EclectEcon

Defund the United Nations (especially its so-called Rights groups)

From the NYTimes via Daily Alert:

UN Rights Council Orders Inquiry into Israel after Gaza Strife - Nick Cumming-Bruce
Acting in the aftermath of the fighting in Gaza, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday voted 24 to 9, with 14 abstentions, to approve a far-ranging inquiry into Israel's actions. Pakistan's UN ambassador Khalil Hashmi proposed the panel on behalf of the Organization of Islamic States. The resolution creating it does not mention Hamas or other Palestinian militant groups. [emphasis added]
    Israel denounced the decision as a one-sided sham. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized it for not acting against Hamas. "Once again, an immoral automatic majority at the council whitewashes a genocidal terrorist organization that deliberately targets Israeli civilians while turning Gaza's civilians into human shields." European states, which have backed the creation of a dozen commissions of inquiry in the last five years, voted against it or abstained.
    Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, cited the statement of a senior Hamas leader three days before the start of hostilities urging followers "to cut off the heads of Jews with knives." She said Hamas had fired 4,300 rockets from Palestinian homes, hospitals and schools, indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilians. "Each one of these rockets constitutes a war crime."  (New York Times)

The Tragedy of the Commons among "Sharing, Caring Elites"

This year and last year I participated in an international convention for The Urban Economy Forum, both as a speaker and as a member of the steering committee.

Last year, not knowing what I was getting into, I prepared a 20-30 minute presentation, only to learn a few days in advance that I would have only ten minutes for my presentation.

The morning of the opening presentations started very late. And then every single speaker took more than their allotted time. By the time we got to my session, I was cut back to only 3 minutes, much to my dismay.

This year, I moderated one session and spoke at another, all via Zoom.

The session I moderated involved mayors and urban planners. They were each allotted ten minutes. One of them actually stayed within the time limit. The rest of them "cheated", some going over the limit by five or more minutes. The implication from their attitude was that they believed that what they had to say was SO important, they should talk longer. [note: I did not have control of the mute function, and I'm not sure I'd have felt free to use it if I'd had it...]

The same thing happened with session on which I was making a presentation with the addition that the moderator went well beyond his allotted time as well.

This is a good example of The Tragedy of the Commons.

The tragedy of the commons is a situation in a shared-resource system where individual users, acting independently according to their own self-interest, behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling the shared resource through their collective action. 

A classic example is overfishing when there are no restrictions on how many fish people can catch. Fishers take too many fish from the common pool, thus making things worse for all fishers.

In the case of conferences when speakers are left on their own merit and integrity to honour the speaking limits, it's the same thing. As the early speakers run over time, those near the end have less time (analogous to catching fewer fish). Transaction costs are high, cheaters can't easily be reined in.

Every one of the speakers would think they were caring and sharing people. And yet also, every speaker also knows they are part of the elites, people who, in their own minds, should plan and control and design for the future. In their minds, they are entitled to more time because of their status.

But it doesn't matter who thinks who is entitled to what. What matters, for this post, is that when property rights (to time slots, in this case) are not enforced, people, even those who think they are decent folk, will cheat (de facto) and take more for themselves.

Clearly The Urban Economy Forum needs to learn some way to avoid this "Tragedy of the Commons" for future meetings.

Maybe in the future, speakers should have to obtain "fishing" licenses?

Housing Codes, Homelessness, and Affordable Housing

At the end of this month, I get to make a ten-minute PowerPoint presentation to an international conference about how stricter housing codes contribute to homelessness and reduce the supply of affordable housing. Seems like a no-brainer to me, but I expect few if any of the other participants will even agree that perhaps one cause of homelessness and the lack of affordable housing is strict housing codes, and even fewer will even consider the possibility that reducing the seriousness of housing codes might help to alleviate the problems.

Ten Minutes. PowerPoint. Helpful suggestions/criticisms welcome!

Below is a former convent that was converted to a rooming house and that met with great difficulties because the rooms were not up to code. I lived there in the fall of 1978 when I was down, out, and had little money.

