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Jewish World Review
August 28, 2007
/ 14 Elul, 5766
Challenging the UN's darker side
By
Hillel C. Neuer
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
GENEVA — United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, now eight months in
office, is proving that his courteous manner should not be mistaken for
lack of resolve. The Korean diplomat's administration has spoken out for
the victims of Darfur, confronted Sri Lanka over the killings of aid
workers, and acted to establish the international tribunal on the
assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon. Quietly
but firmly, Ban is helping to confirm the UN's indispensable role in the
world.
Yet Ban has made little progress in restraining the UN's own dark side.
Getting underway in Europe alone, in the space of a few days this week,
will be two UN-backed initiatives that run counter to the secretary
general's efforts to improve the world body's effectiveness and
credibility.
First, the UN yesterday launched a series of international meetings
on racism, leading up to a major world conference in 2009. The so-called
"Durban Review" process is the follow-up to the 2001 conference in South
Africa that turned into a diplomatic fiasco.
The lead-up to Durban in 2001 was hijacked by the 57-strong Organization
of the Islamic Conference. A February 2001 preparatory meeting for Asian
nations was held in Tehran. (Israelis were a priori excluded.) The
preparatory committee adopted a text singling out Israel for "ethnic
cleansing" and of a "new kind of apartheid, a crime against humanity."
Durban's final declaration, after international interventions, toned
down the language, but went on to single out Israel. The US delegation
walked out.
Far worse, though, were the parallel proceedings held by the
nongovernmental organizations. One widely distributed flyer showed a
photograph of Hitler and the question, "What if I had won?" The answer:
"There would be NO Israel." Goebbels-like caricatures of Jews circulated
freely.
In his eyewitness account published in the Fletcher Forum of World
Affairs, Democratic Representative Tom Lantos of California, a US
delegate, remarked that "having experienced the horrors of the Holocaust
firsthand, this was the most sickening and unabashed display of hate for
Jews I had seen since the Nazi period." The final nongovernmental
organization statement declared Israel a "racist apartheid state" guilty
of "genocide."
The ghosts of 2001 are almost certain to be conjured up by the shamans
of Durban II. In addition, Islamic states are expected to introduce new
accusations against the West for "religious defamation." The subtext of
this refrain — which has made its way into UN resolutions over the past
six years — is that the greatest victim of Sept. 11 was actually Islam.
The party chosen to chair the entire process through 2009 indicates its
seriousness of purpose: Moammar Khadafy's Libya. The same regime that,
in 2002, gave its highest award to convicted French Holocaust denier
Roger Garaudy, that routinely brutalizes black African migrants, and
that tortures Bulgarian and Palestinian medics for the crime of being
foreigners. This is the country that will now teach the world about
racism — all under the UN's imprimatur.
Second, on Thursday, while the Geneva session is underway, the European
Parliament in Brussels will host a UN "International Conference of Civil
Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace." Contrary to the
noble-sounding title, the rapprochement is disingenuous at best.
Consider its idea of balance: On one side will be selected Palestinian
presenters like Raji Sourani, who justifies Hamas attacks as
"resistance," and Jamal Juma, who says Israel is a "colonial racist
apartheid state." On the other side are selected Israeli presenters who
couldn't agree more. These include Michel Warschawski, self-described as
a "well-known anti-Zionist activist," and Nurit Peled-Elhanan, who
recently pronounced that "the Jewish head has unceasingly been bowed in
worship of racism, while the Jewish mind is devising the most creative
ways to devastate and demolish and destroy this country." By
citizenship, they are Israeli, but only a scoundrel or a fool would
imagine either as representatives of Israel's point of view.
The UN's 16-member Palestinian division is part of a sprawling
infrastructure of anti-Israel committees and programs launched by the
General Assembly in 1975 alongside its resolution declaring that
"Zionism is racism." In the past six months alone, the division devoted
vast sums for gatherings in Doha, Rome, Pretoria, and New York. Wouldn't
its $5 million budget go to better use — and actually help Palestinians
— by building clinics in Gaza or schools in Ramallah? Tragically, the
Arab regimes responsible for its annual renewal seem more interested in
preserving grievances than solving them.
Faced with such intransigence, is there anything the secretary general
can do? There is.
The greatest enabler of the Durban debacle, as Lantos recounts, was Mary
Robinson, the UN's human rights commissioner, whose diplomacy of
appeasement encouraged the spoilers. This time around, the secretary
general should instruct his Geneva officials to stand firm.
As to Brussels, the secretary general's representative, billed as
opening the event, should send a clear message that anti-Israel
propaganda and posturing are relics of the past — and hurt the cause of
peace rather than help the Palestinians.
A UN secretary general cannot be judged by country-driven bodies that go
astray. But as Ban did recently in protesting the hypocrisies of the
Human Rights Council, he can choose to speak truth to power now.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Hillel C. Neuer is executive director of UN Watch in Geneva. Comment by clicking here.
© 2007, Hillel C. Neuer
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