US weighs UN funding cuts after Palestinians join agencies

Via StraitsTimes:

The U.S. is considering whether to cut funding to UN agencies after the Palestinians joined three UN organizations last week, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. The PA joined the trade development organization UNCTAD, the industrial development agency UNIDO, and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). U.S. legislation bars funding for UN agencies or affiliates that grant membership to the PA. "It has been the consistent position of the United States that efforts by the Palestinians to join international organizations are premature and counterproductive," a U.S. official said. The U.S. withdrew some funding for UNESCO when the Palestinians joined in 2011.

New Report Gives UN Rights Chief Mixed Reviews on Confronting Rights Violators

A performance evaluation on Louise Arbour. It ain't pretty. Excerpted from UN Watch:

A new study on Louise Arbour's performance as UN rights chief gives her mixed reviews on confronting violators, and urges her replacement, Navanethem Pillay, to adopt a stronger approach toward UN heavyweights such as China, Russia and Egypt. The Right to Name and Shame, a 48-page report by UN Watch, a human rights NGO in Geneva that monitors the United Nations, was presented today at the inaugural meeting of the UN Human Rights Council's expert advisors. The report is the first to scrutinize the tenure of a UN high commissioner for human rights. Click Here for Full Report: "The Right to Name and Shame"

On the Arab-Israel conflict, while Arbour’s approach could not be compared to that of the Arab-dominated Human Rights Council, whose resolutions have justified Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism, her statements were disproportionately weighted against Israel. Arbour rarely if ever criticized Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria or other countries in the Middle East with highly problematic records.

Iran Becomes Member of Durban II Inner Drafting Circle

EYEontheUN reports that Iran has become a member of the "Group of Friends of the Chair", an informal group of states charged with taking the first steps towards producing a Durban II manifesto. Anne Bayefsky, Editor of EYEontheUN says: "the travesty of Durban II as a vehicle for getting serious about combating racism is more obvious than ever, as a regime whose President is a Holocaust-denier acquires an important role in shaping the result."

Durban II - known formally as the UN Durban Review Conference - will be held next April in Geneva. It is charged with implementing the notorious 2001 Durban Declaration which found Israel guilty of racism and gave no other country even a passing mention.

The role of his "friends" is described by Armenian Chairman Zohrab Mnatsakanian as "engaging in brainstorming and consolidating inputs." Other members of the behind-the-scenes group are Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Egypt. Bayefsky adds, "one shudders to imagine the brainstorming among such human rights paragons."

The "friends of the Chair" have already met twice in July 2008 and intend to meet again shortly.

By creating this informal group, UN states have deliberately created a forum which excludes NGOs for the first time from the Durban II process.

The first contribution of the "Group of Friends" will be filed at the next stage of the process, the 'Intersessional Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group' session to be held in Geneva September 1-5, 2008.

"The authority figures surrounding Durban II remind us once again that this forum is an instrument serving those states bent on defeating human rights not protecting them," said Bayefsky.

Backstabbers at the UN

From UN Peacekeepers Salute Hizbullah Terrorists:

Israel is calling for removal of two UN soldiers from Lebanon after photographs surfaced of the soldiers saluting the coffins of Hizbullah terrorists during a prisoner exchange last week. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, said he was "shocked and horrified" by the photograph and that it was time for the saluting soldiers to go. "I think they should be recalled and be sent back to whichever country they came from....They are there as peacekeepers with a very clear mandate to disarm Hizbullah - they're not there to honor terrorists," he said.

UN Human Rights Council: Petition Against UN Incitement to Terrorism

More evidence of human rights frauds as of June 16, 2008:

www.EYEontheUN.org

Petition Presented Against UN Incitement to Terrorism

A UN report to the Human Rights Council by Special Rapporteur John Dugard disregards international legal standards against terrorism and excuses the killing of innocents.

We call upon the United Nations to withdraw this discreditable report from circulation.