What? A UN Org Stands up for the Jews and Israel? Ima Faint!

From the Daily Alert:

UNESCO Director General Objects to Arab Claims on Western Wall in Jerusalem - Somini Sengupta
Senior UN officials have objected to a proposal by some Arab states to have UNESCO classify the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, as part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City. UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova expressed her objection to the resolution on Tuesday in a stern statement, saying it "could be seen to alter the status of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls." The Western Wall is a UNESCO World Heritage site adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. (New York Times)

See also U.S. "Strongly Opposes" UNESCO Proposal to Reclassify Western Wall - Michael Wilner
"The United States strongly opposes this resolution and any such use of international fora such as UNESCO to inflame tension in the region and alter the status quo at the Holy Sites," Edgar Vasquez, a State Department spokesperson, told the Jerusalem Post. "One-sided anti-Israel resolutions have been a recurring challenge at UNESCO since 2009, and in all such circumstances the United States has blocked consensus on such resolutions by calling for a vote and voting against the texts."  (Jerusalem Post)

    See also Palestinians Drop Bid to Name Western Wall Part of Al-Aqsa - Raoul Wootliff
The Palestinians have withdrawn their demand that UNESCO declare the Western Wall an "integral part" of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, Israeli officials said Wednesday. The resolution still contains a request to recognize Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron as Muslim sites. (Times of Israel)
    See also Jewish Groups Blast Arab Proposal to Label Western Wall a Muslim Holy Site - Rebecca Shimoni Stoil
Jewish organizations came out in force against the Palestinian initiativeon Monday. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations noted that appropriation of the Western Wall as a plaza named after the Prophet Muhammad's horse flies in the face of histo rical fact. "In the millennia before the re-creation of the State of I! srael in 1948, Arab leaders largely ignored Jerusalem, laid no claim to the Western Wall or Rachel's Tomb....No UNESCO or UN resolution or action can undo more than 2,000 years of history."
    "President Abbas' goal is to deny Israelis and the Jewish people their connection to the land. He seeks to cut off their past in order to cut off their future. It would be better if President Abbas would devote the same energy to reigning in the violence being perpetrated by Palestinians and to engage Prime Minister Netanyahu in meaningful talks. He well knows that his actions at UNESCO can only undermine any prospect of peace and gains his people nothing."  (Times of Israel)
    See also Palestinians Attempt to Declare the Western Wall a Muslim Holy Site (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Scandalous and Unacceptable

From Reuters:

The head of a U.N. inquiry into last summer's conflict between Israel and Gaza said on Monday he would resign after Israeli allegations of bias due to consultancy work he did for the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Canadian academic William Schabas was appointed last August by the head of the United Nations Human Rights Council to lead a three-member group looking into alleged war crimes during Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

In a letter to the commission, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Schabas said he would step down immediately to prevent the issue from overshadowing the preparation of the report and its findings, which are due to be published in March.

Everyone knew of this person's biases long before he was appointed head the group. He had done paid work for the Palestine Liberation Organization and had gone on record as referring to Israel as his enemy.

And what timing!

The commission had largely finished gathering evidence and had begun writing the report...

So this person who is known to have extreme biases against Israel was left at the head of a commission until its work was nearly completed? How unbiased do you really think the report will be?

As the Elder of Ziyon says,

Everyone knew Schabas was biased. He referred to Zionists as "enemies." He participated in a kangaroo court against Israel. Even he admitted he was biased, but he claimed that he - unlike every judge on the planet - would be objective despite his having already formed his anti-Israel opinions.

This attitude was widely criticized by prominent lawyers, as are listed at UN Watch.

However, the sheer nerve that he shows here takes the cake. He finally decided to step down after Israel was ready to show evidence that he was paid by one of the sides that he was supposedly investigating. Instead of apologizing for hiding this very salient fact about his history when he was appointed to the commission, Schabas instead lashes out at those who exposed his utter contempt for the concept of impartiality.

Who just happen to be his "enemies."

