“The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.” -Marcus Aurelius
Frankly I don’t even see the point. Either no one will believe her if she manages to tell the truth, or the other dictators who run the UN will use what she says as data-points to better oppress their own people.
Below the break, the transcription: Continue Reading →
While there is little need to provide incentives for most nations to vote against Israel at the UN General Assembly, some Arab states are nevertheless bribing countries that traditionally side with the Jewish state in order to make passage of anti-Israel resolutions more one-sided.
That according to Johnson Toribiong, president of the Pacific island nation of Palau, who was in Israel for an official state visit last week.
Toribiong told Israel’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper that he was recently offered $50 million by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to start voting against Israel at the UN.
“We told them: ‘Forget it. We will not vote against Israel for anything in the world’,” Toribiong said.
Toribiong was accompanied by Iolu Johnson Abil, president of Vanuatu, another Pacific island nation. Palau, Vanuatu, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and a number of other Pacific micro nations are firm supporters of Israel at the UN as result of their strong Christian faith.
That nations are trying to buy UN General Assembly votes against other nations speaks loudly about the state of affairs at the world body. What speaks even louder is that these allegations of severe impropriety are being completely ignored by the UN and the international community.
And it’s not the first time.
When the Solomon Islands, another Pacific island nation, suddenly began voting against Israel in 2009, many wondered why. Like other Christian island nations, the Solomon Islands had always backed the Jewish state. Later it was discovered that Iran’s foreign ministry had bribed the impoverished Solomon Islands with a $200,000 check and technological aid.
I wonder if UNESCO called in the Afghan prime minister when he incited a riot in Afghanistan that caused the actual death of UN employees there as well as the torching of the UN building in Kabul.
By Barak Ravid Tags: Ramallah Palestinians UNESCO Haaretz
Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when a senior official at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization called him in for a tongue-lashing on Wednesday. The reason? A cartoon published in Haaretz.
The November 4 cartoon, a riff on the government’s anger at UNESCO’s decision to accept Palestine as a full member, showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak sending an air force squadron to attack Iran, with Netanyahu ordering, “And on your way back, you’re gonna hit the UNESCO office in Ramallah!”
The editorial cartoon in question. Photo by: Eran Wolkovsky When he met with Eric Falt, UNESCO’s assistant director general for external relations and public information, Ambassador Nimrod Barkan was stunned to be handed a copy of this cartoon and an official letter of protest from UNESCO’s director general, Irina Bokova. Falt told Barkan the cartoon constituted incitement.
“A cartoon like this endangers the lives of unarmed diplomats, and you have an obligation to protect them,” Falt said, according to an Israeli source. “We understand that there is freedom of the press in Israel, but the government must prevent attacks on UNESCO.”
Barkan pointed out that the government has no control over editorial cartoons printed in the papers. “Ask yourselves what you did to make a moderate paper with a deeply internationalist bent publish such a cartoon,” he suggested. “Perhaps the problem is with you.”
After Barkan reported the conversation to the Foreign Ministry, it cabled back: “What exactly does UNESCO want of us – to send our fine boys to protect UNESCO’s staff, or to shut down the paper? It seems your work environment is getting more and more reminiscent of ‘Animal Farm.'”
So as I understand it, if you make a joke about a UN agency in a newspaper, and a well earned one, you get reprimanded in person. But if you deliberately and knowingly incite a riot that causes the deaths of many UN employees and destruction of UN property, you don’t even get an angry letter. At least not that I am aware of.
Below is an important New York Times op-ed published by Judge Richard Goldstone against the demonization of Israel. This follows his April retraction in the Washington Post of the core charge of the infamous 500-page U.N. report that bears his name: the accusation that Israeli leaders deliberately targeted civilians during the 2009 war with Hamas.
Not surprisingly, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s pro-Hamas Richard Falk, who previously lavished praise on Goldstone, has now launched a vicious personal attack on his former hero.
While it is impossible to undo even a fraction of the Goldstone Report’s catastrophic harm to basic principles of international human rights and humanitarian law, and to Israel’s ability to defend itself from terrorism, UN Watch congratulates Judge Goldstone’s welcome actions. We hope that he will continue to speak out against demonization and double standards, especially as practiced by too many U.N. bodies, including the Human Rights Council that had appointed him.
