Human rights and Israel
Instigated by Pakistan, which is no paragon of human rights, the new UN Human Rights Council roundly condemned Israel today for “grave violations of human rights and breaches of international humanitarian law in Lebanon�.
The resolution’s operative paragraphs said nothing about Hezbollah or the killing of Israeli civilians. Even Amnesty International, no friend of Israel, and Switzerland, the global custodian of human rights laws, criticized the decision for absence of balance.
The resolution also called for a Commission of Inquiry, which must report to the Council no later than September 1, 2006. The vote was 27 in favor, 11 against and 8 abstentions.
This decision should not be ignored as anti-Israeli rhetoric. It is significant because it reveals the diplomatic weakness of Israel’s supporters. Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Holland, Poland and Japan were the major powers against the resolution. (The US is not a voting member.) The Czech republic, Finland, Romania and Ukraine were the other nay votes.
The ayes included Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil and Mexico alongside the predictable ayes from Arab or Islamic states. Switzerland, South Korea, Nigeria and the Philippines were among the abstentions.
The voting pattern confirms the opposition to Israel’s narrative in the UN Security Council and the wider reluctance to accept Israel’s view of preconditions necessary for its security. At worst, two veto powers, Russia and China, believe Israel protects itself through aggression and gross violation of human rights. At best, they voted aye to placate their own restive Muslim populations, similarly to India, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Either way, the vote demonstrated that none of the major non-Western countries will stick their necks out for Israel regardless of the threats to it. The overall message is that most of the global community either does not believe Israel’s narrative, is too fearful of offending its own Muslims or simply happy to stick one in the eye of Israel’s supporters.
For Israel, this is not a tenable situation. Israel wants to exist for centuries at peace in its region of choice. It is failing to convince the wider world that its version of what it must do to build that peace deserves sympathy. In today’s world of global diplomacy, Israel cannot find security without also finding ways to win more support for its diplomatic arguments.
3 Responses to “Human rights and Israel”
“The resolution’s operative paragraphs said nothing about Hezbollah or the killing of Israeli civilians.”
I got a theory why the resoulution didn’t mention Hezbollah. They aren’t recognized as a nation, or UN member and Israel is. Therefore Israle agrees with the UN charter about human rights, and Hezbollah is an outlaw organization not recognized by the UN hence them being absent from the resolution. The UN only polices it’s own members, and would probably turna blind eye entirely towards Israel stomping Hezbollah into the ground. But Lebanon is a member of the UN and is taking a beating by another member, hence the resolution.
Yeah that’s a simplistic way of putting this but we see much more simplistic demands made of the UN by Israel quite often. Israel thumbs it’s nose at the UN resolutions all the time without regard, so no complaining because Israel won’t care what they say anyways. But on the flip side Israel shouldn’t run to the UN to condem anyone either. Maybe they should either quit or comply, not use it as political propoganda all the time only to be more or less a rougue member at the end of the day. It’s become completely obvious they aren’t ever going to abide by the many resolutions against them, and only abide by ones that are completely in their favour, so quit.
OK, you’ve got a point but why doesn’t the UN hold it’s members accountable for being state sponsors of the groups that are committing human rights violations and other acts of terrorism??
Good question, and I’d answer your question if a post about the UN security council adressing terrorism sponsoring comes up. Instead I’ll stick to the subject at hand, which is the UN human right commission.
2 very differrent subjects there.
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TITLE: Same Old Same Old
BLOG NAME: The Debate Link
University of Missouri International Law scholar Peggy McGuinness has the latest episode in the farce that has become the UN Human Rights Council. Over the past 40 years, a full 30% of the HRC’s resolutions were directed at Israel. Though this new bo…