Source: http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/41673.pdf http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/41673.pdf
Date: April 2, 2008

UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS: AN UNDERFUNDED INTERNATIONAL MANDATE—THE ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES

HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND OVERSIGHT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

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Ms. SILVERBERG. Thank you. If anything, I think you are being too charitable. I think the Human Rights Council is worse than its predecessor. In a number of respects, it is weaker. It eliminated the mandates for countries like Belarus and Cuba. It really gave those governments a victory, an undeserved. It has increased, if anything, the focus on Israel bashing. It has passed some weak resolutions with respect to Sudan, a few resolutions with respect to Burma, but hasn’t done anything on Belarus, or Zimbabwe, or North Korea, or many of the governments where there is a compelling human rights case, where the people of those countries are depending on the United Nations to take effective action.  As a result, we will be withholding our funding this year for the Human Rights Council, our U.S. share of the Human Rights Council, and also for Durban. The Durban conference, which you will recall was a horrifying example of anti-Semitism, which we walked out of, which has now become a U.N. body to be administered by the Human Rights Council. So we will be withholding the U.S. share of funding for both.

Mr. SMITH. Will we also not be participating?

Ms. SILVERBERG. We have not been participating in Durban. The prep com started in August, and starting in that, we and Israel both adopted the practice of sending a note taker. So we have a
junior officer sitting in the back of the room taking notes. We don’t have anyone appearing for the U.S. And the Secretary has said basically that she—we think there is no—absolutely no case to be made for participating in something that is going to be a repeat of Durban I. We don’t have any confidence that this will be any better than Durban I, and so we and the Israelis have taken, I think, a similar position on this.

Mr. SMITH. And I appreciate that.

And as you know, Madam Chair, the Canadian Government, to the best of my knowledge, has already taken the position of not participating, and I think the U.N. needs to know that Hate Fest
II will not be wittingly or unwittingly supported by the U.S. Government, I am very glad to hear about those actions and applaud the Bush administration for its leadership on anti-Semitism in general, its support for Israel and for its work on this—leading up to this, what could be another hate fest.

Ms. SILVERBERG. Thank you, Congressman. Just on that point, I think we have tried to applaud the Canadian Government’s efforts on a range of issues relating to the fair treatment of Israel at the United Nations.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you.

Ms. JACKSON LEE [presiding]. Let me thank our colleague for his instructive and certainly insightful questioning. Let me pick up where he left off and just have one brief question. And I know that you have been very diligent.  I do, on behalf of Chairman Delahunt for which I am acting, thank Jane Holl Lute, who was here on behalf of the United Nations for the briefing, and certainly, Secretary Silverberg, we are grateful for the time that you have spent here. I think it is important to explore Durban II, and what I would ask, and I think our colleague has made some instructive points, it is some years later, and I happen to have been at Durban I. And so not knowing where we might ultimately move to, I think the idea of human rights, that is what it should be about is human rights and certainly promoting rights and not denouncing others.  Did I hear you say that you were thinking about it or were not participating?  I didn’t get your correct comment.

Ms. SILVERBERG. The Durban prep com started in August. We are not participating, and I think there is no argument or suggestion or discussion of changing that policy underway in the administration. I think it is very unlikely that that policy would change.  Obviously if there was some dramatic change that absolutely assured us and our allies that this would not be a repeat of Durban I, we would take that seriously.  And I think in that respect, we very much share the views of Foreign Minister Livni, who made an announcement in this regard.  She said, ‘‘We will not participate in Durban unless it can be proven that it will not be a repeat of Durban I.’’ And I think that is, in essence, the Secretary’s view as well. So again, I don’t want to shut the door against any decisions by member states to make this a much better conference. We would welcome that. We just don’t see much evidence that that is where it is headed right now. And the leadership of some of the bad actors in the U.N., in the Durban conference, its association with the Human Rights Council, which, of course, is engaged in Israel bashing, also doesn’t give us lot of hope or optimism.
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