August 13, 2006

U.N. Human Rights Council Exposed as Being No Improvement on Its Disgraced Predecessor

The U.N. Human Rights Council is the replacement for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which was disbanded for including many of the world's most brutal and oppressive regimes in its voting membership.

But flagrantly hypocritical actions taken in the past few days by the Human Rights Commission are showing that it is no improvement.

Last Wednesday a proposed resolution was presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council, condemning Israel, but not Hezbollah, for harm done to civilians in the Israel-Hezbollah war, even though Hezbollah had launched over 3,000 rockets intentionally targeting Israeli civilians.

Click here to see the full document. A few excerpts:

Afghanistan*, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt*, Guinea*, Indonesia, Iran
(Islamic Republic of)*, Jordan, Kuwait*, Kyrgyzstan*, Lebanon*, Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya*, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine*, Qatar*, Saudi Arabia,
Sudan*, Syrian Arab Republic* and Tunisia: draft resolution

The grave situation of human rights in Lebanon caused
by Israeli military operations

The Human Rights Council,

Reaffirming the purposes and principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations,

Reaffirming also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Vienna Declaration
and Programme of Action, and recalling the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the
Rights of the Child and other human rights instruments,

Acknowledging that peace and security, development and human rights are the pillars of
the United Nations system,

[.....]

Outraged at the continuing senseless killings by Israel, with impunity, of children,
women, the elderly and other civilians in Lebanon,

1. Strongly condemns the grave Israeli violations of human rights and breaches of
international humanitarian law in Lebanon;

2. Condemns the massive bombardment of Lebanese civilian populations, especially
the massacres in Qana, Marwaheen, Al Duweir, Al Bayadah, Al Qaa, Chiyah, Ghazieh and other
towns of Lebanon, causing thousands of deaths and injuries, mostly among children and women,
and the displacement of 1 million civilians, according to a preliminary assessment, thus
exacerbating the magnitude of the human suffering of the Lebanese;

3. Also condemns the Israeli bombardment of vital civilian infrastructure resulting in
extensive destruction and heavy damage to public and private properties;

4. Calls on Israel to abide, immediately and scrupulously, by its obligations under
human rights law, in particular the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and international
humanitarian law;

5. Also calls on Israel to immediately stop military operations against civilian
population and civilian objects resulting in death and destruction and serious violations of
human rights;

etc. etc. etc., with no mention made of Hezbollah, just as if Hezbollah hadn't already launched 3,000+ rockets with the purpose and intention of killing as many Israeli civilians as possible, and driving hundreds of thousands of Israelis from their homes.

My first thought on seeing this was that, of course these countries would submit such a resolution, but it seemed unlikely to me that such a biased resolution could be approved without making the HRC into a laughingstock. However, the HRC did in fact approve and adopt the resolution. From the HRC's web site:

Council Strongly Condemns Grave Israeli Violations of Human Rights in Lebanon

11 August 2006 -- The second special session of the Human Rights Council today strongly condemned the grave Israeli violations of human rights and breaches of international humanitarian law in Lebanon and decided to urgently establish and immediately dispatch a high-level inquiry commission to the region.

The HRC heard the arguments against the resolution, but chose to ignore them. The following is a statement made to the HRC by Mr. David Littman, Representative of the Association for World Education:

WORLD UNION FOR PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM

STATEMENT by Representative David G. LITTMAN. Friday, 11 August 2006
UN Human Rights Council (Geneva): 2nd Special Session (Lebanon)

Hezbollah's Calls for Genocide of Jews to be condemned at the UN HRC


Mr Chairman, on perusing proposed resolution L.1, we felt like the child in the Hans Christen Andersen story who recognised immediately the emperor's nakedness. Since 1992, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah has been Hassan Nasrallah. Our written statement, entitled: The root causes of ongoing death, destruction and desolation in Lebanon are Hezbollah gives detailed quotes from this man. It is available on the HRC extranet and as HRC document NGO/3. As further reading, we strongly recommend a remarkable article: "Hezbollah's Strategic Threat to Israel," by Patrick Devenny, published in the Winter 2006 issue of the Philadelphia Middle East Quarterly (available in the UN library).

The close links between Iran and Hezbollah and its leaders are well documented. Here is one:

"On 31 December 1999, before tens of thousands at an Al Quds Day rally in Teheran, Iranian supreme leader 'Ali Khamene'i declared: 'There is only one solution to the Middle East problem, namely the annihilation and destruction of the Jewish state." [Patrick Devenny, quoting the Daily Telegraph, 1 January 2000] This was reiterated by the Ayatollah's spiritual successor six years before President Ahmadinejed denied the Shoa and demanded that Israel be "wiped off the map." Nasrallah's remarks on that same day can be found in our written statement, together with his ravings three months later that "The Jews invented the legend of the Nazi atrocities…" Here is his proposal, made at a graduate ceremony in Beirut on 22 October 2002: "If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide." [Cf. Wikipedia, H.N.]

Yesterday, in our News Release we referred to our written appeal that the 2nd Special Session of the Human Rights Council consider our request to condemn the terrorist Islamic organization Hezbollah for its repeated calls for the genocide of all Jews. Such calls are in defiance of the 1948 Genocide Convention, whose Article III states clearly that "Direct and public incitement to commit genocide" shall be punishable under Article IV. This would also apply to the Iranian president's repeated calls and to those of Iranian spiritual leader Ali Khamene'i. Such threats are also forbidden under the 1945 UN Charter (Article II, point 4).

It is not enough for the Council to give a passing reference to Hezbollah, it must be condemned for the reasons we have indicated, and for the bloody border war with Israel that it initiated, now firing daily up to 200 missiles indiscriminately at civilian targets.. With its mentors, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Syria, it must take full responsibility for the inevitable destruction of Lebanon - and they, too.

The time for words and warnings is past, and the time for urgent action against the monstrous evil of terrorism is now. The democratic world must fight for its liberty, for, to quote a great leader [Churchill: 3/5/40]: "You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in a word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there can be no survival."

And I would add, Sir, no survival for liberty and democracy.

Thank you, Mr Chairman

By disregarding Mr. Littman's statement, and adopting this nakedly hypocritical resolution, the HRC has proven that it is not a credible organization; it is merely an instrument for the oppressors of the world to seek to control western nations such as the U.S. This is not surprising, since, out of the HRC's 47 members, only 7 are listed by Wikipedia as "Western European and Other":

* African States: Algeria, Cameroon, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia and Zambia.

* Asian States: Bahrain, Bangladesh, People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Sri Lanka.

* Eastern European States: Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation and Ukraine.

* Latin American & Caribbean States: Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

* Western European & Other States: Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The HRC further abandoned its claim to credibility by the following actions, reported by Wikipedia:

The new UN Human Rights Council voted on 30 June 2006 to make a review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every council session. The Council's special rapporteur on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is its only expert mandate with no year of expiry. The resolution, which was sponsored by Organization of the Islamic Conference, a block of Muslim countries, was passed by a vote of 29 to 12, with five abstentions. Israel, the United States and some human rights groups raised concerns about this revival of a practice of the UN's discredited former United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

The U.N. is a valuable forum for the nations of the world to meet and talk.

But as a source of guidelines for justice, or, as in this case, for protecting human rights, it has once again shown itself to have neither credibility nor legitimacy.