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Resources updated between Monday, November 20, 2006 and Sunday, November 26, 2006

November 24, 2006

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

On Tuesday, November 21, 2006 the New York Times called the "reformed" UN Human Rights Council "a discredit to the United Nations" and commented "...the Human Rights Council [was] born earlier this year of a weak-kneed compromise from which the United States stood honorably apart."

By contrast, on April 6, 2006 Congressman Tom Lantos, soon to become the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, "expressed outrage at the Bush Administration decision...not [to] seek a seat on the United Nations' new Human Rights Council" because, he claimed, "the new Human Rights Council...is a clear improvement over the existing commission...".

Now Congressman Lantos is faced with the following incontrovertible record - predicted with precision by Ambassador John Bolton. Thirty percent of all the UN Human Rights Commission resolutions adopted over a forty-year period and critical of a specific states' human rights record were directed at Israel alone. In comparison, in five sessions since it first met in June of this year, the Council has directed one hundred percent of its human rights resolutions condemning a specific state towards Israel.

Will Chairman Lantos continue to blame America for UN-driven anti-Zionism and anti-semitism and refuse to recognize hate when it stares him in the face? Or will he encourage the necessary steps to distance the United States from the UN's lead human rights agency now so obviously foreign to everything we (and Congressman Lantos) hold dear?

Anne Bayefsky

On Tuesday, November 21, 2006 the New York Times called the "reformed" UN Human Rights Council "a discredit to the United Nations" and commented "...the Human Rights Council [was] born earlier this year of a weak-kneed compromise from which the United States stood honorably apart."

By contrast, on April 6, 2006 Congressman Tom Lantos, soon to become the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, "expressed outrage at the Bush Administration decision...not [to] seek a seat on the United Nations' new Human Rights Council" because, he claimed, "the new Human Rights Council...is a clear improvement over the existing commission...".

Now Congressman Lantos is faced with the following incontrovertible record - predicted with precision by Ambassador John Bolton. Thirty percent of all the UN Human Rights Commission resolutions adopted over a forty-year period and critical of a specific states' human rights record were directed at Israel alone. In comparison, in five sessions since it first met in June of this year, the Council has directed one hundred percent of its human rights resolutions condemning a specific state towards Israel.

Will Chairman Lantos continue to blame America for UN-driven anti-Zionism and anti-semitism and refuse to recognize hate when it stares him in the face? Or will he encourage the necessary steps to distance the United States from the UN's lead human rights agency now so obviously foreign to everything we (and Congressman Lantos) hold dear?

The UN and the Credibility of Tom Lantos Editor's Note

November 21, 2006

Monday, November 20, 2006

On November 17, 2006 the UN General Assembly "reconvened" its "Tenth" Emergency Session to condemn Israel. The Tenth Session began in 1997and has now been reconvened 14 times. No other emergency session of the General Assembly has occurred on any other subject in these ten years - not even on Darfur, Sudan with 2.5 million people displaced and over 400,000 dead. And once again, the General Assembly adopted another resolution condemning Israel without mentioning Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran or Syria, which are openly acting to bring about Israel's annihilation. Just seven of the UN member states voted against the resolution – the United States, Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, and Palau. The European Union voted in favor.

In the midst of this display of visceral hatred of the Jewish state and the Jewish people, inimical to everything the UN was created to oppose, came a singularly powerful voice for reason, dignity and honesty – Ambassador John Bolton. The crowd assembled in the General Assembly hall was hostile to the man and to the country he represents. But Ambassador Bolton took the podium and spoke with no rancor and no double-talk. Here is part of what he said: "This problem of anti-Israel...is endemic to the culture of the United Nations. It is a decades-old, systemic problem that transcends the whole panoply of UN organizations and agencies...The consequences of this persistent, unconstructive, biased approach are painfully clear - not one single Palestinian is helped and the United Nations continues to be discredited by its inability to confront...the Israel-Palestinian conflict in a serious, responsible manner."

Nobody clapped – in contrast to the applause which the same crowd had lavished on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez when he referred to President Bush this past September as the devil. John Bolton, however, wasn't looking for accolades. In a room where the US has one vote among 192 states, he simply spoke truth to power. "We believe that the United Nations is ill served when its members seek to transform the organization into a forum that is little more than a self-serving and polemical attack against Israel or the United States."

The strength of his conviction and the veracity of his message reverberated around the room. Ambassador Bolton used his role to explain what America stands for and what it does not. This is exactly what makes an ambassador great, and United States UN Ambassador Bolton one of the greatest.

Anne Bayefsky

In a direct challenge to free societies everywhere, a report from the UN-sponsored Alliance of Civilizations (an oxymoron if there ever was one) was released this week. What do the members of the "high level group" who drafted the report, such as former Iranian President Khatami, have to say about the needs of civilization? Khatami's expertise on the subject presumably comes from his reign as president of the leading state sponsor of terrorism. His personal presidential experience, for instance, includes the pursuit of nuclear weapons, the biggest crackdown on the Iranian media since the Iranian revolution, and rounding up and imprisoning Jews on trumped-up charges of spying.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the report's recommendations begin with the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and the claim that this is the leading situation on earth today that "colors cross-cultural and political relations among...faiths." And why the conflict? "Israel's continuing occupation of Palestinian and other Arab territories and the unresolved status of Jerusalem...are primary causes of resentment and anger in the Muslim world toward Western nations." Not, mind you, the rejection of the mere existence of a Jewish state by its Muslim and Arab neighbors for over half a century. In other words, their recipe for improving cross-cultural and political relations is to fix the Jewish problem.

Another day, another UN report, irrelevant for anyone seriously interested in tolerance and co-existence.

Why John Bolton deserves to be US-UN Ambassador Editor's Note

This successful motion to stifle the debate on human rights in Uzbekistan in the Third Committee of the General Assembly was met with widespread applause upon adoption. This is how the UN majority responds to the vast numbers of human rights violations across the globe - by silencing the victims.

Voting record on the no-action motion on the Draft resolution on the Situation of human rights in Uzbekistan Development