UN To Open Permanent Probe On Israel

[Purveyor]

The United Nation's Human Rights Council is expected to place Israel under permanent investigation for its "violations" of international law in the territories - until such time as it withdraws to the pre-1967 border - according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

Neuer added that he received that information from diplomatic sources.

---

Neuer said Israel would be rapped for the Antiquities Authority's construction of an access ramp to the Temple Mount's Mughrabi Gate.

The work has been widely condemned throughout the Muslim world.

Neuer said the council would also take Israel to task for refusing entry to inquiry teams in July and in November. The first team was sent to investigate Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip following the kidnapping by Hamas of Cpl. Gilad Schalit in June.

---END OF EXCERPT---

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1173700686993&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[razors edge]

1. until such time as it withdraws

to the pre-1967 border

That will be pretty much permenent.

[Solo_in_MD]

2. pre 1967 bordrers were not permanent and Syria et al did not even recognize them until they started

getting their asses kicked with some regularity.

Have to wonder when they are going to take on Jordan, Syria, Iran, Zim, South Africa, N Korea, and others for their flagrant abuses of human rights

[razors edge]

3. True, but

as long as the abused in those countries continue to take the abuse without standing up against it, they will be ignored by the media and the abuse will continue.

Are you suggesting the Palestinian people should shut up because they aren't the only ones getting screwed?

[Solo_in_MD]

6. Are getting screwed by Israel as much as being used by Hezbollah and Hamas

which in turn leads to what we have today in Israel. Kind of a chicken and egg kind of thing. It looks pretty good in the Sinai, which I consider a clue...

[razors edge]

9. And they are all three being used

to manipulate foreign policy and extract wealth from Americans, and it works pretty damn good too, doesn't it?

Can't see the Sinai from Toledo, but can I see my nation borrowing money from China to give to Israel. Money our children will have to pay back.

But that isn't Israel's problem now is it?

[oberliner]

4. interesting article about UN Human Rights Council

U.N. Human Rights Council disappoints activists
African, Muslim members block action on Darfur

(03-11) 04:00 PDT United Nations -- The U.N. Human Rights Council will begin a three-week session in Geneva on Monday amid expressions of frustration from rights advocates at its early performance and alarm over proposals that might weaken it further.

"So far it's been enormously disappointing, and the opponents of human rights enforcement are running circles around the proponents," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

The council was created in a 170-4 vote of the General Assembly a year ago to replace the Human Rights Commission, which had been widely discredited for allowing participation by countries like Sudan, Libya and Zimbabwe that used membership to prevent scrutiny of their own records.

The commission was long a major embarrassment to the United Nations, with former Secretary-General Kofi Annan commenting that it "cast a shadow on the reputation of the U.N. system as a whole."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/03/11/MNG2GOJ9J61.DTL&type=politics

[msmcghee]

5. Thanks for linking. I found this interesting.

But member countries from Africa and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, an association of 57 states promoting Muslim solidarity, have dashed those hopes by voting as a bloc to stymie Western efforts to direct serious attention to situations like the killings, rapes and pillage in Sudan's Darfur region, which the United Nations has declared the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Instead, the council has focused its condemnation almost exclusively on Israel. It has passed eight resolutions against Israel, and has cited no other country for human rights violations.

The United States voted against creating the council last year on the basis that it was not a sufficient improvement over the commission. This past week, it decided for the second straight year not to seek membership on the panel, and Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, linked the decision to the council's focus on Israel.

"It spent the entire year slamming Israel," Burns told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. He noted that the council had conducted formal hearings against Israel "but not against Burma and not against Zimbabwe and not against North Korea and not against Iran."

[breakaleg]

7. It totally sucks that those countries are able to block criticizm of Darfur.

It's exactly the same as the US blocking any and all criticism of Israel via other branches of the UN though.

[msmcghee]

8. It's not just Darfur. It's all other human rights violators too.

Do you really think the US blocks criticism of Israel? The US is not even on the HRC. We have the veto when major resolutions against Israel are put up in the SC.

But a fairly constant din of criticism against Israel seems to be coming from the UN IMO and has for several years now. How about that vote against Israel by the World Court?