The late-date move is a farce anyway. The commission has already written the majority of not the entire report by now. All of the evidence and testimony has already been slanted by Schabas' anti-Israel bias. If anything, his taking his name off of the commission might end up giving the slanted report a little more credibility after he has already poisoned it.

Here's one final question: If Schabas had planned from the beginning to be a new Richard Falk, and to use this UN commission to do everything possible to demonize Israel while paying lip service to the idea of fairness, would he have acted any differently than we have seen him act?

Scandalous and unacceptable. But not surprising, given the biases rampant throughout the UN.

Update: Check out the NYTimes bias in how they report it:

Nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including more than 500 children, were killed, according to the United Nations, with 100,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. On the Israeli side, six civilians and 67 soldiers were killed. 

No mention of all the tunnels from Gaza into Israel and scant mention of the rockets fired from Gaza. What a way to conclude the article. Don't tell me the NYTimes is unbiased and a legitimate news source.

 

Nine Resolutions against Israel "...when there is other really bad $hit in other countries"

From the Daily Mail and The Jerusalem Post [ht Jabber]:

A United Nations translator got egg on her face Thursday when a hot-mic caught her carping about a series of nine separate resolutions – 'It's a bit much, no?' she said – that sided with Palestinians in their conflict with Israel.

But by Sunday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was offering her a job if she suddenly should need one.

The nameless and faceless woman abruptly stopped translating Spanish into English during an anti-Israel speech by Salvadoran diplomat Carlos Enrique García González, making what she thought were private comments to a colleague.

'I mean, I think when you have five statements – not five, like a total of ten resolutions on Israel and Palestine,' she's heard saying on a video feed, 'there's got to be something, c'est un peu trop, non? [It's a bit much, no?]'

'I mean, I know – there’s other really bad sh** happening' in other countries, she adds, 'but no one says anything about the other stuff.'

...

Netanyahu played the video clip during Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting, according to The Jerusalem Post.

'I hope nothing bad happens to the interpreter,' he said, 'but in order to remove all doubt I can say that a place of employment is assured her in Israel if things go in that direction.'

'Sometimes the veil of hypocrisy over the incessant attacks against us is ripped off, and this interpreter did that.' [emphasis added]

It Ain't Over 'Til... well, It Will Never Be Over

What is wrong the sensible countries who are members of the United Nations?

While rogue states like North Korea, Iran, Syria, Sudan and China (to mention just a few) wantonly engage in human rights abuses and abhorrent violence against civilians, it is Israel that brings the UN Security Council together for more commissions and inquiries than any other nation.

Of course, the stark contrast is nothing new. It’s much easier to target Israel than it is to address the entrenched violence and inhumanity perpetrated in so many other United Nations member states. And, more recently, focusing on Israeli “sins” diverts attention from the real threat — a nuclear Iran. Iran’s recent announcement that it now has enough uranium for two nuclear bombs was completely obscured by the media frenzy surrounding the Gaza flotilla.

Not from the Onion: UN Investigates Canada for Discrimination, Ignores Serious Abusers of Human Rights

From a UN Watch Briefing (received via e-mail, not yet on their website, vol. 209, as I write this),

U.N. Discrimination Investigator Focuses on Canada, Ignores China, Sudan, Iran

 

News:  Ms. Gay McDougall, the U.N.'s chief monitor of discrimination against minority groups, and a leading defender of the 2001 Durban conference, just wrapped up a 10-day investigation of Canada by accusing it of failures and "significant and persistent problems." She has never investigated any of the countries listed by Freedom House as the world's worst abusers: not China, Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Burma, Chinese-ruled Tibet, South Ossetia in Georgia, Chechnya in Russia, or Zimbabwe.

 

Analysis: While it's perfectly legitimate to hold free societies accountable, the reality is that immigrants of every color and creed rightly seek out Canada as a haven of tolerance, equality and opportunity. UN Watch launched a protest against this U.N. official's skewed set of priorities: picking on the most tolerant countries like Canada -- possibly as U.N. payback for Ottawa being the first of 10 Western governments to pull out of the world body's ill-fated Durban II conference -- while she consistently turns a blind eye to the world's worst abusers. ...

