Today is International Jews Have No Rights Day

Today is the the UN's International Human Rights Day, which celebrates the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 59 years ago. How is the UN Doing when it comes to Human Rights? Well it supports governments which trample on human rights:

• Libya has just been elected to a two-year term on the United Nations Security Council;

• Zimbabwe sits on the Executive Board of the World Food Program (as does Sudan), even though millions in southern Africa are facing starvation due to the repressive policies of the Mugabe regime.

• North Korea, the poorest and least free nation on earth, sits on the U.N. Commission for Social Development;

• Syria is the vice president of the International Atomic Energy Agency General Committee, as well as holding the vice chair of the General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security;

• Iran, which has threatened to wipe Israel “off the map”, is the vice chairman of the UN Disarmament Commission;

• Burma is the vice president of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF);

• Sudan, with its extensive experience of backing mass killing in Darfur, sits on the Executive Committee of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees;

• The U.N.’s new Human Rights Council, boycotted by the United States, includes China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Cuba among its members;

• Tehran’s Deputy Minister of the Interior is a member of the Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

While giving credence to those who trample on human rights, the UN on the Human rights of Israel and Jewish all over the world. Just as the the Saudi Arabian Government is punishing that poor gang rape victim the UN attempts to punish Israel for being a victim of terrorism.

As Professor Gerald Steinberg describes it:

In much of the world, human rights, including the basic right to life, are given short shrift. The watchdogs, both in the United Nations itself, and in the accompanying network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that claim to promote morality and human rights, have become a major part of the problem. The words that expressed revulsion at the crimes committed against the Jewish people - "war crimes," "collective punishment," "indiscriminate mass killing," "violations of international law," and so on - have become weapons in the political war accompanying the terror campaigns against Israel.... The "reformed" United Nations Human Rights Council, which is charged with implementing the 1948 Declaration, is run by many of the worst violators of human rights. Its reports are written by "experts" who are obsessed with attacking Israel. In 2001, the UN held a conference in Durban attended by thousands of delegates, ostensibly to combat racism and xenophobia. Following a preparatory conference in Iran, led by Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson, this exercise became a vehicle for hatred and anti-Semitism.

The UN has its partners in crime, the various Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) which it depends on for much of its information:

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Paris-based FIDH (International Federation of Human Rights), and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva, routinely exploit these norms to pursue their own narrow ideological agendas. They participated in the NGO Forum of the 2001 Durban Conference, which was even worse than the diplomatic session. Like the UN, the NGO reports focus obsessively on Israel, and erase the context of terrorism in order to make false and frequent accusations. In 2002, an Amnesty official was quoted on the BBC confirming the false reports of a massacre in Jenin. In 2006, HRW published hundreds of pages attacking Israeli responses to Hizbullah attacks, and glossing over Hizbullah's aggression and use of human shields.

Similarly, Israel-based NGOs such as B'tselem, Bimkom, and Gisha, which claim to support universal human rights, use double standards to falsely and systematically portray Israeli responses to terror as violations of these moral norms.

Its time for the UN to Clean House:

Kenneth Roth, who has headed Human Rights Watch since 1993, and Irene Khan, who has controlled Amnesty International since 2001, have been in power for far too long. The donors and members of these organizations must also act responsibility to ensure that their support is not abused. Donors to NGOs are like directors of corporations who are accountable for transgressions committed by the officers of their firms.

The Ford Foundation, which was threatened with investigation by the US Congress after funding the most virulent participants in the 2001 Durban NGO Forum, adopted guidelines to prevent a repetition. Some donors to HRW and the New Israel Fund (which funds B'tselem, Machsom Watch, Gisha, Bimkom, Adalah, and others) have cut or conditioned their donations on an end to the double standards, and some members and officials of Amnesty have resigned in protest. These are all steps in the right direction.

But as long as the free nations such as the US, Britain, and France, refuse to demand change nothing will happen, the United States funds the biggest share of the UN but gets the least value. If we are truly serious about fighting terrorism, the UN and its NGOs must be cleaned out also.

For the full article by Professor Steinberg, click here From defenders to defamers