Israel Blows Off UNHRC Review
By Jack Kinsella
The State of Israel has finally had enough special treatment by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and has simply refused to cooperate with a UNHRC review of its human rights practices.
The UNHRC is the ‘improved’ version that former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan promised would be the ‘new’ face of the ‘new’ UN when he disbanded the old version.
First, a bit of background.
– In May, 2001 the United States was kicked off the UNHRC by a vote of the majority of the member-states while Libya, Syria and the Sudan were elected to seats on the commission over the preceding two years.
– In 2002, University of Toronto Law professor Anne Bayefsky noted that over the course of thirty years, Israel had been the target of a third of all country-specific UNHRC resolutions.
– On April 15, 2002, the Commission approved a resolution affirming the right of the Palestinians to fight Israel by “all available means, including armed struggle” in order to achieve independence.
– In 2003, over the objections of the United States, the UN Human Rights Commission elected serial human-rights abuser and designated terrorist state, Muammar Khadaffi’s Libya, as chairman.
– During that session, UNCHR officials rejected any criticism of the application of Sharia Law, such as stoning, honor killings, mutilations, etc. as “interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.”
– In 2004, the Sudan was elected to a third, uncontested term on the UNHRC despite its ongoing genocidal ethnic cleansing efforts in Darfur. The US Ambassador walked out in protest.
– Finally, in 2006 the Commission was disbanded and replaced by the new “UN Human Rights Council”.
In its first year, the UNHRC passed eleven resolutions in total. All eleven condemned Israel for human rights abuses. Israel was the only nation out of 192 member states named.
To this day, out of all the various criminal regimes brutalizing and murdering its own citizens; Iran, Syria, North Korea, Burma, the Congo, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc., Israel remains the only country on earth to be made a permanent part of the UN’s Human Rights agenda.
During its 2012 session, the UN Human Rights Council passed one resolution condemning North Korea, two resolutions condemning Syria and FIVE resolutions condemning Israel.
One of the five Israel-related resolutions establishes a new international fact-finding mission into alleged violations relating to Israeli settlements in disputed territory – the third such mission targeting Israel since the HRC was re-established.
Three fact-finding missions to Israel, but none to North Korea? Or Syria?
So this year, when the UN Human Rights Council summoned Israel to receive this year’s scathing review of its human rights record, Israel simply blew them off.
No appearance. No explanation. It was the first time any country simply ignored them. The UNHRC didn’t know what to do.
The president of the U.N.’s top rights body, Polish diplomat Remigiusz Henczel, declared Israel a no-show at a meeting in Geneva and then reconvened the 47-nation Human Rights Council to decide what to do. Israel had asked Henczel in January to postpone the review but did not provide a public explanation.
“This is a rather unique step which has never happened in the past,” said German U.N. Ambassador Hanns Heinrich Schumacher.
But after a debate, the council unanimously agreed to defer the review until its next session in October and November at the latest. Henczel said the compromise would set a precedent for “how to deal with all cases of non-cooperation” in the future.
Assessment
Last month, the Palestinians accused Israel in a letter to the United Nations of planning to commit further “war crimes” by expanding Jewish settlements after the Palestinians won de facto UN recognition of statehood and warned that Jerusalem must be held accountable.
It is hard to imagine anything less logical. In the first place, nobody can say where “Palestine” actually is. There are no recognized borders.
The Palestinians are demanding a return to “pre-1967 borders” which really means the 1947 borders set forth by the UN Partition Plan — which the Arabs rejected out-of-hand before launching the first of five invasions aimed at the annihilation of the Jewish State.
The actual pre-1967 borders would return the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Jordan and the Gaza Strip to Egypt.
Secondly, nobody can identify who the “Palestinian people” actually are. Most are already citizens of Jordan or Egypt or other Arab states. There is no unique Palestinian language. There is no unique Palestinian culture. There is no shared Palestinian history. There is no ethnic Palestinian people.
There isn’t even a unified government — who speaks for the Palestinians? Fatah? Or Hamas?
The West Bank is ruled, for want of a better word, by the tattered remnants of Arafat’s Fatah Party, which is ironically propped up by Israel, to prevent Hamas from extending its rule from Gaza into the West Bank.
In any case, UN investigators interviewed more than 50 people who came to Jordan in November to testify about confiscated land, damage to their livelihoods, and violence by Jewish settlers, according to the report.
“The mission believes that the motivation behind this violence and the intimidation against the Palestinians as well as their properties is to drive the local populations away from their lands and allow the settlements to expand . . “leading to a creeping annexation that prevents the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and undermines the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” it said.
The Palestinians aren’t depicted as ‘racist’, although until the Jews captured the land in 1967, there was no call from the ‘Palestinians’ for ‘statehood’ and no ‘Palestinian’ people. Why? Because they were Egyptians or Jordanians, and therefore under Arab rule
(Interestingly, neither Jordan nor Egypt felt it necessary to extend statehood to the West Bank or Gaza when they were the ‘occupiers’.)
The Palestinians continue to be seen as victims, despite the fact they have created their own victimhood. For example, had Arafat adhered to Oslo, Israel would have been forced to do the same.
But we’ll never know. Israel never got a chance to prove it. Arafat broke the covenant, and Israel got the blame for Oslo’s failure.
Why does the UN hate Israel so much? The UN represents world government, and the Bible says that Satan is the god of this world.
The fact that there exists a place called “Israel” anywhere on this planet is a reminder to the god of this world, and his minions at the UN, that the God of heaven remains on His Throne and His Promises are still valid.
Israel claims title deed by direct commandment of God, and has the documentation to prove it. But global acceptance of Israel by Divine right requires global acceptance of the Divinity granting it.
Israel has an unassailable legal deed, recorded by Israel’s King David more than 3,000 years ago. The deed can’t be broken, so it is ignored.
The eagerness with which the world extends to a terrorist state what it tried to deny the survivors of the Holocaust underscores just how blind and unreasoning the UN’s hatred of Israel really is.
It gnaws at the global consciousness to have such a visible reminder of God in its face.
Israel is a peculiar nation, set aside for two millennia and then ‘assembled from the outcasts’ as an ‘ensign’ to the nations to remind them God is still on the Throne.
Israel is the centerpiece of Bible prophecy. Its existence and history are proof positive of the accuracy of Bible prophecy. To this point in the historical record, Bible prophecy — where it can be proved at all — has proved to be 100% accurate, 100% of the time.
It continues to unfold before our eyes. The same God that predicted what has already occurred with such unerring accuracy will continue to perform His Will until His Purpose is accomplished. Bible prophecy proves God remains on the Throne and is intimately concerned with the affairs of men.
Bible prophecy was true 2,500 years ago, and it is true today.
The same Divine foreknowledge that outlined the history of the Jewish people also foretold the events that would lead to the return of Christ in the last days.
If that Foreknowledge was 100% accurate over a 2,500 year period without wavering, then it is fair to conclude that same Divine Foreknowledge will be equally accurate concerning the events prophesied to span a single generation, somewhere in time.
And, since the world is locked in bitter debate over issues that ultimately distill down to whether Jerusalem belongs to the land of Israel or the Land of the Philistines, there is only one generation in history that qualifies to the exclusion of all others.
“And when these things BEGIN to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:28)