"Whereas the United Nations has designated zero mandates to investigate human rights violations suffered by the one-fifth of humanity living in China -- and zero on Cuba, Turkey, Zimbabwe, and most other countries in the world -- it has a plethora of mechanisms targeting Israel."
"Every year since 1968, the UN's 'Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices' has produced annual 70-page reports with legal analyses and recommendations on Israel's alleged violations, summaries of Palestinian testimonies, and collections of statistics."
"Composed of Malaysia, Senegal, and Sri Lanka, and staffed out of the UN human rights office the Special Committee also conducts regular field missions, including to Amman, Cairo and Damascus."
"This has been going on for five decades and still continues."
Hillel Neuer, Executive Director, United Nations Watch, Geneva
The United Nations flag flies on a stormy day at
the U.N. during the United Nations General Assembly, Thursday, Sept. 22,
2022. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)
A UN commission of inquiry on Israel presented a report on Tuesday which accused the Jewish state of genocide. All three of the commissioners that make up this special commission resigned in July; resignations meant to be effective following their final report scheduled for Tuesday, 28 October. These resignations build on the UN's special rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese having been designated on the U.S. sanctions list, in response to her overt support for Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group whose latest atrocities on October 7, 2023, sparked a two-year war with Israel. To Ms. Albanese, Hamas are 'freedom fighters', struggling against 'oppression'.
Arab and Islamic states initiated this last inquiry at a special session they convened at the UN Human Rights council in May of 2021 during an earlier conflict between Israel and Hamas which led to a ceasefire. That inquiry made no move to investigate Hamas rockets into Israel threatening Israeli citizens, but focused on examining 'root causes' of the conflict, focusing on Israel's purported racist "systematic discrimination". In actual fact, no discrimination exists in Israel; citizenship includes Jews, Arabs, Circassians, Druze, Bedouin, Christians, Muslims. In contrast, the Palestinian Authority allows no Jews.
As commissioners to lead the inquiry which has no end-date, South African Navi Pillay was made chair of the commission. As the impartial chair she had openly lobbied governments to "sanction apartheid Israel" before being chosen to lead the inquiry. Another commissioner, Miloon Kothari gave an interview on an anti-Israel website, questioning Israel's right to UN membership and spoke of "the Jewish lobby controlling social media". The third of the commissioners, Chris Sidoto, claimed that Jews "throw around accusations (of antisemitism) like rice at a wedding".
So much for impartiality and commitment to truth, justice and reality. The commission has a staff of 18 and an annual budget over $4 million, delivering annual reports that accuse Israel of war crimes. They meet in The Hague with the International Criminal Court to render legitimacy to their reports. That's one commission, geared solely to 'investigating' Israel but there's more. No other country in the world has the distinction of being 'investigated' by a plethora of committees in the United Nations struck solely for that purpose.
There is a 25-nation "Committee On the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People", led by Cuba, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, staffed by15 employees within the UN's Division for Palestinian Rights which produce legal studies, background papers and public communications materials as well as holding annual conferences and organizing global advocacy networks targeting Israel. Another based out of Geneva is the UN Human Rights Council's "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967" with another open-ended mandate to focus on 'Israel's violations'.
This is the group headed by Hamas apologist Francesca Albanese who produces reports and statements on 'Israeli crimes'. A little-known entity in Vienna, the "United Nations Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall ln the Occupied Palestinian Territory", employs 19 staff under the leadership of a former Russian diplomat, financed both through the UN and by voluntary donors that include France, Austria and the Netherlands.
And then, of course, there's UNRWA, a billion-dollar agency employing 30,000 people with a focus supposedly on aid for Palestinians, whose senior staff also engages in public media campaigns targeting Israel. There are no staff at the United Nations mandated to critically examine or address China, for example, or Turkey, or Russia, or the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo where millions are displaced and tens of thousands are victims of mass rape and torture. Nor is there a committee to examine the bloody civil war in Sudan.
