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In recent weeks, the United Nations has continued its long history of serving as a forum for anti-Israel activity. It regularly refuses to condemn Palestinian violence against Israelis, instead choosing to single out Israel for opprobrium.
At a March 25 public meeting of the U.N. Security Council, representatives from Syria, Sudan and a number of other countries accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and a “holocaust” against the Palestinians.
Such statements, coupled with the Council’s refusal to condemn Hamas’ continued rocket fire and the recent terrorist attack in Jerusalem that left eight Israeli students dead, have further reinforced skepticism of the world body and called into question its usefulness in promoting a peaceful two-state solution.
Elsewhere at Turtle Bay, the recently “reformed” U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) looks to have outdone its predecessor in its one-sided criticism of Israel. It has focused its attention on condemning the Jewish state, formally doing so on 19 occasions since its inception in June 2006.
Obsessed with criticizing Israel, the Council has all but ignored horrific human rights situations in places such as Darfur and Tibet, and has recently dropped its inquiry into Cuba, named by Freedom House as one of the “world’s worst regimes.” Instead, the Council has vilified Israel and filled its ranks with fierce opponents of the Jewish state.
In its most recent session, the Human Rights Council elected two new members known for their hostility to the West. One of them, former Swiss politician Jean Ziegler, has boasted of warm relations with Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Libya’s Qadaffi. In 2005, then-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly denounced Ziegler for calling the Gaza Strip an “immense concentration camp” and for comparing Israelis to Nazis. Ziegler is the only U.N. official to have been reprimanded in such a way.
The second appointment, special investigator on Israeli actions in the territories, was granted to Richard Falk, a retired Princeton law professor who has compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
