Selective on Rights

January 13, 2009
The Globe and Mail
Original Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090112.weIsrael13/BNStory/specialComment/home

In a world of cruelty and barbarism, the United Nations Human Rights Council and its predecessor organization have long opted to make one small democracy, Israel, their major obsession. On Monday the council lived up to its reputation for bias with its overwrought condemnation of Israel's “grave violations” in Gaza while soft-pedalling the role of Hamas in precipitating the crisis with rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.
Canada was the only one of the 47 member countries to vote against the unbalanced resolution. Canada's was a diplomatically brave, and correct vote, at odds with the abstentions of other Western countries that were unwilling to defend outright the principle of fairness, to say nothing of the role of the Arab, African, Asian and Latin American countries, including such human-rights abusers as China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia (all, shamefully, members of the council) in singling out Israel for condemnation.
The UN Human Rights Council could have fulfilled its global responsibility for the protection of human rights and played a meaningful role in efforts to end the fighting in Gaza. It could have demanded all parties in the conflict immediately cease unlawful attacks against civilians in Gaza who have been caught up in the fighting, both victims of attacks by the Israeli Defence Forces and victims of Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups that use civilians as human shields. It could have given serious attention to the rocket attacks that have terrorized Israeli civilians not just in recent weeks but for years. Instead, the council discredited its important mandate by picking and choosing whose human rights to protect.
True to its partiality, the council then established an independent investigation of – using its words – “all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying power against the Palestinian people.” This investigation too, then, like the main resolution, is tainted, its mandate limited to Israeli violations, while Hamas terrorists are off the hook, free to kill again. 
Monday's vote by the United Nations Human Rights Council is unworthy of its noble mandate to strengthen the promotion and protection of human rights, and Canada was right to oppose it.