The UN Farce Continues

June 22, 2007
The Jewish Week
Original Source: http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editorials.php3

The United Nations claims to be a force for world peace and human rights, but its relentless, irrational bias against Israel just promotes conflict in the region while undercutting its ability to protect vulnerable populations around the world.

The international body was at it again this week, despite one positive development: the groundbreaking selection of an Israeli diplomat as head of the Committee on Program and Coordination, the first time an Israeli has chaired a UN committee.

But the UN’s role as a Mideast mischief maker was again on display when its Human Rights Council voted to make Israel a permanent part of the panel’s agenda.

That vaults Israel ahead of a rogue’s gallery of human rights abusers, including Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea and Sudan, which is sponsoring outright genocide, and it comes as part of a “reform” package for the Council that included a decision to end scrutiny of Cuba and Belarus — hardly paragons of human rights.

Equal treatment for all member nations, as mandated by the UN charter? Forget it: the UN leadership won’t stand up to those whose only agenda begins and ends with undermining Israel’s legitimacy.

The Human Rights Council is no better than the discredited Human Rights Commission it replaced, a body notorious for having some leading human rights abusers as members. Only Canada stood up for fairness in this week’s debate; the United States is not a member of the panel, and so did not get a vote.

As the American Jewish Committee noted, the hypocrisy of the UN action was particularly stunning because it occurred only days after Palestinians “turned their guns on each other in a public display of human rights abuse.”

Human rights are under assault in countless countries and genocide is raging in some, but the United Nations is more interested in flailing Israel than in peace and justice.

That is a problem for Israel, but it is a deep and continuing tragedy for human rights victims around the world.