I thought I'd combine three recent Israel-related items into one post (which should work as long as the reader doesn't expect thematic coherence between items or meaningful commentary by the combiner.)
The statement by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is over a week old now, but I wanted to get these excerpts onto this page as a way of reminding myself if no one else, that indeed "everything else pales before this." That would include college football games, bigoted comedians, domestic elections, murderer authors...everything. From an article at Haaretz.com:
"It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs," Netanyahu told delegates to the annual United Jewish Communities General Assembly, repeating the line several times, like a chorus, during his address. "Believe him and stop him," the opposition leader said of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this."While the Iranian president "denies the Holocaust," Netanyahu said, "he is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state."...
...When asked if Bush could afford embarking on another "military adventure" after Iraq, Netanyahu said acting on the Iranian nuclear program would not be adventurous but necessary.
"... Israel would certainly be the first stop on Iran's tour of destruction, but at the planned production rate of 25 nuclear bombs a year ... [the arsenal] will be directed against 'the big Satan,' the U.S., and the 'moderate Satan,' Europe," Netanyahu said.
"Iran is developing ballistic missiles that would reach America, and now they prepare missiles with an adequate range to cover the whole of Europe."
"No one cared then and no one seems to care now," he said, again drawing on the Nazi parallel - Netanyahu warned that Tehran's nuclear and missile program "goes way beyond the destruction of Israel - it is directed to achieve world-wide range. It's a global program in the service of a mad ideology."
That sucking sound you hear is the United Nations yawning. At least with regard to the rearming of Hezbollah in Lebanon in violation of SCR 1701, and the militarization of the Gaza Strip. The U.N. has been busy condemning Israel for causing the accidental deaths of several civilians in Gaza when a missile missed its intended target, the source of a Hamas rocket attack.
John Bolton took the United Nations to task the other day for their blatant anti-Israel bias, as evidenced by the umpteenth resolution condemning Israel, coupled with their unwillingness to address the far more serious human rights abuses elsewhere. Excerpting the Calcutta News site story (via Dr. Sanity):
"Many of the sponsors of that resolution are notorious abusers of human rights themselves, and were seeking to deflect criticism of their own policies," he said."This type of resolution serves only to exacerbate tensions by serving the interests of elements hostile to Israel's inalienable and recognized right to exist."
"This deepens suspicions about the United Nations that will lead many to conclude that the organization is incapable of playing a helpful role in the region," Bolton continued.
"In a larger sense, the United Nations must confront a more significant question, that of its relevance and utility in confronting the challenges of the 21st century. We believe that the United Nations is ill served when its members seek to transform the organization into a forum that is a little more than a self-serving and a polemical attack against Israel or the United States," he said.
"The Human Rights Council has quickly fallen into the same trap and de-legitimized itself by focusing attention exclusively on Israel. Meanwhile, it has failed to address real human rights abuses in Burma, Darfur, the DPRK, and other countries," Bolton charged.
"The problem of anti-Israel bias is not unique to the Human Rights Council. It is endemic to the culture of the United Nations. It is a decades-old, systematic problem that transcends the whole panoply of the UN organizations and agencies," he continued.
So it is.
And third, I saw the video below at Ace's place today. It's extremely well done and well worth passing along. An Israeli Jew writes "An Open Letter to the World". Watch.
UPDATE 11/21: In a stunning development, the New York Times editorial board backs up the criticisms of the new U.N. Human Rights Council by John Bolton. Full text after the break.
A Discredit to the United NationsPosted by dan at November 20, 2006 3:58 PMPublished: November 21, 2006
The old, unreformed United Nations Human Rights Commission was selective and one-sided, but occasionally managed to do some good work. That may be more than can be said for its successor body, the Human Rights Council, born earlier this year of a weak-kneed compromise from which the United States stood honorably apart. If this is the best the U.N. can do at reforming itself, it isn’t worth the effort.
The council is new, but its deliberations have already fallen into a shameful pattern. When it comes to the world’s worst and most consistent human rights violators, like China, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar and Sudan, there has been a tendency to muffle words and conclusions and shift the focus from individual and political rights to broader economic and social questions.
But when it comes to criticizing Israel for violations committed in a wartime context that includes armed attacks against its citizens and soldiers, the council seems to change personality, turning harshly critical and uninterested in broader contexts.
As the council prepares to resume deliberations next week, an ad hoc coalition of human rights violators is pushing for an end to the practice of singling out individual countries for special criticism and follow-up investigations.
Those critical reports and follow-ups were the most useful thing the old unreformed commission used to do. The problem was that many other deserving targets were shielded by their diplomatic allies. Moving away from the practice altogether would be a decided step backward.
To inspire respect and support, the United Nations must be more than a self-protective club of sovereign states. The test of that is whether it is willing to defend the basic human standards embodied in a succession of United Nations declarations and conventions. The new Human Rights Council now seems headed for a failing midterm grade.