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March 19, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review Dec. 3, 2007 / 23 Kislev 5768

United Nations and Africa disgrace themselves

By Nat Hentoff


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The American draft of the resolution before the U.N. General Assembly could not have been any clearer or more vital, especially since an increasing number of governments and their murderous militias are using rape as a political weapon. As reported in The New York Times (Nov. 17), America intended to condemn "rape used by governments and armed groups to achieve political and military ends."


But, as often happens at the spineless, rampantly disingenuous United Nations, the final resolution — after itself being savaged by many self-protecting revisions — stated that, in general, rape is not acceptable, but stripped out rape as an "instrument to achieve political objectives." There was no mention left of government "soldiers and militia members."


Instead, the United Nations weakly says that rape should not be used "in conflict and related situations."


Who crippled the original American draft language? Not surprisingly, it was the 43-nation African Group Coalition. Said South African ambassador Dumisnai Kumalo, America had created two categories of rape and the African delegates wanted "to balance the text by making certain that there was no politicization of rape."


Huh?


By leaving out rape sponsored by an individual state and its armed militia, the sovereign criminal nation of Sudan was thereby not embarrassed, let alone the Belgian Congo. At first, there was a U.S. objection from Grover Joseph Rees III, our human-rights ambassador, saying that we would have preferred the original language about "the particularly outrageous situation in which a state condones the use of systematic mass rape by its own forces or surrogate militias in order to advance their military or political objectives."


But Rees, a team player, added that the United States does welcome the final agreement by good old consensus. That way, delegates, though disagreeing, can still have a companionable lunch. If only John Bolton were still our man at the United Nations.


After a critical New York Times editorial on the U.S.-abetted consensus, the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, was heard from in a Nov. 21 letter to the newspaper: "The United States did not fail. ... We are particularly pleased that the resolution requests the secretary general to report on situations in which rape is 'calculated to humiliate, instill fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate' members of opposition groups."


To which nations might he be referring?


Does Sudan simply "calculate" rape as a primary weapon in its genocide of black Muslims in Darfur? And is the world to take heart that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon — who has become the Alberto Gonzales of that organization — is the authority to whom these reports are to be made?


There are certainly committed and brave human-rights activists in Africa, but the continent's leaders steadily fail to excoriate the monstrous Robert Mugabe, the terrorizer and starver of his people in Zimbabwe. (And why has the revered Nelson Mandela continued to be so silent about Mugabe? There are many victims of that brutalizer who would welcome words of encouragement from the extraordinary leader who liberated South Africa.)


At the next summit meeting of African leaders, I do not expect a resolution on the agenda to ask for accountability for heads of states or their armed opponents who have committed systematic crimes against the humanity of the people on that continent. For one example, on Nov. 1, Amnesty International reported: "Six years after the end of war in Sierra Leone, tens of thousands of women and girls who survived mass rapes, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy and other crimes of sexual violence continue to suffer as so-called 'rebel wives,' targeted for discrimination and denied access to health care, jobs and schools. ... The government has an obligation under international law to bring to justice those responsible for mass and gang rapes, sexual slavery and sexual violence, which are considered war crimes."


There is no mention of Sierra Leone in the new U.N. resolution on rape.


But Africa, of course, is not unique in the world as a haven for rape as a political weapon. On Dec. 8, 2004, in a report including rape as weapon of war, "Lives Blown Apart," Amnesty International revealed "a systematic pattern of abuse (of women) repeating itself in conflicts all over the world from Colombia, Iraq, Sudan, Chechnya, Nepal to Afghanistan and in 30 other ongoing conflicts. Despite promises, treaties and legal mechanisms, governments have failed to protect women and girls from violence."


Have there been any substantive changes for better or worse in this global pattern? The General Assembly of the United Nations or its Security Council are no more likely to seriously address itself to the conduct of those of its sovereign member nations committing these atrocities than they are likely to force Sudan's leader, Gen. Omar al-Bashir, to disband his Janjaweed militia, serious contenders for the world championship of mass raping.


Says a villager in Darfur recently on PBS's "Frontline" ("On Our Watch"), "I was carrying my little baby on my back, and they shot him dead. After the child died, they pulled him away and raped me." I don't think this kept U.N. member al-Bashir awake that night.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights and author of several books, including his current work, "The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance". Comment by clicking here.

Nat Hentoff Archives

© 2006, NEA

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