The U.N.'s vendetta against Israel is diverting attention from real human rights catastrophes

"The horrific rape and forced sterilization of Uyghur women imprisoned in Chinese labour and ‘re-education’ camps has been well-documented.

One woman who managed to flee to the United States told the New York Post that upon her arrival at a re-education centre, her hair was shorn, likely to sold as a wig, and her earrings were ripped out. ‘I was being treated like an animal.’ She was later subjected to gang rape and torture. Still, the world plans on participating in the Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the Taliban has banned long-distance road trips for women travelling alone. This latest decree was announced by the Taliban’s feudal-sounding ‘Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.’ The world has abandoned Afghanistan’s females as girls are barred from secondary schools and most women have been banned from working. Where is the international outrage from progressives and feminists?

In Nigeria, seven people were killed and dozens were abducted on Christmas Day after jihadists demanded the closure of churches. As many as 15 Christian communities were attacked by those intent on driving out the minority community. Why is the world silent when it comes to the persecution of Christian communities in the Middle East and Africa? Sadly, none of these human rights issues or countless others will be condemned or investigated by the United Nations. The plights of the Uyghurs, Afghanistan’s women, and Christians in Nigeria will be relegated to the margin of international attention. Why? Because the UN’s relentless obsession with dismantling the Jewish State is intentionally designed to divert attention from legitimate human rights catastrophes on our planet.

Just before Christmas, it became painfully clear that the UN’s General Assembly will continue to expend an outrageous amount of money (US$5 million) and human resources (24 staff) to investigate the only Jewish and democratic nation on Earth — the State of Israel — for alleged war crimes. Even though the country makes up just 0.11 per cent of the global population and despite its insignificant land mass (Canada is 455 times bigger), it continues to be subjected to disproportional pile-on by a majority of nations in the 193-member general assembly.

Thankfully the United States is Israel’s guardian angel at the UN, as eloquently pointed out by Mark Regev, a former senior adviser to Israel’s prime minister. ‘In facing this undisguised institutionalized prejudice, Israel has a crucial friend in the United States. For it is only America that has the motivation and capability to stand up to UN bigotry,’ he wrote recently in the Jerusalem Post.

In the past two weeks, dozens of articles have blasted the latest UN attack. ‘Once Again, the UN Treats Israel Like the Most Evil Country on Earth,’ wrote the Jewish Journal. ’The UN’s Israel Libel Machine Expands,’ said an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. ’UN Inquiry Comes with New Independent Façade, Same Israel Bias,’ declared the Cleveland Jewish News.

The latest salvo launched by the UN in its vendetta against Israel is an open-ended investigation into alleged war crimes in last May’s war with Hamas. The so-called investigation was instigated by the UN’s infamous Human Rights Council, whose anti-Semitic bias against Israel is so pervasive, it is the only country included on its permanent agenda in every session. Despite the fact that the UNHRC is effectively run by dictatorships whose human rights records are despicable, the Geneva-based organization pressed the UN to approve a hefty budget to investigate Israel for defending itself against the 4,600 rockets launched by Hamas at its cities.

Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by most Western nations. Prof. Anne Bayefsky of The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs recently wrote, ‘The Human Rights Council resolution failed to refer to Hamas at all. It did not mention — let alone condemn — the launch of thousands of rockets by Hamas into Israel. Indeed, the civilian population was omitted from the resolution.’ In an editorial, The Wall Street Journal said, ‘Israel’s defence of its civilians was lawful, targeted and restrained, but the UN wants to use the war as a pretext to indict Israel for crimes, real or imagined.’

Writing for Israel National News, Caroline Glick called the UN investigation an ‘inquisition’ and said it was ‘run by outspoken haters of Israel with long records of demonizing the State of Israel and its people.’ Time erases memory but Glick eloquently reminded us that in 2005, under pressure from the Bush administration, then UN secretary-general Kofi Annan disbanded the UN Human Rights Commission because it ‘was endemically anti-Semitic.’ Just one year later, the UN Human Rights Council was formed and ‘its members and UN staff,’ says Glick, ‘wasted no time making clear that they intended for the new council to be even more anti-Semitic than its predecessor was.’

No such open-ended investigation is believed to have been instigated against any other UN member. The double-standards are simply too abhorrent to contemplate in this horrendous New Year’s gift handed down not only to Israel, but to the entire human rights community. In other words, while Syria’s Bashar al-Assad has literally gotten away with the deaths of more than 350,000 of his own citizens, many of whom were gassed, Israel is being hung on the edge of a cliff for defending itself against a deadly terrorist group. If rockets rained down on your home, would you not expect your government to defend you and your family?

As a Canadian, more than anything in the world, I want the promise of the United Nations to work. I want the Universal Declaration for Human Rights to be fairly and equally applied by all nations, especially by the bloc of 50 Arab nations that tend to vote against Israel. I fear the UN will continue diminishing its raison d’être and ultimately the universality of human rights if Israel continues to be held to a higher standard than any other nation. At its peril, the UN body will continue ignoring the atrocious state-sponsored killings in Myanmar, the unlawful incarceration of dissidents in Iran’s Evin Prison, and the ongoing clampdowns on freedom in China and Russia.

The 17 UN resolutions targeting Israel in 2020 show an unhealthy fixation with the Jewish State. It is a form of abuse, harassment, and frankly, anti-Semitism. A restructuring of the UN needs to happen now alongside the Abraham Accords, which have offered the Middle East a new path toward peace. The Accords’ success stands in contrast to the debilitating lack of reality seen in the halls of the United Nations.

As in all things in life, for every success there are those who will strive to tear you down. Israel has matured, blossomed and become a global economic and scientific force. The UN ought to get with the program."