"It spent the entire year slamming Israel," Burns told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. He noted that the council had conducted formal hearings against Israel "but not against Burma and not against Zimbabwe and not against North Korea and not against Iran."

[eyl]

10. Uh..the UN has never criticised Israel?

are we talking about the same organization here?

[breakaleg]

12. How many UN SC resolutions has the US blocked since 1948?

From my count, they vetoed 41 Resolutions concerning Israel since 1972. In many cases they were the only country to veto. And they used their veto power 80 times total in that timeframe.

[eyl]

13. How many resolutions

did they let through?

And to remind you, your assertion was

blocking any and all criticism of Israel via other branches of the UN though

nothing restricting it to the UNSC.

[breakaleg]

14. How about if I changed that to "effective" criticism?

We are splitting hairs here.

[eyl]

16. In the period you specified

there have been quite a few more than 41 UNSC resolutions concerning Israel. Surely you're not suggesting all of those were favorable to Israel?

[Shaktimaan]

11. I found this part of the second link particularly interesting.

In another potential blow to the council's effectiveness, a proposal is circulating that would do away with many of the council's 41 rapporteurs, the experts who produce sometimes graphic reports of abuses in individual countries. The proposal specifically ensures the continuation of the mission that monitors the Palestinian territories.

So basically there's a lot of effort being put into some way to both neuter the HR Council's effectiveness against any of their own home nations while ensuring that a maximum of political and diplomatic heat is kept on Israel. I mean, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China are among those making the rules here. Does anyone honestly believe that they are seeking legit human rights enforcement? Does anyone here even think that these three states have a better human rights record than Israel? (If you somehow do think so, then bone up on your history and reconsider.) I guess it's a step up from having Libya and Zimbabwe running the show but it is a small step at best.

The inmates are truly running the asylum.

[Phx_Dem]

15. The Plot: Use the UN to rid the world of Israel

Imagine, for a moment, that several constituent members of the United Nations had an interest in the eventual elimination of the state of Israel.

Just to indulge the fantasy one step forward, imagine that - having failed through war to push Israel off the map, having failed through persistence to wait until despondent Israelis simply picked up and left the land to the Palestinians - they conceived a scheme to leverage their move. With the United Nations.

snip

Far-fetched? Of course it is. But if somehow it were true, it might unfold like this:

# First, establish a UN Commission on Human Rights.

# Stack the membership of the commission with officials of some of the most reprehensible regimes on the planet, beginning with Sudan, the site of what the UN has determined is currently the worst humanitarian crisis anywhere.

This will ensure that the committee, which will turn a blind eye to all human rights violations in places like Myanmar, China, Cuba, Russia, Nepal, North Korea, Congo, Gabon, Guatemala, Libya, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, and, especially Darfur, will be free to focus its work solely on Israel.

# If you go too far, and the commission has become an obvious embarrassment even to the United Nations, to the point that even the General Assembly votes 170 to 4 to replace the panel with a more even-handed successor, change its name, to the Human Rights Council.

# Make sure that the Organization of the Islamic Conference and a coalition of African despotisms keep the Darfur genocide off the agenda.

# Make sure that the new Council specifically condemns only one country - Israel.

# Make sure that it does so repeatedly - eight times over the past year. Pass a rule which states that a permanent feature of every council session will be a review of charges of human rights abuses by Israel.

# Propose a rule change, which would fire many of the council's rapporteurs, experts who document human rights abuses - but which would specifically exempt from firing, those who monitor the Palestinian territories.

# In its current session, beginning on Monday in Geneva, see to it that the heart of the deliberations will be a report commissioned by the panel that compares Israeli actions in the territories to apartheid in South Africa.

# Finally, bring the Right of Return issue - phrased to suit foreign consumption, before the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Now we're getting somewhere. Now Israel can be attacked and delegitimized on the one issue on which leftist and rightist Jews in Israel agree. Now Israeli military policy is irrelevant. Now the issue of occupation is irrelevant. Now even day-to-day issues of discrimination against Arabs are irrelevant.

snip

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/836274.html

Pretty much sums it up.