Strange, isn't it, that the entire world focus as demonstrated by the actions and activities of the United Nations are focused on one tiny country located in a sea of undemocratic neighbours where sectarian and tribal conflicts break out at the drop of a pin, but it is Israel, a state for Jews located on their own ancestral, historical lands that fascinates the world, eager to condemn Jews there, and everywhere. What is it that consumes such a rabid fascination in a people that only want to be left alone, to live normal lives with respect for their human rights, just like everyone else?
Partition: The Division that Arab States and Palestinians rejected time and again...
Educating Toronto Schoolchildren in Social Justice
"We're here today because the Toronto District School Board has failed to protect our children, and they must all be relieved of their duties."
"Teachers put children as young as eight years old in harm's way."
"Countless pro-Palestinian rallies have resulted in violence and arrest. Everyone has seen these protests."
"No normal person would think to bring their children to such a place. Yet, teachers, administrators, principals of the Toronto District School Board did."
Amir Epstein, executive director, Tafsik Organization, Jewish advocacy group
Amir Epstein during a rally outside of the TDSB headquarters on Yonge Street on Tuesday Sept. 24, 2024. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post
"Freedom of speech does not mean you can say what you want, when you want, especially in front of children."
"Our city needs the growing talent that comes out of our school system and not brainwashed and indoctrinated children who have been taught conspiracy theories and hateful tropes."
Toronto Councillor James Pasternak
"My daughter's school was plagued last year by swastikas in the bathroom. My son was silenced in his class for talking about his identity as an Israeli and as a Jew, and I'm deeply concerned."
"I think that the antisemitism is only growing in the school board, and any amount of attention that we're giving to it, it's not working."
Talia Leighton, mother of TDSB student
Some parents of TDSB middle school students are
angered after learning their kids participated in a "field trip" to a
political protest downtown that devolved into an anti-Israel
demonstration on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024.Photo by Supplied
A week ago students attending 15 different schools within the Toronto and District School board were taken to observe a protest in downtown Toronto against mercury contamination affecting a First Nation community in Dryden, northern Ontario many decades ago; an issue of dreadful environmental contamination affecting the lives of people that has never been adequately addressed or remediated.
Parents of students whose schools signed on to the trip to be bused to the Grassy Narrows River Run march were informed their children would be present there as observers on an educational human-rights and justice basis. Since that event, videos began surfacing on social media showing some of the youthful march participants chanting pro-Palestinian slogans such as "From Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime". As it happened, once at the event, the children were carefully coached on what to say and how to react.
Parents reacted with disbelief and many in anger, posting their comments on social media. The school board apologized, informing parents it was undertaking a review of future procedures in field trips. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, stating that children should not be present at protests, but should be present at school to learn math, spelling, geography and history, instructed his education minister to investigate the event. Premier Ford went so far as to call the event a "Palestinian rally", with specific teachers setting out to indoctrinate children.
City Councillor James Pasternak noted that teachers had nothing to comment on when civilians were killed in Yemen, Syria, as well as Turkic and Uyghur groups in China who were being 're-educated'; anything involving Jews and Israel, he pointed out, brings protesters out to the streets to "demonize Israel and the Jews". Emails showed that parents had been instructed to have their children dress in blue to portray them as "settlers".
"This field trip is an educational opportunity for our students to learn about Indigenous activism, environmental justice and human rights"; children would "not be participating in the rally itself", parents were informed. Ontario public sector unions promoted the demonstration. In attendance, as it turned out, were those calling for Israel's destruction. The Palestinian Youth Movement, explicitly pro-terror -- handed out candy at rallies in celebration of the October 7 terrorism -- publicly urged its members to attend.
The Star
Tuesday evening saw a group of parent protesters in front of the school board headquarters, demanding that the TDSB fire those who were responsible for arranging and planning the field trip. One mother, Esther Mordechai, founder of Canadian Women Against Antisemitism, characterized the field trip with its anti-Israel overtones as reflective of a broader trend, comparing the situation in Toronto schools to Nazi Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.
"It makes you angry, but I'm used to it, because this is an ongoing issue in Toronto and District School Board. this is nothing new. It's just got worse. That's all."
