This is piece by Kenneth Bandler of AJC is cross-posted from JTA.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is not likely to take a seat at the U.N. Security Council’s horseshoe table, but the Hezbollah terrorist organization he has led since 1992 now has a toehold inside the world body’s most prestigious room.
Continue reading ‘Hezbollah gains a toehold inside U.N. Security Council’
Here is a snippet:
The HRC’s promotion of what are, in effect, blasphemy taboos is a logical extension of its internal policy. The HRC is run like an oligarchy governed by Orwellian speech codes, with any criticism of the body’s behavior immediately stifled in session. In March 2008 testimony to the HRC, for instance, Roy Brown mentioned that the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam-passed and ratified by the OIC in 1990-took sharia as its legal premise and was inimical to the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Brown was challenging a claim made by Masood Khan, Pakistan’s UN ambassador, who had told the council, on behalf of the OIC, that the Cairo Declaration was a “complement” rather than an alternative to the Universal Declaration. Immediately, Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, the HRC delegate from Pakistan, issued a point of order, silencing Brown, and announced: “It is insulting to our faith to discuss sharia here in this forum.” The president of the council at the time, Doru Costea of Romania, ceded the point to Siddiqui.
Read the rest, by Ibn Warraq and Michael Weiss, here.
In the wake of the US decision to disengage from the UN conference in Geneva which insists on billing itself as a pow-wow against “racism,” other countries are beginning to follow suit.
Unless radical changes are made, the US won’t be attending the Durban Review Conference in April. Who’ll be next to pull out?
In the end, Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, the President of the UN General Assembly, decided not to attend the Holocaust commemoration ceremonies at UN Headquarters here in New York. One can speculate endlessly as to why D’Escoto - whose choice of metaphor to describe Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians is “crucifixion” - bowed out. Perhaps it was because he didn’t want to be in a room where he wasn’t welcome; perhaps something inside him dreaded the prospect of looking actual Holocaust survivors in the eye just a few months after he embraced the world’s most well-known exponent of Holocaust denial; perhaps (let us not forget those who will inevitably say this) he was “leaned on” or “pressured” or “prevented” by you-know-who.
Richard Falk, who carries a UN Mandate to write reports based solely on testimony from people who loathe Israel, has given an interview to the “Democracy Now!” show in the aftermath of his expulsion from Israel.
According to the BBC, Richard Falk is a “senior UN human rights official.” The phrase confers on him a gravitas which he doesn’t deserve and masks the farce involved in handing a 9/11 conspiracy theorist a mandate to bash Israel.
Among the flock of commentators and bloggers writing about the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Petra Marquardt Bigman’s contribution stands out.
With Canada and Israel now having formally withdrawn from the UN’s 2009 Durban II conference, serious questions are emerging over the attendance of other democratic states.
Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, the President of the UN General Assembly, has pushed the delegitimization of Israel at the United Nations just that little bit further. One might also point out that, by claiming that Palestinians “are being crucified” by Israel, he’s pushed something else a little further too. (Or is one of our anti-Zionist detractors going to claim that calling such an invocation antisemitic is “shutting down debate?”)
Continue reading ‘UNGA President: Treat Israel like Apartheid South Africa’
It’s not surprising - especially when you recall that Canada announced its decision to pull out back in January - but Israel has finally confirmed that it will not participate in the UN’s Durban II anti-racism conference in 2009.
Subscribe to the Z Word blog via RSS - click on the orange button below. For more information on using RSS, please read this helpful guide.
RSS