Watch the video here.

UN Declares Islamic Shari'a Taboo

This is stunning and quite good news. This article excerpted below is evidence of the United Nations' redirection away from its typical penchant to lean towards Muslimania. This is good for all of us, for all of civilization. From UN Watch:

From now on, all references to human rights violations related to Islamic Shar’ia law are prohibited in the chamber of the UN Human Rights Council. So ruled council president Doru Costea after a dramatic debate in the recently concluded June session.

It all started when veteran rights activist David Littman -- undaunted by the repressive regimes who only last month sought to expel him from the UN -- tried to deliver a speech on violence against women and what Islamic scholars can do to prevent it.

Egypt's Amr Roshdy Hassan repeatedly interrupted, aggressively challenging the council president: “Regardless of the result of the vote — I couldn’t care less if I will win or lose this vote — my point is that Islam will not be crucified in this council!”

The president ultimately gave in, declaring:

“Statements should refrain from making judgments or evaluations of a particular
religion. . . I can promise that at the next evaluation of a religious creed,
law, or document, I will interrupt the speaker and we’ll go on to the next one.”

The new ruling follows an Islamic-sponsored text adopted by the council in March that turned its mandate on freedom of expression upside down. Instead of investigating the actions of governments in order to protect individual freedom, the expert is now charged with investigating individuals -- those who "abuse" their freedom of speech through religious or racial discrimination, i.e., by saying anything deemed offensive to Islamic sensibilities. Everyone in the world is now potentially subject to the UN's new speech control.

What does all of this signify?

An iron curtain has descended across the world's highest human rights body. Behind that line lie all the human rights violations committed in the name of a certain religion, about which no one dare speak: suicide terror attacks, honor killings, female genital mutilation, forced child marriage, violence against gays, stonings, state censorship of free speech, jailing of bloggers, prohibitions against freedom of religion, and much, much more.

UN officials, diplomats and even major human rights figures have been afraid to take on this new regime, which now exercises an almost total control over the Human Rights Council, as well as increasing measures of influence over other forums of world opinion.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil," said Edmund Burke, "is that good men do nothing."

Would that more people showed the courage of Mr. Littman.

Click here for full transcript of UN debate

9/11 Conspiracy Theorist Begins Post as UN Expert on "Palestine"

Today the UN Human Rights Council welcomed Richard Falk as the new expert to oversee its standing investigation into "Israel's violations of the principles and bases of international law."

When UN Watch took the floor to ask Falk to explain his support for 9/11 conspiracy theories, as documented by the Times of London, Egypt made a failed bid to delete the question from the record.

See full video and text below.

Click for video

UN Human Rights Council, 8th Session

Agenda Item 7: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories"

Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk

UN Watch Statement
Delivered by Hillel Neuer, June 16, 2008

Thank you, Mr. President.

Professor Falk, we appreciate this opportunity to ask you questions.

As we gather to address the Middle East, let us all commit to a future where every child, Palestinian and Israeli alike, will see the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights become reality.

With this goal in mind, Professor Falk, let us turn to the report that you presented today, HRC 7/17.

One of the report’s exceptional features is its sharp criticism of the United Nations itself. Leading UN institutions and officials are accused of being insufficiently supportive of the Palestinians, of failing to acknowledge international law, which, according to paragraph 54, “brings the very commitment of the United Nations to human rights into question.”

The report criticizes the United Nations role in the Quartet and the Road Map for Peace. It criticizes the United Nations Security Council and one of its permanent members in particular. It criticizes the United Nations Secretary-General, suggesting, in paragraph 53, that he may be refusing to fulfill legal obligations out of political reasons.

Professor Falk, my first question to you is by what methodology does one challenge some UN decisions, while accepting others uncritically?

Why are there no questions about today’s Agenda Item targeting Israel, as expressed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on 20 June 2007, and I quote: “The Secretary-General is disappointed at the Council’s decision to single out only one specific regional item given the range and scope of allegations of Human Rights violations throughout the world.”

