Soccer Dad

The descent of "human rights" into parody

There's something perverse about a group of tyrants - who deny their own people the right to vote - claiming the mantle of moral legitimacy on account of achieving a majority vote. But that's what happened today at the UN Human Rights Council, where the member nations voted to implement the recommendations of the Goldstone Commision Report. The New York Times reports:

The resolution endorsing the report, which took place after two days of debate, passed by a vote of 25 to 6, with 11 nations abstaining. The resolution, virtually identical to a Palestinian proposal introduced earlier in the week, gained a slimmer margin in the 47-member council than its backers had hoped. Both the United States and Israel have warned that any progress on the report would undermine the prospects for peace talks with the Palestinians.

The six nations that voted against the resolution included the Netherlands, Italy and the United States. Five others, including France and Britain, both of which had asked for the vote to be delayed, were officially recorded as absent and not included in the vote totals at all, according to the secretariat of the council.

The Washington Post includes some information that the Times omits:

The Palestinians' allies plan to press the U.N. Security Council and the U.N. Secretary General early next week to support prosecution by the international court if Israel does not act. But Sudan's U.N. ambassador Adbalhaleem Mohamad, who is acting as this month's chairman of the UN bloc of Arab nations, conceded that there was little support for such action within the Security Council, and that the matter would likely be addressed in a special session of the U.N. general assembly, possibly late next week.

"I think any intransigence, especially by the United States, will be looked on as if its it is only perpetuating the view that the Israelis are always above the law," Mohamad said. "If you follow the debate in the Security Council, and read between the lines, there is a reluctance to deal with this issue," he said.

The Sudanese diplomat said that an alliance of third world organizations, including the Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab Group, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, have already begun discussions on a General Assembly resolution that would seek a ruling on Israel's conduct by the court.

This is unbelievable chutzpah. The man who represents a country whose leader is an indicted war criminal declares that Israel is above the law.

Back in April in an editorial the Washington Post observed:

So it was interesting to see what else was in the latest statement issued by the kings, princes and authoritarian presidents of the Middle East and North Africa. First there was a call on "the international community to prosecute those responsible" for alleged "war crimes" committed by Israel in its recent offensive in Gaza. Then came an ardent defense of Sudanese dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir -- who was welcomed to the Doha summit despite an outstanding arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court on multiple war crimes charges.

"We stress our solidarity with Sudan and our rejection of the decision" of the ICC, said the communique, which Mr. Bashir welcomed in a bombastic address to the summit plenary. Leader after leader declared fealty. "We must also take a decisive stance of solidarity alongside fraternal Sudan and President Omar al-Bashir," said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Abbas is hoping that the Obama administration will pressure Israel to stop building "illegal" settlements in the West Bank; the next time he utters the phrase "double standard" in the presence of a U.S. diplomat, we suggest a query about Mr. Bashir.

The Arab world and its allies have embraced a genocidal tyrant. It is not justice they seek but the destruction of Israel. And all those who continue to bash Israel in the name of human rights have to explain why they ignore the vast crimes of Mr. Bashir and focus on the mistakes of Israel.

Human rights is no longer about the protection of innocents from tyranny, but about the demonization of Israel. The term has be stripped of all meaning.

Crossposted on Yourish.