Now Iran Wants a Seat on the UN Human Rights Council

Pajamas Media.com

Yes, you read that right. While beating, jailing, raping, torturing and murdering its dissidents, Iran’s Islamic regime is now campaigning for — what else? — a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. The Tehran government that brought us the killing last June of Neda Soltan now aspires to a new perch at the United Nations where the ayatollahs can wrap themselves in the UN flag while condemning the free world and redefining “human rights” to absolve or ignore their own atrocities.

New members of the 47-member UN Human Rights Council will be “elected” by secret ballot of the 192-member UN General Assembly this May. The seats, which carry terms of three years each, are allocated among regional groups. Iran is a member of the Asian group, which now has five candidates running for four seats: Malaysia, Maldives, Qatar, Thailand… and Iran. Which means Iran, with its oil-fueled, terror-backed clout, has a good chance of winning a seat already; and if any one of the other four contenders drops out, Iran could be an automatic shoe-in, if the UN General Assembly follows its usual practice under such circumstances of filling the open seats by acclamation.

More details on this process in my column this week for Forbes.com: “Don’t Let Iran On the Human Rights Council.”

The last time Iran tried this stunt was 2006, when John Bolton was serving as President George Bush’s ambassador to the UN. I had a chance to hear Bolton talk about that this past Thursday, when we were both interviewed about Iran on Fox Business TV by David Asman. Asman asked Bolton how Iran was kept off the Human Rights Council in 2006. Bolton answered that this had entailed a big effort by the entire State Department, reaching out within the UN itself and enlisting U.S. embassies around the world to make the case to America’s friends, allies (and, I would guess, acquaintances) that it would be immensely damaging to let Iran win a seat. Iran lost

The Bush administration was able to accomplish that much even without having a seat on the Human Rights Council itself – which the U.S. in 2006, under Bush and Bolton, declined to join, on grounds that it was too flawed in design to do a decent job. That concern has been richly vindicated. Since the “reformed” Human Rights Council was launched in 2006, it has reverted to the same Orwellian failings as its predecessor, the Human Rights Commission — absolving or ignoring most of the world’s worst human rights abusers (including Iran, on which it has issued not a single condemnatory resolution), and focusing most of its efforts instead on condemning the democratic nation of Israel. Last year alone, the Human Rights Council brought us both the anti-Semitic Durban Review Conference, and terror-biased Goldstone Report).

Under President Barack Obama’s policy of “engagement,” the U.S. reversed course last year, seeking and winning a seat on the Human Rights Council. The rationale of Obama’s UN ambassador Susan Rice was that the U.S. could better leverage good behavior from the Council by “working within.” The effect has been to confer on the Council a renewed legitimacy, which may help explain why Iran again covets a seat.

For Iran to win that seat would send a terrible, disheartening message to the dissidents inside Iran — effectively telling them that the “international community” sides with the thug regime now beating, jailing and killing them in reply to their demands for basic human rights. So where’s the Obama administration on this? We’ve heard nothing yet. Surely “engagement” does not extend to letting Iran slide into a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.

Goldstone Report - There are No Winners in War

The first thing the Goldstone report failed to understand, as you can see from the above pictures, is the most basic of concepts: there are no winners in war.

Above are pictures of Israel and Gaza, pictures taken before, during and after the war. No one won the war. There was tremendous suffering on all sides - before, during and after the war. The Goldstone report failed, not only because it failed to understand this basic fact, but also because it ignored so much of what came before. Palestinian groups, including Hamas, have been responsible for launching more than 10,000 rockets and mortars at Israeli cities. In November, 2008 alone, over 120 rockets and mortars were fired at Israeli cities, injuring hundreds of people. One woman, a doctor who has treated Israeli and Palestinian patients equally and without discrimmination was called to testify before the Goldstone mission. She spoke of her injuries, after being seriously injured during a missile attack. She was days before her 8th operation to repair the damage.

In the end, her moving testimony was all but ignored, relegated to a mere technical note. She later spoke of her humiliation at the hands of the commission, one determined to produce a report that was all but written before they even started their work.

And thus begins the United Nation's latest travesty of justice.

For those wishing to read the report, you can find the text here: Goldstone Report. The truth of what really happened in Gaza, before and after, however, will not be found in this 575 page report. In this day and age, it is hoped that few people will actually print it, for it is most surely not worth the paper.

Important things Goldstone didn't consider:

History of Rocket Attacks on Israel

Goldstone Mission Suppressed Evidence

Many videos submitted to the Goldstone mission proving that Hamas used Palestininans as human shields

And finally, while Israelis ran for shelter in the protected structures Israel has created for them to deal with thousands of incoming rocket attacks over 8 years, the Hamas leadership hid in bunkers and left their people without protection. Israel did all it could (see Israel's Efforts to Avoid Casualties) and yet still, innocent civilians died on both sides of this conflict. That is war.