Finally, in light of the concerns expressed by the President of this Council -- in the newspaper Le Temps and elsewhere -- about the credibility of this council on the Middle East, could you tell us what credibility you expect your reports to have, when leading newspapers such as The Times of London are commenting on your support for the 9/11 conspiracy theories of David Ray Griffin, who argues, and I quote from the Times article of April 15th, “that no plane hit the Pentagon,” and that “the World Trade Center was brought down by a controlled demolition”?

Thank you, Mr. President.

Human Rights Council President Doru Costea quietly declined to grant Egypt’s request to censor UN Watch's question from the record.For more on Richard Falk, see this.

Gillerman to UN: Israel Will Defend Itself

By equating the death of innocent Israeli Amnon Rosenberg from a barbaric Hamas attack with the death of a palestinian girl from an Israeli defensive measure, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sanctions palestinian violence. To equate aggression with defense is immoral. From Gillerman to UN: Israel Will Defend Itself:

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, launched a formal complaint to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security Council over the Palestinian mortar shell barrage that killed Amnon Rosenberg. "Excellency, the killing of an Israeli civilian this morning and the attack on Nahal Oz yesterday underscore the malicious and murderous intentions of Hamas. It is a terrorist organization that has no compassion or concern for civilians, neither Israeli nor Palestinian. Hamas' commitment to violence and disregard for the Palestinian people are reminders that it has no interest in peace nor is it suited for engagement with the international community," wrote Gillerman.

"Israel will not stand idly by as its citizens are subjected to indiscriminate and lethal rocket attacks. Israel will defend itself, as any other nation would, in accordance with its inherent right under article 51 of the United Nations Charter."

Egyptian's Bid for UN Post in Doubt After Call to Burn Israeli Books

The United Nations' continues to guarantee that it remains a cesspool of Muslim ethnocentrism and Jew hatred. Via NY Sun:

UN diplomats said Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni's candidacy to become director-general of UNESCO may now be doomed, after he told the Egyptian parliament that if any Israeli books were found in Egyptian libraries, he would burn them.

Such a statement is "couched in the language and actions of Nazi 'Minister of Culture' Josef Goebbels," the director for international relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Shimon Samuels, said in a letter.

"An aspirant book-burner, who threatens to wield culture as a weapon, cannot head the intellectual arm of the United Nations."

The Disease of Conceit

The article snippet below from Reuters has got to be one of the most hypocritical and outrageous conceited attempts by the cesspool known as the United Nations to come across my screen in recent days. Please note the alarming precedent and foreshadow of the United Nation's intention to deny the United States its sovereignty. Hat tip to BabbaZee at THE OUTRAGED SPLEEN OF ZION:

GENEVA (Reuters) - A special U.N. human rights investigator will visit the United States this month to probe racism, an issue that has forced its way into the race to secure the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. The United Nations said Doudou Diene would meet federal and local officials, as well as lawmakers and judicial authorities during the May 19-June 6 visit.

"The special rapporteur will...gather first-hand information on issues related to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance," a U.N. statement said on Friday. His three-week visit, at U.S. government invitation, will cover eight cities -- Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Race has become a central issue in the U.S. election cycle because Sen. Barack Obama , the frontrunner in the battle for the Democratic nomination battle, stands to become the country's first African American president.

Israel: UNIFIL Is Hiding Information about Hizbullah from Security Council

The United Nations is once again giving Muslims a free pass to intimidate, coerce, and break the rules of law. Via Israel: UNIFIL Is Hiding Information about Hizbullah from Security Council:

UNIFIL is intentionally concealing information about Hizbullah activities south of the Litani River in Lebanon to avoid conflict with the group, senior sources in Jerusalem have said. In the last six months there have been at least four cases in which UNIFIL soldiers identified armed Hizbullah operatives, but did nothing and did not submit full reports on the incidents to the UN Security Council.

