Sunday, March 1, 2009
A must read from Anne Bayefsky shows that American dis-involvement with the Durban disaster is still far from a done-deal, and that participation with the Human Rights Council may be just beginning: The Obama Administration Double-Deals On Israel
...After sowing confusion over the phone lines, the State Department chose late Friday night to put the real deal in print. Their release reads: "the current text of the draft outcome document is not salvageable," and "the United States will not ... participate in a conference based on this text," but we will "re-engage if a document that meets [our] criteria becomes the basis for deliberations." A new version must be: "shorter," "not reaffirm in toto the flawed 2001 Durban Declaration," "not single out any one country or conflict," and "not embrace the troubling concept of "defamation of religion."
And by the way, it continued, the U.S. will "participate" for the first time in the U.N. Human Rights Council.
All of this leaves the American people not knowing whether they're coming or going.
It does open a window, however, into Obama's gerrymandering. On one phone line with Assistant Secretary of State Karen Stewart were Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, the American Civil Liberties Union, the U.N. Foundation, the UNA-USA Association and the Arab American Institute, among others. On the other line with National Security Council member Samantha Power were Jewish organizations. The dangerous message was that an Arab advocacy group does human rights, while Jewish organizations do Jews...
Read it all. Some comments on Augean Stables. [h/t: Michael B.]
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