The Omega Letter (Link) - Jack Kinsella (September 7, 2010)
At one time, the United Nations used to have a High Commission on Human Rights. The UN Human Rights Commission was a functioning commission within the UN from 1946 until 2006 when it was replaced by the UN Human Rights Council.
The UN Human Rights Council was created in 2006 in hopes that the world would eventually forget what a farce the High Commission had become. It was during the HRC�s watch that the Israeli hate-fest at Durban reached levels that rivaled a Nazi rally.
In May, 2001 the United States was kicked off the UNHRC by a vote of the majority of the member-states while Libya, Syria and the Sudan had been voted to seats on the commission over the preceding two years.
In 2002, University of Toronto Law professor Anne Bayefsky noted that over the course of thirty years, Israel had been the target of a third of all country-specific UNHRC resolutions.
On April 15, 2002, the Commission approved a resolution affirming the right of the Palestinians to fight Israel by �all available means, including armed struggle� in order to achieve independence.
In 2003, over the objections of the United States, the UN Human Rights Commission elected serial human-rights abuser and designated terrorist state, Libya, as chairman.
During that session, UNCHR officials rejected any criticism of the application of Sharia Law, such as stoning, honor killings, mutilations, etc. as �interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.�
In 2004, the Sudan was voted a third, uncontested term on the UNHRC despite its ongoing genocidal ethnic cleansing efforts in Darfur. The US Ambassador walked out in protest.
Finally, in 2006 the Commission was disbanded and replaced by a new �UN Human Rights Council�.
In 2007, Hillel Neuer, head of the Geneva-based UN Watch monitoring group addressed the newly created council following a report to the Council by UN �Special Rapporteur� John Dugard detailing Israel�s �Colonialism and apartheid� and denouncing the way Palestinians are �brutally subjugated by a Western-affiliated regime.�
In its first year, the UNHRC passed eleven resolutions in total. All eleven condemning Israel for human rights abuses. Israel was the only nation out of 192 member states named.
Neuer gave a brief speech in which he accurately outlined the UN�s history of focusing its attention on Israel to the exclusion of all others, telling the Council;
�One might say, in Harry Truman�s words, that this has become a Do-Nothing, Good-for-Nothing Council.
But that would be inaccurate. This Council has, after all, done something. It has enacted one resolution after another condemning one single state: Israel. In eight pronouncements�and there will be three more this session�Hamas and Hezbollah have been granted impunity. The entire rest of the world�millions upon millions of victims, in 191 countries�continue to go ignored.
So yes, this Council is doing something. And the Middle East dictators who orchestrate this campaign will tell you it is a very good thing. That they seek to protect human rights, Palestinian rights.
So too, the racist murderers and rapists of Darfur women tell us they care about the rights of Palestinian women; the occupiers of Tibet care about the occupied; and the butchers of Muslims in Chechnya care about Muslims.�
After Neuer�s remarks were ordered stricken from the official record, UN Watch put together a video of the President of the HRC, Luis Alfonso De Alba of Mexico, thanking various diplomats for their testimony.
He thanks a speaker for Zimbabwe talking about the ignorance of a delegate who has criticized human rights under President Mugabe. He thanks the delegate from Cuba for insulting a human rights expert who exposed abuses of the communist regime.
When the permanent observer of Palestine asserts that the one that has a �monopoly on human rights violations� is Israel, which, he adds, is the darling of not only the ambassadors of America and Canada but also of the human rights commissioner, Louise Arbour, the observer is thanked by Mr. de Alba.
On the clip one can see Mr. de Alba thanking the delegation of Sudan for a statement saying that reports of violence against women in Darfur has been �exaggerated.�
One can watch and hear an envoy from Nigeria assert that �stoning under Sharia law for unnatural sexual acts � should not be equated with extrajudicial killings ��
Or watch an envoy of Iran defend the Holocaust denial conference. Or watch a defense of the Hezbollah terrorist organization. Or speaker after speaker liken Israel to the Nazis, only to get thanked by Mr. de Alba or whoever is presiding.
Then Neuer speaks. Mr. de Alba doesn�t thank him at all.
�I am sorry that I�m not in a position to thank you for your statement. I should mention that I will not tolerate any similar statements in the Council. The way in which members of this Council were referred to, and indeed the way in which the council itself was referred to, all of this is inadmissible.�
Neur�s speech was stricken from the official record. But thanks to the UN Watch video posted on YouTube, this is a bell they can�t unring.
The Bush administration refused to have anything to do with the process, rightly suspecting a trap.
But the Obama administration eagerly joined the Human Rights Council in 2009 and happily set about preparing a report outlining America�s human rights abuses under the Bush administration and ongoing human rights abuses by the Republican administration in Arizona.
The Obama administration specifically listed its legal challenge to Arizona�s immigration law as one of the ways the US federal government is seeking to protect human rights.
In so doing, it is accusing Arizona of violating human rights by passing a law making being an illegal alien a state crime. Governor Jan Brewer wrote a letter of protest to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying:
�The idea of our own American government submitting the duly enacted laws of a state of the United States to �review� by the United Nations is internationalism run amok and unconstitutional.�
Except it isn�t an �idea� � it is a fait accompli. Arizona may soon join Israel as the second recipient of censure by the UN Human Rights Council.
While the White House has turned Arizona over to the United Nations as a potential human rights abuser, it has ordered the Justice Department to sue Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio for enforcing the law.
The lawsuit filed in US District Court in Phoenix, accuses Sheriff Arpaio of failing to turn over documents sought since March 2009 that federal prosecutors say comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against those with limited English skills.
Sheriff Arpaio, during a press conference in Phoenix, described the lawsuit as �harassment,� saying thousands of pages of documents have already been turned over by his office to federal prosecutors.
�These actions make it abundantly clear that Arizona, including this sheriff, is Washington�s new whipping boy. Now it�s time to take the gloves off,� he said.
�As for today�s lawsuit against my office: These people in Washington met with my attorneys only a few days ago. And in that meeting, Washington got our cooperation; they admitted they already have thousands of pages of the requested documents; and they were given access to interview my staff and get into my jails. They smiled in our faces and then stabbed us in the back with this lawsuit.�
Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights Division for the Obama administration, said the sheriff�s office declined repeated requests to turn over documents or meet with investigators.
�The actions of the sheriff�s office are unprecedented,� Mr. Perez said. �It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities.�
Interestingly, after eighteen months of investigation by the Obama administration, the lawsuit does NOT allege that the Sheriff or any of his deputies actually discriminated against anybody. That is the problem the DoJ is having with the Arizona law, as well.
The Obama administration is simply assuming that Arizona�s law enforcement community is so racist that it cannot be trusted to obey the provisions of the law that forbid discrimination.
Since they can�t be trusted with that authority, the administration wants to take it away by whatever means necessary.
Suing the Sheriff in federal court. Turning Arizona over to the United Nations as a human rights abuser.
Of course, it is all a lie aimed at creating 12 million new, Obama-friendly voters to flood the polls come November, 2012. Assuming that by November, 2012 we still have a voice.
Perhaps by then, the UN might have to be �invited� to intervene to ensure human rights are respected.
Chilling.