 

   In a related development, the U.N. human rights office is also investigating the United States as a country of singular concern. The “special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing” has decided to conduct her next investigation in the U.S., particularly in New York City. Writing in the Opinio Juris blog, Professor Julian Ku of Hofstra Law School notes that the U.N. monitor "is going to spend her time on a country which is unlikely to be in the top ten places with lack of adequate housing, and which in any event, is not a party to any of the treaties which form her mandate." But the anti-Western voting blocs that control the U.N. Human Rights Council -- and appoint its experts -- will no doubt be very pleased.

The Goldstone Report: Cowardice, Hypocrisy, and Duplicity

Remember Richard Goldstone? The South African Jewish Lawyer who led a "fact-finding" mission into allegations about war crimes in Israel and Gaza during the war last year? He appears to be doing a LOT of back-tracking, re-explaining, and outright prevaricating. From Alan Dershowitz [h/t to Jack],

In an interview with Jewish Forward, Goldstone denied that his group had conducted “an investigation.”  Instead, it was what he called a “fact-finding mission” based largely on the limited “material we had.”  Since this “material” was cherry-picked by Hamas guides and spokesmen, Goldstone acknowledged that “if this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven.”  He emphasized to the Forward that the report was no more than “a road map” for real investigators and that it contained no actual “evidence,” of wrongdoing by Israel. 

“Nothing proven!”  No “evidence!”  Only “a road map!”  You wouldn’t know any of that, of course, by reading the report itself or its accompanying media release.  In the text of the report itself, Goldstone neither sought to clarify nor explain what he now claims is the limited scope and legal implications of the report.  The language of the report reads like a judicial decision, making findings of fact (nearly all wrong), stating conclusions of law (nearly all questionable) and making specific recommendations (nearly all one-sided).

It is as if there were two entirely different “Goldstone Reports.”  The first submitted to the United Nations and the second to the Jewish community.  In speaking so differently to different “audiences,” Goldstone is reminiscent of Yassir Arafat, who perfected the art of double-speak, by using bellicose language when addressing Arab audiences and more accommodating language when addressing western audiences.  ...

 

Goldstone apparently lacked the courage to stand up to the other members and staffers of his commission and to insist that his clarifying language be included in the report itself.  Nor did he have the courage to file a dissenting or concurring statement.  Instead, he spoke out of both sides of his mouth, sending one message to those who read the actual report and a very different message to those who read his words in the Jewish Forward (and the New York Times for whom he wrote a more ameliorative op-ed on the day after the release of the Report).  In doing so, he is trying to have it both ways. 

I challenge the UN to hire Alan Dershowitz to conduct their next investigation into human rights violations in the middle east.

Let's See the UN Human Rights Groups Go after THIS!

From Arab News [h/t Judith]:

Child bride turned over to 80-year-old husband

AL-LAITH: A 10-year-old bride was returned last Sunday to her 80-year-old husband by her father who discovered her at the home of her aunt with whom she has been hiding for around 10 days. A local newspaper said the husband, who denies he is 80 in spite of claims by the girl’s family, accused the aunt of meddling in his affairs. “My marriage is not against Shariah. It included the elements of acceptance and response by the father of the bride,” he said. He added that he had been engaged to his wife’s elder sister and that this broke off as she wanted to continue with her education. “In light of this, her father offered his younger daughter. I was allowed to have a look at her according to Shariah and found her acceptable,” he said.

But don't hold your breath waiting for the UN to say, much less do, anything about it.

This Is GOOD News: US to Boycott Durban II

From Huffington Post (h/t to Jack):

The Obama administration will boycott "with regret" a U.N. conference on racism next week over objectionable language in the meeting's final document that could single out Israel for criticism and restrict free speech, the State Department said Saturday.

The decision follows weeks of furious internal debate and will likely please Israel and Jewish groups that lobbied against U.S. participation. ...

