UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL: STOP YOUR ANTI-ISRAEL RESOLUTIONS Yesterday, during the year’s first meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated, “The world is watching to see whether this young council will live up to its promise.” Since its inception a year ago, the new U.N. Human Rights Council, which replaced the infamously politicized Human Rights Commission, has passed eight, one-sided resolutions accusing Israel of human rights violations and four more are planned. Among the issues scheduled for discussion during the Council’s meeting is U.N. Special Rapporteur John Dugard’s new report claiming that Israel is an occupying force among the Palestinians and that she has committed crimes such as apartheid and colonialism. Therefore, please join with the Simon Wiesenthal Center in urging U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, to direct the Human Rights Council to focus its attention away from resolutions bashing Israel and rather on what the U.N. itself has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis: Darfur. The U.N. Council’s failure to act has been the direct result of the combined voting bloc of certain African states with the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, whose goal is to prevent any resolution condemning Sudan, one of their own. Meanwhile, millions continue to be raped, murdered, starved and displaced. Even the new U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, has said he is “worried by its [the UNHRC’s] disproportionate focus on violations by Israel.” And, R. Nicholas Burns, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs told the US Foreign Affairs Committee, “It [the UNHRC] spent the entire year slamming Israel.” |