UN Human Rights Council Fights to Lower Its Credibility

Apparently believing its credibility isn't already about as low as it could possibly be, the discredited United Nations Human Rights Council is holding another kangaroo court session next week. The following Associated Press article, with bracketed comments added, was published by the Jerusalem Post.

UNHRC calls emergency talks on Israel

The UN Human Rights Council will hold an emergency meeting next week to examine whether Israel is committing abuses in the Palestinian territories, officials said Friday.

[The Human Rights Council apparently believes it is an abuse for Israel to discourage the wanton murder of its people by Arab terrorists.]

The special session of the 47-member council was called after a petition was submitted by Syria and Pakistan, on behalf of Arab and Islamic countries, according to a UN memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The move, which was supported by 20 other countries, came as Israel blocked vital supplies from entering the Gaza Strip and launched air strikes against Hamas positions and other institutions, killing one operative and two civilians.

[For twenty years, Egypt and Jordan blocked "vital supplies" from entering Israel not only from the Gaza Strip, but also from the West Bank, from Jordan and from Egypt. Lebanon and Syria continue to block "vital supplies" from entering Israel. There is no record of the Human Rights Council holding any emergency meetings to examine whether those countries committed, and are continuing to commit, abuses in the Israeli territories.]

Palestinian Kassam rockets continued to be fired into southern Israel, including one that damaged a day care center Friday.

[For the Human Rights Council, it is not an abuse to try to murder Israeli pre-schoolers.]

The council session, scheduled for Wednesday, will "consider and take action on human rights violations emanating from Israeli military incursions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the recent ones in occupied Gaza and the West Bank town of Nablus," the memo said.

[The Human Rights Council is apparently unaware that Israel pulled completely out of Gaza more than two years ago. It is also apparently unaware that Nablus is under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.]

Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva expressed disappointment.

"I don't think that this is very helpful now for the peace process in the Middle East," Itzhak Levanon said.

The council, which lacks enforcement powers, was created in March 2006 to replace the widely discredited and highly politicized Human Rights Commission. The new body has suffered from similar criticism, including that it spends an excessive amount of time focusing on Israel, which it has denounced in a series of resolutions.

The US Senate voted in September to cut off funding to the council, accusing it of bias.

[The Human Rights Council is fast surpassing the dismal record of the Human Rights Commission and has become one of the world's leading proponents of the abuse of human rights.]