The administration had wanted to attend the April 20-25 meeting in Geneva, although it warned in late February it would not go unless significant changes were made to the draft text.

Some revisions _ including the removal of specific critical references to Israel and problematic passages about the defamation of religion _ were negotiated for which State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the administration was "deeply grateful."

But he said the text retains troubling elements that suggest support for restrictions on free speech and an affirmation of the findings of the first World Conference Against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 that the U.S cannot endorse.

"Unfortunately, it now seems certain these remaining concerns will not be addressed in the document to be adopted by the conference next week," Wood said in a statement. ...

Concern is high that the meeting may descend into heated debate over Israel that marred the last such gathering eight years ago, especially since Iran's hardline president _ who has called for Israel's destruction _ will attend.

When there are so many countries leading this committee who, themselves, tolerate and/or promote such flagrant human rights atrocities, I never could imagine that the US could have any impact on the outcome of Durban II. At first, it distressed me that the Obama regime did not see this. But maybe this late-date pull-out may have some desired it impact. It says, "We gave it a fresh attempt, and we're still upset with the conference," and that might have some impact in the rest of the world. Might.

Update #1: I have the headlines from the NYTimes and the Washington Post both sent to me via e-mail each day. Both newspapers covered this story, but I am puzzled and disappointed that this development was not among the top features in an otherwise comparatively slow news day for either of these major US news sources.

Update #2: And now Australia and The Netherlands have also announced they will not attend Durban II. For more, see this from CNN (h/t to Clive). Whether it was planned or not, it looks as if Obama's apparently naive strategy is having a very desirable impact. Let's hope others follow the lead of Canada, who announced long ago that it would not participate in this travesty.

One Reason I Am a Strong Supporter of Israel

Many years ago I wondered out loud to a friend about how Palestinians must feel to have been driven out of their land and homes as Israel was created. He pointed out that

• Jews bought their land and homes as they moved to Israel, pre-1947. They didn't take anything from anyone.
• Most Palestinians who left Israel did so voluntarily at the behest of Arab leaders who promised they could return within a few weeks after the Jews were "driven into the sea."
• The Palestinians who were driven from their homes and land were comparatively small in number, and that happened only because the Transjordanians, Syrians, and Egyptians attacked and tried to annihilate the Jews of Israel.

With these three points in mind, it is difficult not to support Israel. Add to them the fact that these same Arab countries refused to encourage the Palestinians to assimilate into their countries, and we see that the major source of the problems in the middle east is anything but Israel.

For more on the refugees in the middle east, see The Great Refugee Scam.

The story of the Arabs who left the coastal areas of Palestine in the spring of 1948 encapsulates one of the great international frauds of the 20th century. The Arabs are the only declared "refugees" who became refugees by the initiative of their own leaders. The concoction of the monstrous charge that it was the Jews who had driven out the Arabs of Palestine was a strategic decision made by the leaders of the Arab League months after the Arabs' flight.

... It was in the immediate aftermath of the war that the refugee scam was developed into an international operation. As soon as the UN Disaster Relief Organization started providing food, shelter, clothing and medical attention to the Arabs who had fled Palestine, a mass of needy Arabs descended on the camps from all over the Arab states. The organization had no machinery for identification; so the arrivals simply signed the register as refugees and received the free aid.

And there is much more at that site.

Now Here's Good News: US Pulls Out of Durban II

U.S. pulling out of ‘Durban II’ conference

By Ron Kampeas · February 27, 2009

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The Obama administration has decided to boycott the so-called Durban II conference out of concerns for anti-Semitism.

Multiple sources on a conference call with the White House on Friday told JTA that the Obama administration had opted not to attend any further preparatory meetings ahead of the planned U.N. conference against racism in Geneva in April.

The conference reprises the 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa that devolved into an anti-Jewish free-for-all. Canada and Israel have opted not to attend the conference, and some U.S. Jewish groups had been pressing the United States to do the same.

Preparations for a draft document so far have seen Iran leading a coterie of nations blocking inclusion of anything that might guarantee Jewish protections – including mention of the Holocaust – while inserting draconian language guarding Islam against "insult."

