Saturday, June 23, 2007
Canadian politician Irwin Cotler on the UN's shame:
This discriminatory treatment is not only prejudicial to Israel, but it is a breach of the United Nations Charter's foundational principle of "equality for all nations, large and small," and it concluded a week -- and year -- of unprecedented discriminatory conduct.
The week began with Archbishop Desmond Tutu reporting to the UN Human Rights Council on the fact-finding mission to investigate the Israeli "willful killing of Palestinian civilians" in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, in November 2006. He received a standing ovation, an extraordinary reaction by a body that frowns even upon applause.
I suspect the appreciation was as much for the man as anything else. For the mandate that authorized the mission was a sham. It made a mockery of the council's own founding principles and procedures. Accordingly, when I addressed the council that same morning, I made public that I had been invited by the council president last November to join the mission but declined to do so, and I explained why.
I could not accept the mandate because its terms of reference made a mockery of Kofi Annan's vision for the new council and of its founding principles of universality, equality, and fairness...
"Kofi Annan's vision." Heh.
Israel can expect from THE UN HUMAN Rights Council the same sort of impartial justice accorded to a black man in an all-white court during the Jim Crow era in the Southern and border states of the United States. How ironic, that Desmond Tutu leads the charge. It must take a strong will and deliberate effort to blot out at least 50% of the facts and the context in order to arrive at a report that will win a standing ovation from this shameful body.