Thursday, June 04, 2020

Courting the UN Vote, Revealing Unsubtle Bias -- It's The Liberal Way

"All the plans offered to us in the past included renouncing parts of Israel, withdrawing to the 1967 borders and dividing Jerusalem while allowing refugees to enter Israel."
"This plan offers the opposite. We are not the ones required to give up [territories], the Palestinians are."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Canadian Press
"I've been very direct with the Israeli leaders. We deplore such actions, which are going to delay any prospect of lasting peace in the Middle East."
"So, we should be working while respecting the concept of dialogue. And we are very concerned."

"I have highlighted both publicly and directly to Prime Minister Netanyahu and alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz the importance of staying away from measures that are unilateral and our deep concerns and disagreement with their proposed policy of annexation."
"We think that the path forward is a two-state solution reached to by dialogue between the parties involved and anything that is unilateral action by either side is unhelpful in the cause of peace."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"The comprehensive U.S. Peace Plan is the only viable peace initiative currently on the table trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel has accepted its foundations, despite concessions which will be required on our behalf. However, the Palestinians have rejected it outright, once again closing the door on any option to negotiate a peaceful future."
"While it is dismaying that diplomats would choose to attack Israel rather than try to facilitate dialogue between the two sides — or at the very least urging the Palestinians to return to direct peace negotiations – Israel will nevertheless remain committed to the U.S. peace plan, in hopes that we eventually find a way to resolve our differences."
Ohad Kaynar, chargé d'affaires at the Embassy of Israel in Canada
 
"Annexation of the West Bank is clearly an issue that most UN members disagree with and this is likely to be seen favourably by those states still trying to gauge what kind of Canada they would get on the coveted UNSC [United Nations Security Council]."
Bessma Momani, Middle East expert, University of Waterloo

"Today's comments by the prime minister do not change this long-standing entrenched track record of acting as an asset for Israel."
"Ireland and Norway have not voted against any UN resolutions on support of Palestine during this century."
Karen Rodman, spokeswoman, Just Peace Advocates
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and his wife Sara, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, attend ceremonies at the Arc de Triomphe Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. (Francois Mori/The Associated Press)
Peace negotiations? They've stalled, the Palestinian Authority refuses to rejoin Israel at the negotiating table. Time and again. A reasonable proposal was made to carve out areas in Israel with majority Arab-Palestinian populations to transfer them to Palestinian rule, while doing the same with the Israeli 'settlements' in what the world insists on calling the 'occupied' West Bank, an equal measure of territory that would be governed and held by Israel. Made part of a potential plan for peace, that too was rejected by the Palestinians.

Tellingly, the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship living in those areas of Israel that were proposed as transferable to Palestinian rule, themselves rejected the proposal, preferring to live under Israeli governance as opposed to Palestinian. As Israelis, they have their elected Arab legislators, as Members of the Knesset -- the Israeli parliament -- who advocate on their behalf and who also agitate to the extent that some of their actions can be construed as anti-Israel. In contrast, the Palestinian Authority has made it clear that no Israeli Jews will ever live among the Palestinians.

Countries of the European Union, Canada and others who insist that Israel keep sacrificing itself to satisfy the ever-growing demands of the Palestinian leaders have never had to live under the constant threat of a neighbour inciting its people to violence against them. Constant vigilance to ensure that as many of the violent threats that can be apprehended as possible takes its toll, both on the civilians being targeted and the security forces tasked with their protection.

In insisting that Israel maintain its laser focus on a peace settlement without exerting pressure on the Palestinian Authority to do likewise, Israel's critics are satisfied to hold the Jewish state to account for not living up to its critics' expectations, while forgiving the Palestinians all their blatant, obvious efforts to destabilize Israel by attacking its people with knives, vehicles, rockets and suicide attacks, expecting nothing better of them and signalling that whatever they do is justified.

Someone like Justin Trudeau who has mismanaged the governance of a peaceful, prosperous country like Canada to the extent that east and west have become disengaged from one end of the country to the other has nothing whatever to teach a nation of survivors like Israel. Justin Trudeau, as prime minister of Canada, has constantly exhibited himself as a selfish narcissist, a thin-skinned ideological partisan, a hypocrite and vindictive in character.

