Sky wrote:I went to the web-site and read Bayefski's bio and a number of published articles by her. This is not a source that is without bias. Bayefski has an axe to grind. Her views are rabbidly pro-jewish/Israeli and highly critical of the UN. Her article concerning the UN's response following Bush's re-election were heavily weighted in emotive content: particularly sarchasm. This is not an unbiased or reliable source .. She merely presents her opinion .. an opinion that does not address a balance between pro's and cons.
I think Riven rock makes an excellent point in regards to your contention that Bayefsky is biased. I would hesitate to use the terms biased, rabid or unreliable as one must first determine whether her content and arguments are grounded in fact and reality. After all, a reasonable argument grounded in fact is really not a bias at all. For example, Would it be reasonable to assume that one who argues against the Nazi cause has an anti-nazi bias because of these views. I would say no, as objective reality indicates that this persons views have basis in fact. Coming down on one particular side of an issue does not always indicate bias.
Sky wrote:Is there a resolution on anti-christianism?? on anti-islam?? The reason the UN would be reluctant to endorse such a resolution would be because it would be unsound. Anti-racism is a far broader and sounder resolution to support.
If the UN is truly concerned with all racism than what is lost by the redundant inclusion of a specific reference to anti-semitism? Especially considering the semantic games that have been persistent in the UN. For example, when the UN first adopted an international convention against racial discrimination in 1965, it refused to include a reference to anti-Semitism because the Soviet Union, its satellites, and its Arab allies insisted that anti-Semitism was a question not of race but of religion, yet when the UN later adopted a resolution on religious intolerance, The Durban Declaration, the lead sponsor, Brian Cowen of Ireland, insisted that anti-Semitism should be omitted because it was a matter not of religion but of race.
But to answer your question specifically, there have been anti-Jewish resolutions. The famous “Zionism is Racism resolution” (UNR 3379 established in 1975 and then repudiated in 1991 with the staunch support of the US) specifically charges Israel with practicing racism. The concept of “Zionism” moves anti-semitism beyond the discussion of race or religion into a political, and therefore more acceptable, form. In effect it makes anti-semitism safe from challenge as intolerance or racism (i.e. I don’t dislike Jews, I just don’t like Israel’s policies).
Additionally let me list several other examples of what, if not outright anti-semitism, could only, kindly, be called a double standard:
- Currently there are several committees to address the plight of Palestine: The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the Division on Palestinian Rights and the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs to name a few, but none for Israel.
- A special rapporteur mandated by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights reports regularly to the U.N. on "discrimination against Muslims and Arab peoples in various parts of the world" including any "physical assaults and attacks against their places of worship, cultural centers, businesses and properties." In fact, an entire 2003 Commission resolution "combating defamation of religions," mentions only prejudice against Muslims, Arabs and Islam specifically.
- The U.N. has repeatedly held "Emergency Special Sessions" focusing solely on Israel. No Emergency Special Sessions were convened to examine the genocide in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia or other major world conflicts.
- The U.N. has never initiated any inquiry into Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority's role in aiding and abetting terrorists, or passed one resolution condemning any terrorist organization operating against Israel.
- The concealment and vehement denial of the existence of videotape of Hezbollah's abduction of three Israeli soldiers made by U.N. peacekeeping forces in Lebanon. For 11 months, the U.N. lied to the world and denied the existence of any evidence related to the abduction. When the cover-up was exposed, revealing the existence of the videotape, the U.N. eventually showed Israel a heavily edited videotape with the faces of the terrorists blurred. When asked the reason behind this, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan stated it was due to the U.N.'s standing as a neutral organization.
- Though anti-Semitic canards often go unchallenged in the UN, the mere reference in the 1997 Commission on Human Rights to an allegedly blasphemous reference to Islam, by a UN expert and from an academic source, brought a rebuff by consensus by the Chair, and the deletion of the offending sentence. In contrast, during the 1991 session of the Commission on Human Rights, the Syrian Ambassador repeated the Damascus Blood Libel that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to make Matzoth. This anti-Semitic libel went unchallenged until the US exerted enormous pressure to procure a challenge to this libel in the record, and then only months after the Syrian representative emphasized to the Commission, "it's true, it's true, it's true."
