally intended on foreign aid, to renovating its ceiling. It is now a collage of thousands of fake stalactites. What an appropriate design for an institution involved in the active attempts at taking this world back to the Stone Age, but before they do, they will probably pass a few more resolutions and indictments against Israel just to feel good.
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