What effort did Hamas take to protect its population? Goldstone never says.

What effort did Hamas take to warn Israeli civilians of its plans to attack? Goldstone never acknowledges the truth here either.

The fundamental truth is that Israel did all it could to avoid causing civilian casualties and Hamas did all it could to cause them. Goldstone's mission failed because this simple truth was never acknowledged, never confirmed, never written.

All this report does is offer lip service to years and years of suffering: "The Mission has determined that the rockets and, to a lesser extent, mortars, fired by the Palestinian armed groups are incapable of being directed towards specific military bjectives and were fired into areas where civilian populations are based." Pathetically inaccurate way to describe the 15 seconds a mother has to shield her child; a father has to find shelter for his family.

It is also important to note that others turned down the offer to head the commission, realizing that the mission was flawed from the outset. Mary Robinson, who has never been considered a friend of Israel by any stretch of the imagination, chose honor above "glory" when she refused the job:

"I refused to accept the invitation from the president of the Human Rights Council at the time, Ambassador Martin Uhomoibhi of Nigeria, to lead the investigation following the Human Rights Council's January 12, 2009 resolution. As a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, I felt strongly that the Council's resolution was one-sided and did not permit a balanced approach to determining the situation on the ground....

I was also aware that the UN Human Rights Council had made repeated condemnations of Israel over the past two years but had focused little attention on large-scale violations of human rights in other countries. This pattern of action and inaction by the Council has given greater credence to those who believe the UN’s highest human rights body is inherently anti-Israel."

-- Mary Robinson, is a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Ireland
Copyright 2009 TheGoldstoneReport.com All rights reserved.

UN Watch Calls on UN to Remove Richard Falk for Breaching Mandate

Geneva, December 31, 2009 - UN Watch, the Geneva-based watchdog organization, today called on UN chief Ban Ki-Moon to remove Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent investigator of alleged Israeli violations, for breaching his mandate when he called this week for world sanctions against Israel and compared Israelis to Nazis. The full letter follows below.

His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General
The United Nations
New York, NY 10017

December 31, 2009

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

UN Watch is alarmed by the odious statements made this week by Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, including his thinly-veiled comparison of the Jewish state to Nazi Germany, and his call for a world economic boycott of Israel. Mr. Falk is also a major proponent of the conspiracy theory that the United States government was behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. We urge you to act immediately to see that Mr. Falk is removed from his post.

As reported by the UN News Center on December 29, 2009, Mr. Falk openly defended the Hamas tunnels into Gaza that smuggle rockets, explosives, and machine guns for use against Israeli civilians, which he said were for “food and material relief.”

Mr. Falk perversely justified these tunnels as “an expression of the desperation created in Gaza as a result of [Israel’s] blockade,” which, he said, is “something that no people since the end of World War II have experienced.”

Mr. Falk’s obscene use of the World War II comparison is only the latest in a pattern of statements that include his 2007 article accusing Israel of “a Palestinian holocaust in the making.” The demonizing comparison of Israelis to Nazis is expressly defined as a form of antisemitism by the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia-and must be met with zero tolerance by the United Nations.

Mr. Falk also condemned Egypt for building a barrier to stop the tunnels, as well as the U.S. for its “complicity.” Mr. Falk, who was appointed to his post at the request of the Arab bloc, said that “Israel does not respond to language of diplomacy,” and called for “a threat of economic sanctions against Israel.”

We are unaware of such language being used, or such measures advocated, by any UN human rights official against any other UN member state-not even against serial abusers such as Iran, Libya, or North Korea. By applying a double standard against Israel, Mr. Falk’s statements only underscore the perversion of justice that is encouraged by the UN Human Rights Council, the body to whom he directly reports.

We note that Mr. Falk’s statement said nothing about Palestinian terrorist attacks recently perpetrated against Israeli civilians by Hamas and the Fatah-associated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. He was equally silent about recent expressions of genocidal antisemitism emitted by state-sanctioned Palestinian media and religious leaders.

Mr. Falk’s actions are ultra vires his mandate and amount to a a breach of his obligations under HRC Resolution 5/2 to uphold the highest standards of integrity, probity, impartiality, equity, and good faith. Indeed his actions cast a shadow upon the reputation of the UN as whole. Accordingly, we urge you to immediately denounce Mr. Falk’s remarks and see that he is removed from his post.

Please know that in all your efforts to assure the adherence of the United Nation to its noble principles, you will have the full support of UN Watch.

Sincerely,

Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director
UN Watch
Geneva, Switzerland