- On 11 March 1997, the Palestinian representative charged, in a chamber packed with 500 people including the representatives of 53 states and hundreds of non-governmental organizations, that the Israeli Government had injected 300 Palestinian children with the HIV virus. Despite the repeated interventions of the Governments of Israel and the US, and UN Watch, this modern Blood Libel stands unchallenged and unrefuted on the UN record. No appropriate action by any UN body or official has been taken to date. The Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights agreed to place on the record his letter to the Ambassador of Israel, sharing his "concern as to the charge made" against Israel -- "an allegation made without evidence, on the basis of a newspaper article ... proved completely false." The Chairman reneged on his agreement after he was called to task by a delegation of Arab Ambassadors and received no support from other regional groups. Blood Libels are vicious and persistent carriers of anti-Semitism. The latest PLO Blood Libel bears the imprimatur of the UN record and has yet to be removed by consolidated action of the Commission or by any UN agency or official on the public record. (Nor was there any rebuke in 1992 to a UN document circulated in the Commission by the PLO observer, which stated that Israelis "celebrating ...Yom Kippur, are never fully happy even on religious occasions unless their celebrations, as usual, are marked by Palestinian blood.")
- You might even be interested in what effect Bayefsky’s speech, which I reprinted, had on the UN conscience. To answer: In December of 2003 a draft resolution on anti-Semitism, which would have been a first in the U.N.'s 58-year history, was withdrawn in the face of Arab and Muslim opposition.
Sky wrote:When Bayefski uses the term "JUDENREIN" .. she draws an outrageously unjust parrallel between Nazi Germany's policy of a Jewish free state/world .. to the UN..
I don’t think it’s outrageous at all. I think it is very appropriate given the stated goals of many of the arab states.
Sky wrote:Boy this is so one sided. Even Australia has come under criticism for human rights abuses .. pertaining to our indigenous population. If I am not wrong, so too has the US.
to "demonise the jewish target" is not a little emotive and exaggerates the system of addressing human rights condemnation. Bayefski fails to acknowledge that the UN has condemned China, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria .. And leaving that aside, just how is addressing Israeli human rights violations interpreted as demonising Jews??
This is a misrepresented inaccuracy, the UN does not require the production of a statistical number of Isreali abuses per year.
It may not be a requirement but the sheer number of anti-israel resolutions that comes out of the UN each year is surely disproportional to the resolutions that the rest of the world is subject to. The Commission on Human Rights routinely adopts totally disproportionate resolutions concerning Israel. I submit as evidence:
- Of ten emergency special sessions called by the GA, six have been about Israel. No emergency sessions have been held on the Rwandan genocide, ethnic cleaning in the former Yugoslavia, or the two decades of atrocities in Sudan.
- At the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, only Israel has its own agenda item [item 8] dealing with alleged human rights violations. All other countries are dealt with in a separate agenda item [item 9]. More than one quarter of the resolutions condemning a state's human rights violations adopted by the Commission over the past 40 years have been directed at Israel.
- A series of anti-Israel resolutions are passed each year by the GA.
- Until recently, Israel was the only member nation consistently denied admission into a regional group. The Arab states continue to prevent Israeli membership in the Asian Regional Group, Israel's natural geopolitical grouping. As a result, Israel sought entry into the Western and Others Group (WEOG) and was granted admission in May 2000 to that regional group in New York, but not in Geneva. Israel's full participation in the U.N., therefore, is still limited and it is restricted from participating in U.N.-Geneva based activities.
Additionally, a study was conducted in August 2003 by the United Nations Association of the UK to determine if there is a lack of balance in the language of UN resolutions on the Israeli-Palestinian issue and whether the language in these resolutions contribute positively to the peace process in the Middle East. The conclusions follow:
Conclusions:
On the basis of the UNSC and UNGA Resolutions assessed, the United Nations was found to be palpably more critical of Israeli policies and practices than it is of either Palestinian actions or the wider Arab world. However, criticism is not necessarily a product of bias, and it is not the intention here to suggest that UNGA and UNSC reproaches of Israel stem from prejudice. From the perspective of the UN, Israel has repeatedly flouted fundamental UN tenets and ignored important decisions. Omitting a recognition of Israel’s breach of international law in subsequent resolutions would diminish the credibility of UN authority and of its legitimacy as the
primary guarantor of international peace and security. Whether or not the decisions themselves are based on completely accurate interpretations of events is an entirely separate issue. Because of the more pronounced level of criticism in the General Assembly Resolutions, it was thought superfluous to give each resolution an individual score. With a few exceptions, the UNGA
Resolutions are more or less critical towards Israel and express sympathy with the Palestinian experience. The UNSC Resolutions evaluated were less uniform in their censure of Israel; it was thus more feasible to give each resolution a negative or neutral figure, depending on its perceived treatment of Israel. A negative figure was generally given when the condemnations of Israeli
policies were explicit. However, it should be noted that this “method” is highly subjective, imprecise and potentially misleading.