His personal assault by proxy on the second in command of the Canadian military, Vice-Admiral Norman, his aggravated harassment of the nation's former Minister of Justice to flout the law in favour of a Liberal stronghold in Quebec, his shocking lack of ethics in matters of personal gifts by influential wealthy government lobbyists, his lack of leadership in failing to support a vital energy sector in extracting fossil fuels in part of the country that has traditionally given financial support to economically weaker provinces, all paint a sordid picture of failure.

He and the party he represents have nothing whatever to teach the executive branch of other nations. Not only is Justin Trudeau preciously sanctimonious, flaunting himself as a theatrical superstar, he is also a shallow ideologue, an intemperate egotist whose presence on the theatrical stage would never have done the harm to the country he now governs that his decision-making has caused to national unity, Canadian pride and civil functioning. He has succeeded in destroying the Democratic process in Parliament under guise of a necessary response to SARS-CoV-2.

His ambition to have Canada under his imprimatur be voted a temporary two-year seat on the revolving UN Security Council where he believes he would have access to the movers and shakers of the world as his just due, directs many of his actions in his preoccupation with prestige for himself on the world stage. And his statement regarding Israel's decision to reclaim its heritage rights against the claims of wrongful ownership of Arab 'settlers' on heirloom Judean land is meant to favour Canada's UNSC bid with the voting blocs that the UN's Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Group represent.

Amusingly enough, right in Canada he has opposition to his ambition for that UN revolving Security Council seat, with a coalition of 100 organizations and people which collectively support 'justice for the Palestinians', which equates with destruction of the State of Israel, in their demands for 'right of return', to swamp the population of Israel with majoritarian Arabs, over and above the million and a half who now hold Israeli citizenship.

Israeli soldiers taking position as Palestinian demonstrators gather during a protest against the expansion of Israeli settlements, in the West Bank village of Beita, near Nablus, March 2, 2020.
Israeli soldiers taking position as Palestinian demonstrators gather during a protest against the expansion of Israeli settlements, in the West Bank village of Beita, near Nablus, March 2, 2020.  Credit: Majdi Mohammed/AP

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Friday, June 26, 2015

Truth and Consequences

"As a British officer who had more than his share of fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans, it pains me greatly to see words and actions from the United Nations that can only provoke further violence and loss of life. The United Nations Human Rights Council report on last summer’s conflict in Gaza, prepared by Judge Mary McGowan Davis, and published on Monday, will do just that."
"The report starts by attributing responsibility for the conflict to Israel’s “protracted occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” as well as the blockade of Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza 10 years ago. In 2007 it imposed a selective blockade only in response to attacks by Hamas and the import of munitions and military matériel from Iran. The conflict last summer, which began with a dramatic escalation in rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians, was a continuation of Hamas’s war of aggression."
"In an unusual concession, the report suggests that Hamas may have been guilty of war crimes, but it still legitimizes Hamas’s rocket and tunnel attacks and even sympathizes with the geographical challenges in launching rockets at Israeli civilians: “Gaza’s small size and its population density make it particularly difficult for armed groups always to comply” with the requirement not to launch attacks from civilian areas."

Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan

"Hamas training and doctrinal materials ... attest to Hamas's intentional efforts to draw the IDF into combat in densely populated areas and to actively use the civilian population in order to obstruct the IDF's military operations."
"Hamas also actively encouraged and even coerced civilians to remain in areas of hostilities in order to impede IDF attack and shield military activities."
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs report
Source: United Nations

A morally bankrupt United Nations is once again condemning a member-state for its effrontery in attempting to defend itself from violent criminal attacks by terrorist groups bordering its state and targeting innocent civilians. The UN's Human Rights Council has issued its report on the 2014 conflict in Gaza, when Israel's forbearance in the face of constant rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel finally ebbed to the point of rallying a much-needed defence.

Hamas, a terrorist group noted as such by countries in the West and declared a terrorist group by countries in the Middle East, an offshoot of the notoriously Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, whose charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel, takes its funding orders from enemy-states of Israel, Iran and Qatar. The funding and the incitement help, but Hamas's dedication to jihad and the view that Israel must be driven into the sea and its citizens slaughtered, needs no incentive from other sources.

The kind of resourcefulness that Hamas operatives display in building underground tunnels to enable it to enter Israel undetected and to perform the function of a protective underground haven for Hamas leaders is concrete-costly and time-absorbing. Resources that should go toward building civic infrastructure in Gaza are redirected to well-designed and -equipped tunnels under Gaza City where Hamas leaders can find tranquil protection from IDF attacks in response to those that Hamas launches from civilian enclaves.

