Light years between the UN “human rights” machinery and genuine human rights

"Thank you, Mr. President. Let the world note: that in a session purportedly on Palestinian human rights, the government of Syria objected to us mentioning the 1,800 Palestinians [whom] they starved and murdered."
Hillel Neuer, UN Watch, UN Human Rights council July 23 Emergency Session on Gaza

UNHRC Photo: Reuters

Current membership of the UN Human Rights Council: Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Morocco, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, representing African states: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, representing Latin American and Caribbean states: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Maldives, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Viet Nam, representing Asia-Pacific States; Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America representing Western Europe and other states: Czech Republic, Estonia, Montenegro, Romania, Russian Federation, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia representing Eastern European states.

UN Photo/Violaine Martin

Name one of those states who would not do anything in their power to forcefully react in self-protection of their geography and their population in the event that a neighbour, [known in international circles as a terrorist group], sought their annihilation and went to it by sending rockets in a perpetual volley across their border, destroying property, threatening peoples' lives, impacting on peoples' sense of security, and immune to all pleas to cease and desist. Yet from among all those 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council one state only refused to condemn one tiny nation from taking steps to disarm its terrorist neighbour: The United States of America.

African, Latin American, Asian, European countries of the world all authorized their delegates to condemn Israel for taking the very same action they would themselves commit to, in protecting themselves from ongoing assaults. Yet none of them live in a geography where they are surrounded by the malign presence of an ethnic, religious social network of neighbouring countries all of whom conspired to destroy them. Nor did they ever have to, single-handedly, fend off the combined armies of these neighbours.

Yet they stand in condemnation not of the terrorist entity which rules a small neighbouring enclave cheered on and funded by the surrounding countries whose enmity for Israel is profoundly engrained, but of the State of Israel itself, a beacon of hope and haven for the world's Jews, for fighting back against a religiously aggressive tyrant that imposes harsh conditions on the people it claims to defend, while conspiring to use them as a public relations tool to further diminish an already-shrinking reputation through slander, of a country defending its own.

Does it stand to any kind of reason that the world would stand by while a terrorized, besieged, embattled country that steadfastly refuses to succumb to fear and dread and instead gathers itself and its human and mechanical resources to prolong the lives and hopes of its people, without extending admiration and support for their pluck and courage against a sinister cult of death whose single purpose is to destroy it? Too much to ask in a world that declares itself most definitely not anti-Semitic but critical of Israel to an unfathomable degree other than a distaste for Jews.

Palestinian ambassador to the UN Ibrahim Khraishi himself stated on Palestinian TV that "each and every" Palestinian missile launched out of Gaza by Islamic Jihad and Hamas against Israeli civilians constitutes "a crime against humanity". Characterizing Israel's actions in response to the ongoing bombardments that "followed the legal procedure", since "the Israelis warned them to evacuate their homes before the bombardment". Still, "as for the missiles launched from our side, we never warn anyone about where these missiles are about to fall or about the operations we carry out."

That admission obviously fell on disinterested ears in the hallowed chambers of the UN Security Council and the UN Human Rights commission. Nor are they particularly interested in intervening, condemning or even noticing the atrocities that take place in Turkey, and Libya, when a new enlightened president is elected in Iran and more people than ever are hanged; when women and children in Afghanistan are bombed, and South Sudan massacred Darfurians, while jihadist terror squads cause bloodshed in Pakistan and tens of thousands of Iraqis are slaughtered by terrorists. Then it is business as usual. Having something to do, perhaps, with the persuasive presence of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and they really know something about cooperation....

Egypt, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian delegations all protested when Hillel Neuer made his speech as an intervenor at the Session on Gaza that condemned Israel. When Mr. Neuer stated: "If those who refuse to speak out for Palestinians -- 1,800 Palestinians, if not more -- who were starved to death, murdered, by [President Bashar] Assad in Syria, but you only cry out when Israel can be blamed, then you are not pro human rights, you are only anti-Israel....".

And so it is most certainly so. Mendacious hypocrisy of the first order prevails. Israel is becoming quite accustomed to it. As are the world's Jews. Not comfortable with it, mind, just expecting it and never, in that respect, 'disappointed'.