UN Watch addressed the UN Human Rights Council on Friday. You can see a video of the speech and the Council President's response. The speech attacked to council for being ineffective and in fact doing more harm than good by picking on one country (Israel) while ignoring serrious problems is the counties of those people making the accusations.
For an idea of the sort of thing UN Watch war refering to, note the following which also occured thay week (all apparently without reprimand from the president):
12/3/07 RODOLFO REYES RODRIGUEZ, Cuban delegate to the Human Rights Council, responsed to the listing of Cuba as one of the world's pressing human rights situations by Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt saying:
Cuba, unlike Sweden, does not persecute migrants or carry out ethnic cleansing that only allows those whose skin and hair color fit with the racial patterns of former Viking conquerors to remain in the country.
15/3/07 MOHAMMAD ABU-KOASHI, Palestinian representative to the UN in Geneva said
The Council should question why the representative of the apartheid regime of Israel is even among us [in this room].
16/3/07 MOHAMED ALI ELMARDI, Minister of Justice of Sudan, responding to Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams' remarks that "war crimes and crimes against humanity continue across [Darfur]"
We witness a conspiracy against Sudan for political objectives.
The text of the speech is as follows delivered by Hillel C. Neuer, executive director of the NGO United Nations Watch, to the 4th plenary session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva (23/3/2007) was as follows:
Six decades ago, in the aftermath of the Nazi horrors, the UN Commission on Human Rights was created. Today, we ask: What has become of that noble dream? In this session we see the answer. Faced with reports from around the world of torture and persecution, what has the council pronounced, and what has it decided? Nothing. Its response has been silence.
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 a single state: Israel. In eight pronouncements, Hamas and Hezbollah have been granted impunity. The entire rest of the world -- millions of victims, in 191 countries --is ignored.
The corrupt dictators who orchestrate this campaign will tell you that they seek to protect human rights --Palestinian rights. But do they 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 -- they say nothing. Little three-year-old Salam Balousha and his two brothers were murdered in their car by Hamas troops. Why has this council chosen silence? Because Israel could not be blamed. Because, in truth, the despots 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 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.
This blog is a group effort looking into the UN's treatment of Israel, particularly in relation to other states.
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