by Watch UN Watch’s presentation to the UN Human Rights Commission at Little Green Footballs – it’s a good thing.
Here’s the transcript as lifted from UN Watch’s own web site:
(Note that it’s not exact. But it’s close. And damning.)
Mr. President,
Six decades ago, in the aftermath of the Nazi horrors, Eleanor Roosevelt, Réné Cassin and other eminent figures gathered here, on the banks of Lake Geneva, to reaffirm the principle of human dignity. They created the Commission on Human Rights. Today, we ask: What has become of their noble dream?
In this session we see the answer. Faced with compelling reports from around the world of torture, persecution, and violence against women, what has the Council pronounced, and what has it decided?
Nothing. Its response has been silence. Its response has been indifference. Its response has been criminal.
One might say, in Harry Truman’s words, that this has become a Do-Nothing, Good-for-Nothing Council.
But that would be inaccurate. This Council has, after all, done something.
It has enacted one resolution after another condemning one single state: Israel. In eight pronouncements—and there will be three more this session—Hamas and Hezbollah have been granted impunity. The entire rest of the world—millions upon millions of victims, in 191 countries—continue to go ignored.
So yes, this Council is doing something. And the Middle East dictators who orchestrate this campaign will tell you it is a very good thing. That they seek to protect human rights, Palestinian rights.
So too, the racist murderers and rapists of Darfur women tell us they care about the rights of Palestinian women; the occupiers of Tibet care about the occupied; and the butchers of Muslims in Chechnya care about Muslims.
But do these self-proclaimed defenders truly care about Palestinian rights?
Let us consider the past few months. More than 130 Palestinians were killed by Palestinian forces. This is three times the combined total that were the pretext for calling special sessions in July and November. Yet the champions of Palestinian rights—Ahmadinejad, Assad, Khaddafi, John Dugard—they say nothing. Little 3-year-old boy Salam Balousha and his two brothers were murdered in their car by Prime Minister Haniyeh’s troops. Why has this Council chosen silence?
Because Israel could not be blamed. Because, in truth, the dictators who run this Council couldn’t care less about Palestinians, or about any human rights.
They seek to demonize Israeli democracy, to delegitimize the Jewish state, to scapegoat the Jewish people. They also seek something else: to distort and pervert the very language and idea of human rights.
You ask: What has become of the founders’ dream? With terrible lies and moral inversion, it is being turned into a nightmare.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I know almost nothing of the UN Human Rights Council so I’ll only say two things.
First, UN Watch director Hillel Neuer’s speech has the the ring of truth around it.
Second, more government leaders should be engaged as directly – and courteously – as council president Luis Alfonso De Alba was in Geneva on March 23rd, 2007.
I mark the date specifically in the event it proves to be a turning point in the way that people and governments interact. One can and must dream, after all!
But note De Alba’s immediate and snide reply in which he makes no attempt to address the issues but instead wields his authority as a weapon to close further discussion and debate.
Sadly, even good dreams end.
Update
The U.N. Human Rights Council today passed a resolution:
…which was opposed by a number of other non-Muslim countries, “expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations.” It makes no mention of any other religion besides Islam…
Naturally.
They can piss up a rope as far as I am concerned. Islam = Human Rights Violation. No qualification needed.
