When the United Nations was formed after World War II it promised a new world order in which the nations of the world would co-operate to advance human rights, peace, international law, and improved living standards for the people of the world and the security of nations.
In this time the UN and its associated agencies such as the World Health Organisation and UNICEF (Children’s Fund) have carried out remarkable programmes which have changed the lives of millions.
But the UN is failing to promote democracy and human rights because the very body, the UN Human Rights Council, responsible for this has been allowed to be hijacked by a succession of human rights abusers whose main objective is to delegitmise Israel and focus disproportionate attention on that one country. This fact is reinforced by the absurd and farcical presence of an agenda item aimed at just one country – Israel.
154 countries voted for that agenda item to remain for the next five years. This alone tells you how the world is obsessed with a piece of land the size of New Jersey.
To add insult to this injury the UN has now elected Iran as a vice-president of the General Assembly while Qatar is currently its president.
This presents a wonderful opportunity for these countries to push forward what is known as Durban III the 3rd Israel hate-fest disguised as a human rights conference supposedly dedicated to combat “Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance” which actually advanced all those abuses.
In 2001 at Durban a fringe NGO conference meeting made an infamous declaration:
Article 164 states targeted victims of Israel’s brand of apartheid and ethnic cleansing methods have been in particular children, women and refugees. Article 425 announces a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state…the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel. Furthermore, Article 426 talks of condemnation of those states who are supporting, aiding and abetting the Israeli apartheid state and its perpetration of racist crimes against humanity including ethnic cleansing, acts of genocide.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were shameful signatories.
When it comes to Israel, the UN and NGO’s it can truly be said that the animals have taken over the zoo.
One could hardly have devised a bigger lie or blood-libel than this declaration, a declaration which, by singling out one state, reduces the effectiveness of NGO’s in combating the very crimes they were formed to monitor.
In 2009 Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made an appearance in Geneva at ‘Durban II@ and guess what his subject was? This year he’ll be back and with the added reward of UN Gneral Assembly vice-presidency.
On September 22nd 2011 Durban III will take place in New York.
Anna Bayevsky has written a devastating critique of the likely course of this event. I recommend you read her article in full but here’s a flavour of it:
It is instructive to recall what Qatari General Assembly president Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser will have to commemorate. At the first Durban conference on “combating intolerance and xenophobia” the head of Qatar’s delegation, Abdul-Rahman H. Al-Attiyah, declared: “all the Israeli heinous violations are justified as a means to bring back every Jew to a land that they raped from its legitimate owners and denied them their right to claim it back.”
…
Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Mohammad Khazaei, lost no time to make it clear what his country plans to do with its new status as a U.N. role model. “Membership in the General Committee is a good opportunity to assert fair positions in the world order…[and] be instrumental in planning the meetings of the Assembly and the arrangement of internationally significant issues for inclusion in the agenda of the Assembly,” Khazaei told Iranian PressTV. He then specifically cited the “important issue” of the “Durban Conference focusing on racial discrimination.”
No subtle diplomatic skills are required here. At Durban II, Ahmadinejad, again denied the Holocaust and the “pretext of Jewish sufferings.” At last year’s General Assembly he declared that 9/11 was an inside job and Jews control the world: “the U.S. government orchestrated the attack…All values, even the freedom of expression, in Europe and in the United States are being sacrificed at the altar of Zionism.”
The US, Canada and Israel have already decided to boycott this event. I guess they just don’t want to take part in a reverse Nuremberg.