Security Council Resolutions:
Given the permanent membership of the United States on the United Nations Security Council, the UNSC Resolutions over this period were predictably neutral towards Israel. Actions, such as “the excessive use of force”, were condemned, but the agent of such force was rarely named explicitly. George Bush, incidentally, has pledged to veto any resolution condemning Israel which
does not also denounce terrorism orchestrated against Israel.
General Assembly Resolutions:
As one would expect, resolutions passed in the same period by the General Assembly were far more explicit in their condemnation of Israel. Underpinning these resolutions is the conviction that Israel is in clear breach of international law, the implications of which were stated to extend beyond the region to threaten global peace and stability as a whole. It is repeatedly stressed throughout the resolutions that international consensus favours the Palestinians. Israeli actions are attributed with thwarting Palestinian socio-economic and educational development and are implicated, furthermore, in impairing the psychological health of Palestinian children. Violence perpetrated against Israeli civilians, including the use of suicide bombers, is mentioned only a few times and then in only vague terms. Violence against Palestinian civilians, on the other hand, is described far more explicitly. Israeli occupying forces are condemned for the “breaking of bones”of Palestinians, the tear-gassing of girls’ schools and the firing on hospitals in which a specific number of women were said to be giving birth.
Sky wrote:Palestine is not deified by the UN .. acts of Palestinian hostilities are condemned by the UN. Individual states may retain their own bias' but the UN does not condone acts of terror.
As I have detailed above it seems to “not condone” some more than others.
Sky wrote:Palestinians are fighting for their own liberation. Surely Israeli's of all people can understand the need for a homeland! And have we so quickly forgotten how Israel's statehood was secured??
Have you so quickly forgotten that we’ve discussed this issue previously? The Hotel David was a legitimate military target and the Irgun provided warning to the Hotel prior to the explosion. Hardly in the same league as intentionally targeting innocent schoolchildren.
In response to the fact that UN Special Advisor to the Secretary General Lakhdar Brahimi called the existence and resilience of the Jewish state “The great poison of the Middle East” Sky responded:
I find that very difficult to believe. As for what statement one envoy makes does not make it official UN stance.
You are in fact correct Sky. Brahimi, on French radio actually stated “The great poison in the region is this Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians as well as the equally unjust support of the United States for this policy”. I will leave motive and comparisons of intent to the reader. Regardless, one in such a position as Mr. Brahimi should have better sense than to advocate such positions. He is no more a spokesperson for the UN than Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld is a spokesperson for the US Government…That is to say, he is very much so.
Sky wrote:Indeed it is a cycle of violence. Violence begets violence .. not peace.
Not always the case as WWII clearly illustrates.
Sky wrote:Deliberate targetting of civillians is a heinous crime and can not be justified by any cause.
As for the secretary general refusing to name the perpetrators, it isn't even established that Secretary General Annan even knew the names of the perpetrators. Just that he did not supply them. He has however, made his position quite clear. Targetting of civillians is a heinous and injustifiable crime. To use the term "crime" has a lot more weight when used by Annan that any casual observer. By inference then, it is a crime that can be punished one would assume, as belonging to that category of Crimes against Humanity.
I think Riven pointed out that you missed the point on this one. The fact that the UN identifies Israel very clearly when it chooses to target a suspected violation is contrasted to the generalized rhetoric that is used when Palestinians or Arabs are the culprit. I’m glad that you now see this point.
Sky wrote:The UN Agenda is not corrupt .. this is to oversimplify the complexities involved in managing a large and diverse membership. I agree that reform is warranted. The real difficulty is being able to address corruption that does occur within any large inter-governmental organisation. This must be addressed and reforms in this area are entirely warranted .. imo .. to give the UN teeth!
As I stated previously, by allowing Arab countries to conscript the U.N. for their war against the Jewish state, the weaknesses of the system become apparent. Every advantage that Arabs have gained over Israel at the U.N. proclaims the strength of autocracies and dictatorships over liberal democracy. This lesson is reinforced every time there is a condemnation of the Jewish state.