PrintJuly 1, 2009
UN forms kangaroo court to investigate Israel
Susan Rice (who, as the US Ambassador to the UN was promoted to the Cabinet) and the administration pushed to join the Israel-bashing UN Human Rights Council. As Ben Smith wrote back in April:
Perhaps more than any other American official, Rice also is negotiating day to day the meaning of President Barack Obama's promise of a new era in American foreign policy.
When the controversial issue of joining this notoriously anti-Israel and anti-American group arose earlier in the year , Susan Rice tried to derail opposition by saying the United States will battle "the anti-Israel crap" (such nice diplomatic language). Such promises are reminiscent of serial promises made during the campaign to support the American-Israel alliance. These promises have an expiration date.
Alan Dershowtiz supported Barack Obama during the campaign. He, like many other high profile Democrats, are experiencing a degree of buyer's remorse over Obama's foreign policy actions, especially towards Israel (see this Dershowitz column, for example.)
These people include The New Republic's Marty Peretz, Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, Congressman Robert Wexler (who was obsessive in supporting Obama in front of pro-Israel Jewish audiences), Senators Reid and Menendez, Mortimer Zuckerman (US News and World Report) - and on and on.
Dershowitz's latest column concerns the latest anti-Israel action taken by the UN Human Rights Council, which he characterizes as a kangaroo trial directed towards Israel. Now that America is a member of the UN Human Rights Council these actions bear the imprimatur of American approval.
The very idea of the UN Council conducting an "independent" or objective investigation Israel is preposterous. It would be as if an all white Mississippi court were investigating a black man's self-defense in response to years of lynchings by whites and limiting its investigation to the event following the lynchings; There is simply no way of an investigation conducted under the auspices of the UN Human Rights Council and be fair. Its history of bias and bigotry should not be legitimated by men and women of decency who care about real human rights.
Nice work, Ambassador Rice.