The State Department sent a delegation, including a senior staffer from the American Jewish Committee, to this month's preparatory talks. The delegation's conclusions were that the anti-Israel and anti-Western tendencies were too deeply entrenched to excise.

Now that the United States is withdrawing from the conference, European nations are expected to follow.

Let's hope they do. [h/t to Robert]

Is Obama Selling out Israel?If so, for what??

Anna Bayefsky (via Ed Lasky) presents compelling evidence that the US is going to let Durban II continue to condemn Israel without concerns for the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel aspects of the resolutions. From the American Thinker (h/t to Ted Belman),

Recall that the US boycotted the first Durban Conference because it was clearly going to become (as it did) an anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatefest. The second conference looked to become a repeat performance. Neverthe less, Barack Obama sent a team to this year’s planning conference, assuring people that his team would work to prevent the next conference from taking the same turn as Durban I.

They failed. Not only did the officials Obama send not object to a raft of anti-Israel and Holocaust-denying actions being taken and becoming part of the agenda but they are now peddling a fictionalized version of what did happen. In other words, they are lying.

Bayefsky concludes:

If the Obama administration does not immediately announce that its foray into the morass of Durban II has led it to decide this is no place for genuine believers in human rights and freedoms, there is only one conclusion possible. His foreign policy of engagement amounts to a new willingness to sacrifice Israel and an indeterminate number of American values for the sake of a warm welcome from the enemies of freedom.

What about that transparency? The openness ? The end of politics as usual? All promises made on the campaign trail? All forgotten-probably as soon as they were spoken. One promise does appear to be true: Change is happening....

What puzzles and bothers me about this development is that I cannot fathom what the Obama administration hopes to accomplish with this apparent shift in policy. I certainly hope it isn't just blatant (and ineffective) appeasement.

The Double Standard Applied to Israel

I continue to be upset by the apparent double standard that is applied to Israel. And I am downright angry about the anti-Semitic chants and slogans emanating from so many western demonstrators. But this WSJ opinion piece says it much better than I can. Excerpts below (h/t to AlanP):

My fear is that the rage we see in the protesters marching in the streets is far more profound and dangerous than we would like to believe. There are a great many people in the world who, even after Auschwitz, just can't bear the Jewish state having the same rights they so readily grant to other nations. These voices insist Israel must take risks they would never dare ask of any other nation-state -- risks that threaten its very survival -- because they don't believe Israel should exist in the first place.

Just look at the spate of attacks this week on Jews and Jewish institutions around the world: a car ramming into a synagogue in France; a Chabad menorah and Jewish-owned shops sprayed with swastikas in Belgium; a banner at an Australian rally demanding "clean the earth from dirty Zionists!"; demonstrators in the Netherlands chanting "Gas the Jews"; and in Florida, protestors demanding Jews "Go back to the ovens!"

How else can we explain the double-standard that is applied to the Gaza conflict, if not for a more insidious bias against the Jewish state?

At the U.N., no surprise, this double-standard is in full force. In response to Israel's attack on Hamas, the Security Council immediately pulled an all-night emergency meeting to consider yet another resolution condemning Israel. Have there been any all-night Security Council sessions held during the seven months when Hamas fired 3,000 rockets at half a million innocent civilians in southern Israel? You can be certain that during those seven months, no midnight oil was burning at the U.N. headquarters over resolutions condemning terrorist organizations like Hamas. But put condemnation of Israel on the agenda and, rain or shine, it's sure to be a full house.

Red Cross officials are all over the Gaza crisis, describing it as a full-blown humanitarian nightmare. Where were they during the seven months when tens of thousands of Israeli families could not sleep for fear of a rocket attack? Where were their trauma experts to decry that humanitarian crisis?

There have been hundreds of articles and reports written from the Erez border crossing falsely accusing Israel of blocking humanitarian supplies from reaching beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza. (In fact, over 520 truck loads of humanitarian aid have been delivered through Israeli crossings since the beginning of the Israeli counterattack.) But how many news articles, NGO reports and special U.N. commissions have investigated Hamas's policy of deliberately placing rocket launchers near schools, mosques and homes in order to use innocent Palestinians as human shields?