A donkey and cart move through the dust and rubble of bombed homes in Gaza City earlier this month. Many buildings are still waiting to be demolished or rebuilt nearly a year on from the 2014 conflict
A donkey pulls a cart among bombed buildings in Gaza City. Many homes are yet to be demolished or rebuilt nearly a year after the conflict. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Hamas terrorist guerrillas pass through tunnels under the borders of both Gaza and Israel in hopes of killing or capturing Israeli soldiers, but entering the confines of Israeli towns and kibbutzim to abduct or slaughter innocent Israelis is just as valuable in contributing to the Hamas cause of terror. All the nations that support blaming Israel for Palestinian deaths in Gaza are sanctimoniously averse to Israel defending its own, though none would tolerate for one day, let alone for years, the presence of such threats on their own borders.

Israel was forced yet again to militarily engage with an enemy which prides itself on elusiveness. While the terrorist fighters launch attacks from the vicinity of schools, apartments, hospitals in full knowledge of and anticipation that responding attacks will be expected, to destroy those launch sites, Israel in defending itself is accused of war crimes. No advance warning is extended by Hamas and other terrorist groups before rockets are sent careening into Israel, but Israel continually warns Gazans to clear out before an area attack takes place.

This kind of unequal war footing is unique to Israel, always mindful to the best of its ability to attempt to reduce civilian casualties and deaths to a minimum, but pressed to the limit by the schemes of Hamas to extract public relations points from the international community, portraying Israel as the aggressor and the slaughterer of Arab women and children. Those same Arab women and children are given treatment when feasible, for their wounds in Israeli hospitals.

What other country would take care to provide medicines and food to civilians of belligerent terrorist enclaves while fighting off the attacks by the terrorists who purport to represent the interests of the civilians suffering privation, fear and live-and-present mortal danger? Some four thousand rockets were launched by Hamas into Israel and roughly 250 of those rockets fell short of their targets, landing within Gaza, causing in some instances additional casualties there.

The UN Human Rights Council equating the self-protective actions of a legitimate and peaceful state with those of an attacking, war-mongering quasi-state of terrorists is the last word in hateful hypocrisy. As though comparing a country whose laws protect civilians from harm to a territory whose rulers casually use their populace as shields to enable the terrorists to escape the consequences of their actions in provoking war, is a legitimate tool of justice.

What other country of the world would restrain itself in responding to deadly attacks because the eyes of the world swivel in swift condemnation any time those responses take their inevitable toll on civilians, and then because of international censure ceases its fire leaving itself as a result vulnerable to ongoing repeated attacks leading to new confrontations?


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Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Erdogan presidential palace cost soars for Turkey

BBC News online -- 5 November 2014
Ak Saray picture in the daytime The Ak Saray dominates the skyline on the western edge of Ankara
A controversial new 1,000-room palace built for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will cost about £385m ($615m) - nearly twice the previous estimate, Turkish officials say.

Known as Ak Saray (White Palace), it was built on a forested hilltop on the edge of the capital Ankara, on more than 150,000 sq m (1.6m sq ft) of land.

Mr Erdogan opened the palace on 30 August after becoming president.

His AK Party has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade.

The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pictured at the foot of a staircase at the Ak Saray residence President Erdogan is pictured here at the foot of a staircase in the Ak Saray
 
The palace is bigger than the White House in Washington, the Kremlin in Moscow and even the Palace of Versailles near Paris.

Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek, quoted by Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper, said most of the 1.37bn Turkish lira ($615m) cost had been paid, but another $135m had been budgeted for it in 2015.

The palace has sumptuous marble corridors and atriums, as well as high-tech systems to prevent electronic eavesdropping.

An outer shot of the Ak Saray presidential residence State-of-the-art technology was used in the palace project, officials say
 
Environmentalists accuse Mr Erdogan of spending public money on lavish construction projects to the detriment of green areas. Activists defending Istanbul's iconic Gezi Park clashed with police in June 2013.