A new report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with regard to Security Council Resolution 1559 briefly mentioned an incident at the beginning of March in which UNIFIL soldiers encountered unidentified armed men, and included no additional details. The incident described in the report had actually been a clash between UNIFIL and armed Hizbullah activists, driving a truck full of explosives, who threatened the Italian UNIFIL battalion with weapons. Instead of using force as required by their mandate, the UN soldiers abandoned the site. A diplomatic source at the UN said senior officials in UNIFIL and in the UN Secretariat brought heavy pressure to bear to have the incident erased from the report or at least to blur it.

Durban II Videos: A conference to redefine "antisemitism"

Durban II is the next UN "anti-racism" conference - certain to be a global platform for antisemitism and the demonization of Israel. Planning for the 2009 hatefest is already underway.

Here are two more videos from Eye On The UN. The first is of the Libyan Chairperson, Najat Al-Hajjaji, silencing criticism of efforts to redefine antisemitism at Durban II. Click here to watch video.

The next video is of the Algerian representative; watch as he (inadvertently) confirms the attempt to redefine antisemitism at Durban II. Click here to watch video.

Human Rights Actions by the United Nations

January 1, 2007 - December 31, 2007




Top Five Countries Subject to Most UN Condemnation for Human Rights Violations in 2007

1. Israel (criticized by the UN twice as many times as its nearest competitor)

2. Sudan

3. Myanmar

4 (tied). United States of America and Democratic Republic of the Congo

-->> more

Anti-Israel Resolutions at the HRC

Below is the updated list of one-sided resolutions against Israel adopted by the UN Human Rights Council since its creation in June 2006. The council was designed as an improvement over the discredited Commission on Human Rights, but has tragically repeated and even intensified the same biases.

The council has criticized Israel on 19 separate occasions, in resolutions that grant effective impunity to Hamas, Hezbollah and their state sponsors. Obsessed with condemning Israel, the Council in its first year failed to condemn human rights violations occurring in any of the world’s 191 other countries. In its second year, the Council finally criticized one other country when it “deplored” the situation in Burma, but only after it censored out initial language containing the word “condemn.”

The Council’s fixation with Israel is not limited to resolutions. Israel is the only country listed on the Council’s permanent agenda (Item 7).

Moreover, Israel is the only country subjected to an investigatory mandate that examines the actions of only one side, presumes those actions to be violations, and which is not subject to regular review.

To see the Council's resolutions during its first year (2006-2007), click here

To see the Council's resolutions during its second year (2007-2008), click here

Cross-posted on Stop Raping Israel

Take Action: Urge Swiss to Cancel UN Nomination of Jean Ziegler

Another human rights fraud is about to be elected to the UN Human Rights Council. Via UN Watch:

Stop Jean Ziegler Before March 26, 2008

Who is Jean Ziegler?

This supporter of dictators is assured election to the UN Human Rights Council -- unless Switzerland is persuaded to withdraw his nomination.

First, watch this compelling video.

UN Watch has learned that on next Wednesday, March 26, 2008, the United Nations is expected to elect Jean Ziegler—founder of the "Muammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize"—as one of only three Western advisory experts on the Human Rights Council. As the darling of the council's ruling Arab and Third World blocs, Ziegler's election is virtually assured.

Unless his sponsor changes course.

Ziegler enjoys close ties with Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, and according to a report this week from the Human Rights Tribune, Swiss diplomats are engaged in an intense lobbying and vote-trading campaign to elect Ziegler, whom they nominated in November. Only the Swiss withdrawal of their nomination will prevent Ziegler from being elected.

Click Here to Take Action.

New video documents how Jean Ziegler served as an apologist for repressive rulers like Colonel Khaddafi and Fidel Castro.