Many people ask why there are so few Israeli casualties in comparison with the Palestinian death toll. It's because Israel's first priority is the safety of its citizens, which is why there are shelters and warning systems in Israeli towns. If Hamas can dig tunnels, it can certainly build shelters. Instead, it prefers to use women and children as human shields while its leaders rush into hiding.

And there is much more in the original piece.

United Nations' Duplicity about Human Rights in the Middle East

Jeff Jacoby is a brilliant columnist for the Boston Globe (i.e., I agree with most of what he says, but he says it so well). For example, see this about the Bush Regime deregulation myth.

But the purpose of this posting is to encourage you to read his well-written, compelling essay about the position of the United Nations on human rights in the Middle East. It is appalling that columns like this must be written time and again. It is appalling that anyone who cherishes human rights would think otherwise.

UN's obsession is grotesque and Orwellian

By Jeff Jacoby

THE PRESIDENT of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua, has denounced the policies of a certain Middle Eastern nation. They are "so similar to the apartheid of an earlier era," he said, "that the world must unite against them, demanding an "end to this massive abuse of human rights" and isolating the offending nation as it once isolated South Africa: with a punishing "campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions."

Of which country was he speaking?

Was it Saudi Arabia, where public facilities are segregated by sex, and where a pervasive system of gender apartheid denies women the right to drive, to dress as they choose, to freely marry or divorce, to vote, to appear in public without a male "guardian," or to give testimony on an equal basis with men?

Was it Jordan, where the law explicitly bars Jews from citizenship and where the sale of land to a Jew was for decades not only illegal, but punishable by death?

Was it Iran, where homosexuality is a capital crime — at least 200 Iranian gays were executed last year - and whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asserted at Columbia University that there are no homosexuals in Iran?

Was it Sudan, where tens of thousands of black Africans in the country's southern region, most of them Christians or animists, have been abducted and sold into slavery by Arab militias backed by the Islamist regime in Khartoum?

It was none of these. The General Assembly president, a radical Maryknoll priest who served as Nicaragua's foreign minister during the Sandinista regime in the 1980s, was not referring to any of the Middle East's Muslim autocracies and dictatorships, virtually all of which discriminate against ethnic and religious minorities. He was speaking of the Jewish state of Israel, the region's lone democracy, and the only one that guarantees the legal equality of all its citizens - one-fifth of whom are Muslim and Christian Arabs.

D'Escoto's call for Israel to be shunned as a pariah and strangled economically came on the UN's Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, an annual occasion devoted to lamenting the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty in the 20th century, denouncing the national liberation movement — Zionism - that made that rebirth possible, and championing the cause of the Palestinian Arabs. The event occurs on or about Nov. 29, the anniversary of the UN vote in 1947 to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. There are impassioned speeches, in which Israel's sins are enumerated and condemned, and the statelessness of the Palestinians is bewailed. Unmentioned is the fact that Palestine's Arabs would have had their state 60 years ago had they and the Arab League not rejected the UN's decision and chosen instead to declare war on the new Jewish state.

Like so much of what takes place at the UN, the obsession with demonizing Israel and extolling the Palestinians is grotesque and Orwellian. More than 1 million Israeli Arabs enjoy civil and political rights unmatched in the Arab world — yet Israel is accused of repression and human-rights abuse. Successive Israeli governments have endorsed a "two-state solution" - yet Israel is blasted as the obstacle to peace. The Palestinian Authority oversees the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich, and wants all Jews expelled from the land it claims for itself - yet Israel is labeled an "apartheid state" and singled out for condemnation and ostracism.

Make no mistake: In likening Israel to apartheid-era South Africa, the UN is engaged not in anti-racism but in anti-Semitism. In the 1930s, the world's foremost anti-Semites demanded a boycott of Jewish businesses. Today they demand a boycott of the Jewish state.

