Israel and the UN's selective human rights

Once again Israel has been singled out by the United Nation’s most infamous subsidiary the Human Rights Commission over the way it responded to the violent flotilla that attempted to violate its naval blockade of Gaza in May.

Again Israel is the focus of obsessive scrutiny that no other nation in the world is subjected to when it comes to international human rights, while the rights it should be afforded as a member of the UN are ignored.

It is really important to understand who the UNHRC represents because it has a very specific, politically motivated agenda that is biased against Israel and committed to the delegitimisation of the Jewish state.

The following are undisputed facts about the UN Human Rights Council: it is controlled by an automatic majority of OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) and NAM (Non-aligned Movement) member states, including repeat human rights violators Saudi Arabia, Libya, Cuba and China.

Since its inception in 2006, the Council has disproportionately devoted it’s time to Israel. It has deliberated on 33 anti-Israeli draft resolutions to date, but not discussed even a single draft resolution with regard to Iran, Zimbabwe or Venezuela. In addition, six of the Council's 13 special sessions have been dedicated to Israel. A permanent agenda item of the HRC’s schedule is about Israel in every regular session.

Both UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and former High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson have criticised the council for acting according to political considerations as opposed to human rights.

So the flotilla report was going to be tainted from the outset.

The report totally ignored the involvement of the IHH, the organisation who led the violence aboard the lead ship in the flotilla, the Turkish Mavi Marmara, but it is impossible to examine the events without looking at IHH involvement. IHH is a terrorist organisation, with an extremist-Islamist ideology and has an affiliation with the Hamas terror regime who rule Gaza, as well as with al-Qaida. IHH is proscribed in Israel and Germany, and similar proceedings against it are currently under way in the US and other Western countries.

While onboard the Mavi Marmara the day before the raid, IHH President Fehmi Blent Yildirim’s own words were not about humanitarian aid and helping Gazans, but about provoking Israel into a violent confrontation and entrapping it in a public relations war, with the aim of isolating and delegitimising.

In June the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs released that video footage in which Yildrim incited dozens of fervent “activists”: "And we say: ‘If you [Israel] send the commandos, we will throw you down from here and you will be humiliated in front of the whole world’.” The “activists” chanted in response "Millions of martyrs marching to Gaza!"

The panel interviewed more than 100 witnesses in Geneva, London, Istanbul and Amman during the course of its work. But video evidence provided by the Israel Defence Force and the BBC Panorama program which retraced the events on the flotilla taking into accounts both sides have been ignored.

Check out Jane Corbin’s piece on Panorama and make up your own mind. It is available on YouTube in two parts, here and here.