Analysis:

Astonishing to believe — but at the UN, too often, not too astonishing for it not to happen. Jean Ziegler has a long history of supporting unsavory rulers and regimes, including some of the world's worst human rights violators. As UN hunger expert for the past 7 years, he ignored regions with the most severe food crises, and instead devoted his time to anti-Western polemics.

• Apologist for some of the worst human rights criminals of our time.
• After Fidel Castro imprisoned 70 journalists, Ziegler proclaimed "total support for the Cuban revolution." During an official visit to the Communist island in October, Ziegler hailed the virtues of Castro regime even while he refused to meet Cuban dissidents.
• "...Ziegler went to Hanoi during the '80s, where he heaped praise upon General Vo Nguyen Giap and Ho Chi Minh. Indeed, it would be hard to find an intellectual more stained by collaboration with evil regimes in the 20th century than Mr. Ziegler ." (Jan Marejko, "Che Guevara Lives at the UN," August 2002.)
• Served Ethiopian dictator Mengistu — who used famine as a weapon to kill thousands — by helping draft one-party constitution.
• Abused UN food mandate. As UN special rapporteur on the right to food for the past seven years, Mr. Ziegler ignored many of the world’s most starving populations, instead focusing attention on his personal political agenda. As documented in the UN Watch report “Blind to Burundi,” during 2000 to 2004, Mr. Ziegler systematically failed to speak out for numerous food emergencies, in Burundi, the Central African Republic, Sierra Leone and elsewhere.
• In 2002 he praised the Zimbabwean dictator, saying, “Mugabe has history and morality with him.” He paid visits to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Kim Il-Sung in North Korea.
• In 2006, during an interview in Lebanon, Mr. Ziegler said, “I refuse to describe Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. It is a national resistance movement. I can understand Hezbollah when they kidnap soldiers...”

In 1989, four months after Libyan bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Jean Ziegler establishes "Khaddafi Human Rights Prize," in collaboration with Libyan dictator.

In 2002, prize is awarded to French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy—and to Jean Ziegler himself. Ziegler goes to Libya to attend ceremony, but claims he went for "unspecified UN business."

Click here to take action now.

UN Rights Council Condemns Israel

More depravity from the Muslim bloodsuckers at the UN. From UN Rights Council Condemns Israel:

The UN Human Rights Council on Thursday approved a resolution sponsored by Pakistan and Muslim countries condemning Israel's offensive in Gaza. Israel launched the offensive last week in response to Palestinian militants barraging southern Israel with rockets.

Holocaust Exhibition Opens at UN Headquarters

From Holocaust Exhibition Opens at UN Headquarters:

A permanent exhibition depicting saviors of Holocaust victims opened on Jan. 30 at the UN headquarters in New York, part of a week of events around the anniversary of the Jan. 27, 1945, liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, which is designated as a Holocaust memorial day around the world. "The Holocaust message of 'never again' must be delivered most poignantly to Iran," said Israel's minister of communications, Ariel Atias. "No country, no people would allow its own destruction, and President Ahmadinejad must realize that the world does not silently agree with him."

20 Years of Research Reveals: Jerusalem Belongs to Jews

From IsraelNN.com ( links inserted by Smooth Stone) :

Jacques Gauthier, a non-Jewish Canadian lawyer who spent 20 years researching the legal status of Jerusalem, has concluded: "Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, by international law."

Gauthier has written a doctoral dissertation on the topic of Jerusalem and its legal history, based on international treaties and resolutions of the past 90 years. The dissertation runs some 1,300 pages, with 3,000 footnotes. Gauthier had to present his thesis to a world-famous Jewish historian and two leading international lawyers - the Jewish one of whom has represented the Palestinian Authority on numerous occasions.

Gauthier's main point, as summarized by Israpundit editor Ted Belman, is that a non-broken series of treaties and resolutions, as laid out by the San Remo Resolution, the League of Nations and the United Nations, gives the Jewish People title to the city of Jerusalem. The process began at San Remo, Italy, when the four Principal Allied Powers of World War I - Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan - agreed to create a Jewish national home in what is now the Land of Israel.