By RICHARD J. GOLDSTONE
THE Palestinian Authority’s request for full United Nations membership has put hope for any two-state solution under increasing pressure. The need for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians has never been greater. So it is important to separate legitimate criticism of Israel from assaults that aim to isolate, demonize and delegitimize it.
One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.
While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.
I know all too well the cruelty of South Africa’s abhorrent apartheid system, under which human beings characterized as black had no rights to vote, hold political office, use “white” toilets or beaches, marry whites, live in whites-only areas or even be there without a “pass.” Blacks critically injured in car accidents were left to bleed to death if there was no “black” ambulance to rush them to a “black” hospital. “White” hospitals were prohibited from saving their lives. Continue Reading →
H/T Ethan
By CAROLINE B. GLICK
11/04/2011 16:58
You have to hand it to the Palestinians.
This week their efforts bore their first fruit with the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) vote to accept “Palestine” as a full state member.
It is not a coincidence that the PLO/PA decided to apply for membership for “Palestine” at UNESCO first. Since 1974, UNESCO has been an enthusiastic partner in the Palestinians’ bid to erase Jewish history, heritage and culture in the Land of Israel from the historical record.
UNESCO’s moves to deny Jewish ties to Jerusalem and the rest of historic Israel have continued unabated ever since. For instance, in 1989, UNESCO condemned “Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem,” claiming it was destroying the city through “acts of interference, destruction and transformation.”
In 1996, UNESCO held a symposium on Jerusalem at its Paris headquarters. No Jewish or Israeli groups were invited to participate. Continue Reading →
Meanwhile, I wonder if this reporter in the clip below would ask the tough questions to any of these guys:
Watchdog Calls on UN Chief to Clarify Remarks
Comparing Israel’s Shalit to Hamas Terrorists
GENEVA, Oct. 18 – A Geneva-based watchdog group called on UN chief Ban Ki-moon to clarify remarks made today that seemed to draw a moral equivalence between the imprisonment of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and Hamas terrorists.
“I am very encouraged by the prisoner exchange today after many many years of negotiation,” Secretary-General Ban told Reuters today. “The United Nations has been calling for (an end to) the unacceptable detention of Gilad Shalit and also the release of all Palestinians whose human rights have been abused all the time.”
“Mr. Ban needs to clarify whether, as it appears, he was referring to the Palestinians who committed such gruseome crimes as the bombing of Jerusalem’s Sbarro pizzeria that killed 15, the bombing of a Tel Aviv nightclub that killed 21, and the bombing of Netanya’s Park Hotel that killed 29 people attending a Passover Seder,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
“We call on Mr. Ban to recognize that those who masterminded and carried out terrorist attacks against women and children are despicable criminals, not innocent victims, and that their detention is a moral and security obligation rather than a so-called violation of human rights,” said Neuer.
“The UN was founded on moral clarity, and its highest officials should know better than to engage in false moral equivalence. They should instead be condeming all of those today who obscenely celebrated cold-blooded murderers as heroes.”UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information.
Talk about unfair. I bet we all would like to attack the people who work at the U.N. and get to claim immunity.
Much more of this story over at the New York Post
Please click through to PJTV here for this important perspective on Israel, the Palestinians, the UN and persecution.
I wonder if people are still focused on that Norwegian psychopath or if they have noticed a continuous set of brutal, vicious attacks on ‘soft targets’ before, during and since the lone Norwegian dirtbag killed those young adults at the political camp.
The BBC’s Bashir Sa’ad Abdullahi says all of the glass at the front of the building has been blown out
At least 18 people have been killed in an apparent suicide car bombing at the United Nations headquarters in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
The powerful blast destroyed the lower floors of the building. Dozens have been injured, some critically.
A spokesman for the Islamist group Boko Haram told the BBC in a phone call that it had carried out the attack.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the attack was “an assault on those who devote their lives to helping others”.
Speaking before Boko Haram’s statement, President Goodluck Jonathan reaffirmed his government’s “total commitment” to combating terrorism, and said his administration would “spare no effort to bring the perpetrators to justice”.
In Friday morning’s attack, a car crashed through two security barriers and rammed into the building’s reception before exploding, witnesses said.
Click the link at the top for the rest of this BBC report on the slaughter at the UN
