generalspeaking

The United Nations Human Rights Commission

Darfurians are still suffering untold misery and displacement at the hands of the Sudanese government. Zimbabweans cannot recollect when last they lived lives of comfort and food availability. In Iran any who are foolish enough to declare themselves Baha'i, or wishing to leave Islam, or reveal that they are gay, court a death sentence. In China the official government solution to a lack of voluntary organ donors is to reap them from prisoners.

In Egypt, Christian Copts wait in an agony of suspension for the next church to be the victim of a conflagration, and parishioners to be attacked leaving their place of worship. In Iraq the Shia-led government has suspended participation in parliament of Sunni factions and precipitated yet another Sunni-Shia clash of assured-mutual-murder attacks. In Syria, the government and its military continue to attack, torture and murder civilian protesters.

There are, of course, much more incidents of such human rights atrocities across the Globe in various parts of the world where countries for whom the observance of human rights is a travesty, like the millions of starving North Koreans whose leading dynasty and military prefer to feed the military machine and flirt with rocketry and nuclear arms.

And then, of course, there is Israel. Which is still awaiting serious negotiations on the part of the Palestinian Authority to finally settle the issues surrounding the stand-off between the Jewish state and a fledgling, would-be Palestinian state. One, a tiny nation of resolute and determined people convinced they have only themselves to rely upon.

The other a heterodox tribe at odds with its orthodox counterpart, but which the world responds to with compassion and funding.

One a nation that invented itself and set about proving its existence to the world. The other an aspiring nation that speaks piously of democracy and piteously of its victimhood, comfortable to represent itself as the world's longest-reigning 'refugee' population, with a covert agenda to turn world opinion against the transgressions of the neighbouring state with whom it will not settle its differences.

No other nation in the world has been expected to surrender land it gained after defending itself from a never-ending series of collective attacks from its neighbours, seeking to destroy it. Israel faces constant demands that it permit severance of its ancient capital city to satisfy the demands of its neighbours who wish to claim it as their inalienable right of inheritance.

Israel is declared time and again an apartheid state by those who detest the very thought of its existence, while in reality its population is comprised of Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and Kurds, all of whom have the rights of citizenship and who may sit in the Knesset as elected officials, and serve as well on the judiciary and in positions of military command.

Saudi Arabia, whom the United Nations or its Human Rights Commission has never criticized, does not permit the worship of any religion other than Islam and persecutes Christians as does Egypt whose religious figures, like the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, encourage the destruction of Christian churches on Arab land because the Quran instructs that no religion other than Islam is permitted there.

The UN's Human Rights Council has issued 91 decisions of condemnation, 39 of those dealing with Israel, three with Syria and one with Iran. It invited a representative of a terror organization, Hamas, to appear before it and because Canada and Israel objected to the presence of such an obvious human rights abuser, the invitation was withdrawn.

The UNHRC prefers to ignore proposed resolutions on systematic institutionalized human rights abuses committed by countries like China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe - among others - but leaps at the opportunity to condemn Israel, unceasingly and repeatedly. Which explains why there is a tradition there, repeated during the current session, of adopting resolutions targeting Israel solely.

A resolution was passed on Thursday where the council has decided to "dispatch an independent, international, fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council, to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem."

No mention of, no thought to pass a resolution condemning Hamas for ongoing rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel, dislocating the lives of a million Israelis, forcing schools to close and children to be traumatized. No irony cited by anyone in attendance that a nation is being condemned for building needed housing to accommodate civic use within its own capital city.

The Palestinian Authority has no intention of settling the impasse with respect to negotiating a settlement of the disagreements between it and Israel to finally bring about the creation of an independent Palestinian state. It would then have to be accountable for itself and its people, if it became sovereign, less reliant on handouts from international sources, and Israel itself.

Negotiations at the 'peace table' are stalled indefinitely because the Palestinian Authority has no intention of negotiating honestly for they have no intention of surrendering any of their demands and expectations, while demanding that Israel surrender completely to all of the PA's demands. The PA believes that it argues from a position of strength because the international community is solidly behind the plaintive demands of the victim.

That very victim that foresees the eventual destruction of Israel, either by absorption into an overwhelming Arab state, or by drowning the Jewish population in an unstoppable flood of 'returning' Arabs for whom the world has endless sympathy. And while demands continue to be made of Israel that other nations are never subjected to, it is not because any body, institution or nation is 'anti-Israel' let alone 'anti-Semitic', it's just that ... that's the way it is.

And that more than adequately explains why it is and how it is that Israel understands completely that it must be self-reliant. For the prevailing atmosphere that tends to congeal and choke the very air it breathes certainly is anti-Israel and most certainly does represent anti-Semitism. And that's the way it is.

Labels: Human Rights, Israel, Palestinian Authority, United Nations

posted by Pieface @ Friday, March 23, 2012