"No good German is still buying from a Jew," announced Hitler's Nazi Party in March 1933. "The boycott must be a universal one . . . and must hit Jewry where it is most vulnerable." Seventy-five years later, the president of the General Assembly urges the world to throttle Israel's 6 million Jews with "boycott, divestment, and sanctions." There is no significant difference between the two cases — or the animus underlying them.

When the UN adopted its odious "Zionism is racism resolution" in 1975, US Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan minced no words. "The United States," he declared, "does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act." Where is such a voice of moral outrage today?

Nuclear Anything? For This Man?

From the speech by Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the United Nations [h/t to CIJA]:

The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists.

Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. . .the great people of America and various nations of Europe (are being forced to) obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people.

These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will.

This sounds very similar to the outright deceptions of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It is frightening; and it is more-than-disappointing that western countries have not called him on it.

The UN Commission to Promote Hatred

Whether we like it or not, Durban II is coming. Recall that Durban I was a gigantic hate-fest dominated by anti-western and anti-semitic representatives. And sadly things look as if they will be even worse in this next round.

From Joel Brinkley (via AlanP):

I confess I had forgotten about the U.N. World Conference against Racism, in Durban, South Africa, on Sept. 8, 2001. It turned so quickly into a racist, anti-Semitic hate-fest that Secretary of State Colin Powell stood up and walked out.

The indignant commentary was just getting started when the Sept. 11 attacks swept the coverage away. The event was largely forgotten.

I bring it up now because they’re at it again. The United Nations has scheduled a sequel, dubbed Durban II, to take place in Geneva, Switzerland, next spring. (This time, Durban’s city fathers refused to host it.) And if the 2001 event proved to be an embarrassment for the United Nations and the world, the next one promises to be a shameful travesty that will light up cable news, late-night TV talk shows and multi-media blogs for weeks.

Worse, the event is certain to cleave an even deeper divide between the Arab states and the rest of the world. It’s pre-ordained. Consider what happened just a few days ago, as reported by the Web site Eye on the UN.

The conference’s planning chairman invited Iran to join his inner circle — the “friends of the chair” — to add Iranian wisdom to the topics at hand: preventing racism and promoting human rights.

Why Iran? Well, the answer will almost certainly leave you asking: What were they thinking?

The planning-committee chairman is none other than Libya. The rapporteur ... Cuba. And the new vice-chair, Iran.

Several Western states are unranked members. But the leaders and their allies are running roughshod over everyone else. These countries have a clear agenda: to batter Israel and the United States and ram through proclamations decrying insults to Islam.

The European Union proposed to discuss freedom of expression. Speaking for the leadership, Egypt declared that freedom of expression is “political in nature and not grounded in objectivity.” As a result, discussion of the subject is “not acceptable.” The EU gave up. ...

The United Nations’ much-maligned Humans Right Council is organizing Durban II, so it’s small wonder that the planning is proceeding as it has. In a recent council session, a speaker asked to bring up a particularly egregious human rights problem: genital mutilation of women. Egypt objected mightily, demanding: “We will not discuss issues related to Sharia law; this will not happen.” He thundered on, joined by a colleague from Pakistan, until the item was dropped.

Remind me why any countries that care about western freedoms continue to tolerate this outrageous challenge to our freedoms.

Louise Arbour: Anti-West and an Embarrassment to Canada

Remember the story about the Taliban-Islamists who killed two Pakistanis (link here; h/t to Jack)? Leave it to Louise Arbour to blame the west and its supporters:

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said Friday that she was concerned that the peace deals undermined state authority and left residents vulnerable to a range of human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings.

"The government has the responsibility to ensure the protection of civilians," she told reporters in Islamabad.

Minorities and women were particularly in danger of abuses, she said.

Note that she did not blame the terrorist-Islamists for the killings. Rather, she blamed the gubmnt (which supports the west) for not protecting the civilians.

I cannot imagine how she would expect the gubmnt to protect civilians since she opposes nearly every action taken by west-leaning gubmnts.