Hurriyet says the palace project was controversial because hundreds of trees were cut down to make space for it, in what had been a forest reserve bequeathed to the nation by modern Turkey's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The finance minister also said $185m would be spent on a new Airbus A330-200 presidential jet.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomes visitors at the Ak Saray residence The palace is bigger than a host of more famous state buildings, including the Kremlin and Buckingham Palace
 
A presidential aide, Fahri Kasirga, said other presidential properties would be renovated next year, notably the Huber Palace in Istanbul and a guest house in Marmaris, on the Aegean coast.

Mr Erdogan has moved out of the more modest Cankaya Palace in Ankara, which will now be used by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

The outer gates at the presidential palace The presidency was once a more ceremonial role than when Mr Erdogan took office

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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

UN Watch BriefingLatest from the United Nations  Vol. 495 |  June 25, 2014         
U.N. Dictatorships Fail to Stop Critique of Inaction on Human Rights
Iran, Cuba, China, Pakistan, Egypt, Venezuela Urge Silencing
of UN Watch
                                        Click for Video

The 2014 Catalog of U.N. Inaction on Global Human Rights Abuses
Testimony before U.N. Human Rights Council, delivered by UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, 19 June 2014, in the debate under Agenda Item 3, "Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights" 
Thank you, Mr. President.
The members of this Council have been mandated by the international community to protect victims of human rights violations around the world. Is the Council living up to its mandate?
Let us consider the most fundamental of all human rights—the right to life—by examining what has happened in the world, over the past 12 months:
July 2013, Turkey: Doctors report that in the Gezi Park protests, police killed 5 people, wounded 8,163 and used chemical riot control weapons against more than 10,000.
August, Egypt: Authorities crush the sit-in held by supporters of deposed president Morsi, killing 1,000 people.
September, Iran: One month after President Rouhani’s inauguration, amid promises of human rights reforms, Iranian officials ignore UN appeals, and hang a record 50 individuals.
Did the council respond with any resolutions, urgent debates, or inquiries to determine the facts, and hold perpetrators accountable? No. Its response was silence.
October, Afghanistan: Terrorists bomb a minibus, killing 14 women and a child who were on their way to celebrate a wedding.
November, Libya: Militia kill 31 during protests in Tripoli, injuring 235.
December, South Sudan: BBC reports mass ethnic killings, including 200 shot by security forces.
January, Pakistan: 236 civilians killed by terrorist attacks.
This Council’s response? Silence.
February, Ukraine: Police kill 75 protesters in Kiev’s Independence Square.
March, China: Activist Cao Shunli, who was arrested for trying to travel to Geneva and participate this Council, mysteriously dies in prison.
April, Iraq: 750 Iraqis killed, 1,541 injured by terrorism and other violence.
May, Venezuela: Troops arrest 243 student protesters and kill one of their own, bringing the death toll to 42 since the start of the opposition protests.
Finally, June -- a few weeks ago -- in Nigeria: Boko Haram massacres 200 civilians while still holding the 276 school girls it abducted in April…
President: Please can I ask you to wait? There is a point of order from Venezuela... 
Venezuela: I think this speaker is out of order and I would ask that he confine himself to the agenda items under consideration. He’s also mentioned my country and I will take the floor later on that...
France: France attaches great importance to the voice of civil society which should be able to speak freely in the work of the council and contribute to her work...
USA: Along the same lines as my colleague from France, we firmly believe that NGOs and civil society be heard... What the speaker was saying is consistent with the topic of this agenda item so we urge you to let him continue.
Cuba: I am looking at the agenda, [and] we were never talking about countries as far as I understood. We do not understand why the NGO has been spending its entire time talking about country situations. This is not the agenda item for this...
Ireland: We do believe that the speaker was speaking to the agenda item by providing concrete examples linked to those thematic issues and therefore we would kindly ask that he be allowed to continue.
China:  China requests the president to make a ruling to end the speech by this NGO. 
Canada: Canada, much like others who have spoke before us, firmly believes that accredited NGOs must be permitted to speak at the council... It is essential to respect the council’s emphasis on open dialogue. This is a question of freedom of speech... The statements that were being made were pertinent to the agenda items that were being discussed.
Norway: This statement should not be interrupted because an NGO mentions concrete examples of human rights violations so we therefore ask you to let the speaker continue the statement.
Iran: My delegation would like to support the point of order made by the delegation of the Venezuela.
Pakistan: My delegation also supports the point of order raised by Venezuela. It is important that we should respect and adhere to the rules of procedure and discuss relevant issues under the relevant agenda items.
United Kingdom: The UK supports the right of accredited NGOs to speak at the UN Human Rights Council... We request that the speaker be allowed to finish their statement.
Egypt: We just want to also add our voice to other speakers who spoke about the appropriateness of speaking under the right agenda item. We don’t believe that what was mentioned in the statement of the NGO here relates to our discussion.. there are certain rules and regulations for this council all of us have to stick to.
President:  What I can say is that already I’ve noted that you agree that NGOs do have the right to speak. The issues relating to human rights don’t take place in an abstract context... If a speaker were to refer to relevant human rights issues under the agenda item under consideration, it is possible that the speaker may give examples or illustrations from specific examples from specific situations... I give the floor back to the speaker.
UN Watch (Hillel Neuer): Thank you. Mr. President, if it “inappropriate” to speak about the urgent need to take action for victims of human rights violations around the world, then why are we here?