As for the Elementary Teachers of Toronto, one of the protest organizers, no apology was forthcoming since, as they averred, the event fit within their mandate of "social, environmental and racial justice. We see the vilification of links made between solidarity movements on Turtle Island (which portrays Canada as an illegitimate colonizer, usurping Indigenous populations from their traditional lands) and Palestine." They were in concert "with many other unions, community organizations and concerned people from across the city".
Participants hold an anti-Israel banner while taking part in a Sept. 18
march in Toronto billed to be in support of the First Nations of Grassy
Narrows Indigenous community in northern Ontario. (Socialist
Project/YouTube)
Actions and Demands and Law-Breaking have Consequences
"It's past time they're shut down."
"We hope this is a strong message for the other encampments on campuses across the country."
"Too
often we've seen antisemitic harassment, discrimination, and hateful
speech and actions connected with many of these encampments."
Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA)
"Unfortunately the encampment remains in place in violation of Waterloo policies and the law."
"We
have said repeatedly, the right to protest does not mean people have
the right to endlessly occupy a shared university space"
"The
behaviour of encampment members has crossed the line to intimidation
and harassment, making their ongoing presence untenable."
Vivek Goel, University of Waterloo president
"[It is] incredibly shameful [that the university administration
decided] to sue their own student body that's protesting the
university's complicity in a genocide that's almost nine months in and
has claimed the lives of over 40,000".
"We remain undeterred and committed to our cause and people. History
will absolve us. But you admin, how will you be remembered?"
Occupy UWaterloo statement
Photo by Ryan Remiorz /The Canadian Press
In
its recently announced lawsuit against the group Occupy UWaterloo, the
University of Waterloo is suing anti-Israel encampment protesters for
$1.5 million in damages. According to a social media post by Occupy
UWaterloo, the lawsuit brought against them is "incredibly shameful".
They claim to be lawfully exercising their right to free expression.
Even if it revolves around slandering the Jewish state, expressing their
antisemitic sentiments, harassing Jewish students and faculty
professors in the process, in their entitlement as protesters.
"History will absolve us"
their post @Occupy UW states with complete assurance. The university,
on the other hand, wants its main campus back. Claiming that the
protesters have occupied the university's private property illegally,
beginning on May 13, reflecting a court document published on the
university's website. The damages of $1,500 million is slated to
represent trespass, damage to property, intimidation and ejectment.
Seven
Occupy UWaterloo members are named in the lawsuit, citing their
involvement in establishing an "indefinite encampment" adjacent to the
Graduate House on the main campus of the University of Waterloo. Occupy
UWaterloo is being requested by the university to remove encampment
materials, including obstructions that have been erected, and to
"remediate" the property to its original condition at the time of the
encampment establishment.
Related
issues included in the document are demands that members of the
encampment are not to rebuild, and must agree to refrain from University
Senate interference, including the board of governors and all
activities related to teaching. Conditions are outlined in the document
for the Waterloo Regional Police, and the Ontario Provincial Police,
inclusive of any police service tasked with removing the encampment and
arresting the participants.
A
trespass notice was issued by the university on June 21. It was
disseminated both in person and online to all participants in the
encampment. According to the document, it was subsequently rejected.
Ahmad Kamal, named as one of the defendants in the lawsuit, wrote "Again: I ain't reading all that. Free Palestine", on the posted trespass notice where it appeared on the encampment wall.
Encampment
leaders had called on the university to divest from companies appearing
on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions list. They also demanded an "academic and cultural boycott" of Israeli Companies and universities, demands which were published in the Waterloo Region Record.
These
'human rights' supporting students feel complete entitlement,
vindicating their mission while rejecting claims by the university. It
is Israel, and Israel alone responsible for the death of Palestinians in
Gaza, not the Gaza Hamas leaders that brought death and destruction to
Israel, compelling it to embark on a mission to destroy the group whose
purpose is its extermination and that of Jews everywhere...
The
University of Waterloo and the members of a pro-Palestinian encampment
on the campus are set to enter mediation talks. The members of the
Occupy UWaterloo group held a press conference on Friday to share their
reactions to being sued by the university for $1.5 million in collective
damages. CBC
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