San Remo
The relevant resolution reads as follows:

"The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust... the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory [authority that] will be responsible for putting into effect the [Balfour] declaration... in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

Gauthier notes that the San Remo treaty specifically notes that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" - but says nothing about any "political" rights of the Arabs living there.

The San Remo Resolution also bases itself on Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which declares that it is a "a sacred trust of civilization" to provide for the well-being and development of colonies and territories whose inhabitants are "not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world." Specifically, a resolution was formulated to create a Mandate to form a Jewish national home in Palestine.

League of Nations
The League of Nations' resolution creating the Palestine Mandate, included the following significant clause:

“Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."

No such recognition of Arab rights in Palestine was granted.

In 1945, the United Nations took over from the failed League of Nations - and assumed the latter's obligations. Article 80 of the UN Charter states: "Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed, in or of itself, to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties."

UN Partition Plan
However, in 1947, the General Assembly of the UN passed Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan. It violated the League of Nations' Mandate for Palestine in that it granted political rights to the Arabs in western Palestine - yet, ironically, the Arabs worked to thwart the plan's passage, while the Jews applauded it.

Resolution 181 also provided for a Special regime for Jerusalem, with borders delineated in all four directions: The then-extant municipality of Jerusalem plus the surrounding villages and towns up to Abu Dis in the east, Bethlehem in the south, Ein Karem and Motza in the west, and Shuafat in the north.

Referendum Scheduled for Jerusalem
The UN resolved that the City of Jerusalem shall be established as a separate entity under a special international regime and shall be administered by the United Nations. The regime was to come into effect by October 1948, and was to remain in force for a period of ten years, unless the UN's Trusteeship Council decided otherwise. After the ten years, the residents of Jerusalem "shall be then free to express by means of a referendum their wishes as to possible modifications of regime of the City."

The resolution never took effect, because Jordan controlled eastern Jerusalem after the 1948 War of Independence and did not follow its provisions.

After 1967
After the Six Day War in 1967, Israel regained Jerusalem and other land west of Jordan. Gauthier notes that the UN Security Council then passed Resolution 242 authorizing Israel to remain in possession of all the land until it had “secure and recognized boundaries.” The resolution was notably silent on Jerusalem, and also referred to the "necessity for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem,” with no distinction made between Jewish and Arab refugees.

Today
Given Jerusalem's strong Jewish majority, Gauthier concludes, Israel should be demanding that the long-delayed city referendum on the city's future be held as soon as possible. Not only should Israel be demanding that the referendum be held now, Jerusalem should be the first order of business. "Olmert is sloughing us off by saying [as he did before the Annapolis Conference two months ago], 'Jerusalem is not on the table yet,'" Gauthier concludes. "He should demand that the referendum take place before the balance of the land is negotiated. If the Arabs won’t agree to the referendum, there is nothing to talk about."

Cuba lashes out, threatens to silence UN Watch after speech exposing Hamas inversion

Cuba hates those Jews, along with the other Muslim member nations of the UN. From UN Watch:

An emergency session today of the UN’s 47-nation Human Rights Council condemned Israel for “grave violations of the human and humanitarian rights of Palestinian civilians,” for “undermining” the peace process, “incessant and repeated Israeli military attacks,” and causing “loss of life and injuries among Palestinian civilians, including women and children.”

The resolution, which made no mention of Hamas rocket attacks or their Israeli victims, was adopted by 30 votes to 1 (Canada), with 15 abstentions from European Union and other countries.

UN Watch thanks the many hundreds who urged world leaders not to support the biased and counter-productive text.

Click for video of UN Watch's testimony — and Cuba's bullying reply.

The United Nations and Anti-Semitism

The United Nations and Anti-Semitism

2004-2007 Report Card

A Report by UN Watch, November 1, 2007

Click for Full Report (PDF)