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Monday, May 26, 2014

Hypocrisy: Syria and UN Health Assembly Slam Israel

UN Watch BriefingLatest from the United Nations  Vol. 489 |  May 26, 2014         

 

Syria accuses Israel of "inhumane practices" that "target the health of Syrian citizens"

 

GENEVA, May 26, 2013 – The Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch condemned the UN World Health Assembly for singling out Israel -- the only specific country on the agenda -- with its call on Friday for the UN to investigate the health conditions in "the occupied Syrian Golan," even as it was silent on the health of Syria's own victims over the past three years, including more than 500,000 wounded, 6.5 million uprooted from their homes, and more than 160,000 killed.
As state members of the WHO wrapped up their annual meeting on Friday, the plenary confirmed a resolution adopted by a committee on Thursday by a vote of 105 countries voting in support (including EU states) to 5 against (Australia, Canada, Israel, Papua New Guinea and the U.S.).
There were 6 abstentions (Andorra, Armenia, Burundi, Colombia, Congo, New Zealand), and 60 absent.
The text focused on Palestinian health conditions allegedly harmed by Israel, and was proposed by Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
It is paradoxical that these sponsors are not exactly known for contributing to the world's health, while Israel, in proportional terms, contributes more to medical science and bio-technology than any other country in the world.
In its submission to the assembly, Syria accused Israel of "inhumane practices" that "target the health of Syrian citizens."
It's the height of hypocrisy for Syria -- which is gassing its own citizens to death when not dropping barrel bombs on entire neighborhoods -- to denounce Israel, and even more so when Israeli hospitals are treating more and more Syrian victims of Assad's butchery.
Although this year's resolution was substantially shortened compared to previous years' resolutions, by continuing to single out Israel as the only country-specific item on its agenda and as the only country to be targeted for criticism in a resolution, the UN has once again allowed the politics of demonization to hijack the noble purpose of promoting world health.
To see the Assad regime point the finger at Israel out of professed concern for the health of Syrians is nothing but a sick joke.
Assad's troops have slaughtered more than 160,000 of their own people, and are now busy destroying the lives of millions more. Why is the UN allowing mass murderers to deflect attention from their crimes by scapegoating democracies?
A world health assembly should be about Hippocrates -- not hypocrisy.
Out of 24 items on this year's WHO agenda, all but one addressed global themes. The exception turned a spotlight on Israel. No other country in the world -- not Mexico, Russia, Syria, or anyone else -- was treated this way.
Hypocrisy: Syria and UN Health Assembly Slam Israel
_____________________
Israel’s Health Record vs. Country Sponsors of WHO Resolution
Country
Percentage of maternal mortality for 2013
Israel
0.4
Libya
1.2
United Arab Emirates
1.3
Oman
1.8
Kuwait
2.4
Tunisia
3.4
Egypt
3.5
Jordan
4.8
Algeria
5.2
Morocco
6.2
Iraq
8.1
Yemen
11.6


Country
Number of infants dying before age 1
(per 1,000 live births)
Israel
3
UAE
7
Oman
10
Kuwait
10
Libya
13
Tunisia
14
Jordan
16
Algeria
17
Egypt
18
Morocco
27
Iraq
28
Yemen
46

Despite what's being said at the UN, however, the Palestinians' own health minister acknowledged last year Israel's extensive medical care for Palestinian children and its training of Palestinians doctors. 

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