U.N. Bias Against Israel
Source: AIPAC, May 20, 2002.
U.N. institutional structures consistently are used to isolate and vilify Israel.
- Israel is the only country in the world that is not eligible to sit on the Security Council, the principal policy making body of the U.N. This situation violates the principle of the "sovereign equality of all member states" of the U.N. under Article 2 of the U.N. Charter.
- Seven of the 140 items submitted for a vote in the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) in 2002 were anti-Israel. Last year, the UNGA adopted 19 anti-Israel resolutions.
- Israel is the object of more investigative committees, special representatives and rapporteurs than any other state in the U.N. system. For example, a special representative of the Director-General of UNESCO visited Israel 51 times during 27 years of activity. The Director-General of the International Labor Organization has sent a "Special Mission" to Israel and the territories every year for the past 17 years.
- The "Special Committees" and "Palestinian Units" of the U.N. spend more than $3 million a year, essentially to spread anti-Israel propaganda. These bodies-the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the Division on Palestinian Rights and the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs-are the focus of the worst anti-Israel activity under the aegis of the U.N. They organize, inter alia, the annual "Palestine Day" events at the U.N., as well as symposia and other events.
- The U.N. has repeatedly held "Emergency Special Sessions" focusing solely on Israel. Originally conceived in 1950 for emergencies like the Korean War, Emergency Special Sessions over the past 15 years have only focused on Israel. No Emergency Special Sessions were convened to examine the genocide in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia or other major world conflicts.
- The U.N. routinely attempts to circumvent the founding principle of direct negotiations. The UNGA passes annual resolutions that undermine the principles of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, based on direct negotiations between the two parties. By proposing specific solutions to issues such as Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and settlements, the U.N. pre-judges the outcome of negotiations. Ironically, it was the U.N. Security Council that proposed bilateral negotiations through Resolution 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).
The U.N. has failed to investigate Palestinian actions supporting terrorism.
- The U.N. has never initiated any inquiry into Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority's role in aiding and abetting terrorists, or passed one resolution condemning any terrorist organization operating against Israel.
- One glaring example of the U.N.'s biased policy against Israel is the concealment and vehement denial of the existence of videotape of Hezbollah's abduction of three Israeli soldiers made by U.N. peacekeeping forces in Lebanon. For 11 months, the U.N. lied to the world and denied the existence of any evidence related to the abduction. When the cover-up was exposed, revealing the existence of the videotape, the U.N. eventually showed Israel a heavily edited videotape with the faces of the terrorists blurred. When asked the reason behind this, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan stated it was due to the U.N.'s standing as a neutral organization.
The U.N. has tolerated and fostered anti-Semitism and anti-Israel propaganda.
- The U.N. has condemned virtually every conceivable form of racism. It has established programs to combat racism and its multiple facets - including xenophobia - but has consistently refused to condemn anti-Semitism. It only was on November 24, 1998, more than 50 years after the U.N.'s founding, that the word anti-Semitism was first mentioned in a U.N. resolution (GA Res. A/53/623).
- "The Talmud says that if a Jew does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jewish man, he will be damned for eternity." -Saudi Arabian delegate Marouf al-Dawalibi before the 1984 U.N. Human Rights Commission conference on religious tolerance. A similar remark was made by Farouk al-Chareh, the Syrian Ambassador to the U.N., at a 1991 meeting, who insisted Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to make matzos, a charge recently recycled in a Saudi government sponsored newspaper.
- On March 11, 1997, the Palestinian representative to the U.N. Human Rights Commission falsely charged Israel with injecting 300 Palestinian children with the HIV virus.
The U.N. Human Rights Commission promotes anti-Israel, anti-Semitic resolutions.
- The Commission on Human Rights routinely adopts totally disproportionate resolutions concerning Israel. Of all condemnations of this agency, 26 percent refer to Israel alone, while rogue states such as Syria and Libya are never criticized.
- Last summer's conference on Human Rights in Durban, South Africa, was devoted almost entirely to condemning Israel. The conference was boycotted by the United States and Britain.
- The United States was kicked off the U.N. Commission for Human Rights in May 2001, despite being one of the most outspoken advocates for human rights and a founding member of the Commission. It was replaced by Sierra Leone and the Sudan, both of which have records of abuses of human rights, including slavery and the forced use of children as soldiers. The United States recently regained its seat after a yearlong absence.