Gilad Shalit is not the only hostage

 

by Steven B. Nasatir

 

Thursday night, members of Chicago's Jewish community will stand in vigil, focused on the fate of Gilad Shalit, a young Israeli held hostage by Hamas. Our concern for him is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Shalit is now entering his fifth year of captivity at the hands of Gaza's terrorist rulers. A then-19-year-old soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, Shalit was abducted from inside Israel by a Hamas terror squad on June 25, 2006. Contrary to international law and all standards of decency, the kidnapped soldier has been held virtually incommunicado, with no right of visitation by any humanitarian body.

 

To those genuinely concerned about the fate of Gaza's 1.5 million residents, the emphasis on the fate of one Israeli might seem distorted. But the circumstances under which Shalit was abducted, and two of his fellow soldiers were killed, cut to the root cause of suffering of all Israelis and Palestinians.

 

Shalit was attacked while guarding a place called Kerem Shalom (Vineyard of Peace), one of half a dozen border crossings that enable commerce between Israel and Gaza. For years, facilities like Kerem Shalom have been attacked repeatedly by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian terror groups precisely because they foster exchanges between Israelis and Palestinians.

 

 Hamas and other radicals have perpetrated such attacks not because they desire peace or a better life for the people they rule. They do so because they violently oppose any activity that might lead to a peaceful end of conflict—something they consistently reject in word and deed on religious grounds. Earlier this month, a Hamas preacher said on the group's Al-Aqsa TV that "[The Jews'] annihilation and the destruction of their state will only be achieved through Islam, by those who bow before Allah."

 

Why have none of those involved in the recent, so-called humanitarian efforts to aid the residents of Gaza raised their voices — on behalf of Shalit or about the deep and vexing issues he symbolizes? Why did the organizers of the recent flotilla refuse to deliver a letter to Shalit from his family? Why, I wonder, were their voices of condemnation and outrage not heard when Hamas forced the closure of the border crossings by launching countless terror attacks and thousands of rockets at Israeli border towns like Sderot, where I experienced such a barrage in 2007?

 

Why were they not raised when Hamas began firing Iranian Grad missiles on major Israeli cities like Ashkelon and Beersheva? It was that development that triggered the intensification of Israel's naval blockade of Gaza and its 2008 offensive, which finally restored some semblance of normal life to southern Israel.

 

Hamas, which has long used Palestinians as human shields to attack Israelis, persistently has aspired not to "free" Gaza — as Israel tried to do with its total withdrawal in 2005 before the Hamas takeover. Rather Hamas has always worked to force a blockade, in order to try to create a humanitarian crisis (or at least the image of one).

For example, after a dozen or so civilians and police died in terrorist attacks, in 2004 Israel closed the Erez industrial zone on the Gaza-Israel border, a facility that for 30 years had employed 5,000 Gazans. The zone had been hailed by both Israelis and Palestinians as an example of cooperation.

 

It is Hamas, not Israel, that has spared no effort to use Gazans as pawns in a global game of jihad and de-legitimization of Israel, a game orchestrated by Iran that also employs Hezbollah and now — ominously — elements within Turkey.

 

Gilad Shalit isn't the only prisoner of Hamas. Captive with him are all Israelis and Palestinians who desire an end to the cynical, escalating assault being perpetrated in the name of human rights. All who are genuinely concerned about peace should raise their voices on behalf of all who are held hostage.

 

 

Steven B. Nasatir is president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

The Two Faces of the Ground Zero Mosque

 

by Raymond Ibrahim

 

they use often relay diametrically opposed meanings. One example: when Americans hear Muslims evoke "justice," the former envision Western-style justice, whereas Muslims naturally have Sharia law justice in mind.

Islamists obviously use this to their advantage: when addressing the West, Osama bin Laden bemoans the "justice of our causes, particularly Palestine"; yet, when addressing Muslims, his notion of justice far transcends territorial disputes and becomes unintelligible from a Western perspective: "Battle, animosity, and hatred—directed from the Muslim to the infidel—is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them. The West perceives fighting, enmity, and hatred all for the sake of the religion [i.e., Islam] as unjust, hostile, and evil. But who's understanding is right—our notions of justice and righteousness, or theirs?" (Al Qaeda Reader, p. 43).

Of course, that Osama bin Laden—slayer of 3,000 Americans and avowed enemy to the rest—exhibits two faces, one to Americans another to Muslims, is not surprising. Yet the reader may well be surprised to discover that the controversial Cordoba Initiative, which plans on manifesting itself as the largest American mosque, situated atop Ground Zero—that is, atop the carnage caused by none other than bin Laden—also has two faces, conveying one thing to Americans, quite another to Muslims.

The very name of the initiative itself, "Cordoba," offers different connotations to different people: In the West, the Andalusian city of Cordoba is regularly touted as the model of medieval Muslim progressiveness and tolerance for Christians and Jews. To many Americans, then, the choice to name the mosque "Cordoba" is suggestive of rapprochement and interfaith dialogue; atop the rubble of 9/11, it implies "healing"—a new beginning between Muslims and Americans. The Cordoba Initiative's mission statement certainly suggests as much:

Cordoba Initiative aims to achieve a tipping point in Muslim-West relations within the next decade, bringing back the atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect that we have longed for since Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in harmony and prosperity eight hundred years ago.

Oddly enough, the so-called "tolerant" era of Cordoba supposedly occurred during the caliphate of 'Abd al-Rahman III (912-961)—well over a thousand years ago. "Eight hundred years ago," i.e., around 1200, the fanatical Almohids—ideological predecessors of al-Qaeda—were ravaging Cordoba, where "Christians and Jews were given the choice of conversion, exile, or death." A Freudian slip on the part of the Cordoba Initiative?

At any rate, the true history of Cordoba, not to mention the whole of Andalusia, is far less inspiring than what Western academics portray: the Christian city was conquered by Muslims around 711, its inhabitants slaughtered or enslaved. The original mosque of Cordoba—the namesake of the Ground Zero mosque—was built atop, and partly from the materials of, a Christian church. Modern day Muslims are well aware of all this. Such is the true—and ominous—legacy of Cordoba.

More pointedly, throughout Islam's history, whenever a region was conquered, one of the first signs of consolidation was/is the erection of a mosque atop the sacred sites of the vanquished: the pagan Ka'ba temple in Arabia was converted into Islam's holiest site, the mosque of Mecca; the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site, was built atop Solomon's temple in Jerusalem; the Umayyad mosque was built atop the Church of St. John the Baptist; and the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque upon the conquest of Constantinople.

(Speaking of, in 2006, when the Pope visited the Hagia Sophia in Turkey, there was a risk that the "Islamic world [would go] into paroxysms of fury" if there was "any perception that the pope is trying to re-appropriate a Christian center that fell to Muslims," for example, if he had dared pray there—this even as Muslims today seek to build a mosque on the rubble of the Twin Towers.)

Such double-standards lead us back to the issue of double-meanings: As for the literal wording of the mosque project, "Cordoba House," it too offers opposing paradigms of thought: to Westerners, the English word "house" suggests shelter, intimacy—coziness, even; in classical Arabic, however, the word for house, dar, can also mean "region," and is regularly used in a divisive sense, as in Dar al-Harb, i.e., "infidel region of war." Thus, to Muslim ears, while "Cordoba" offers allusions of conquest and domination, dar is further suggestive of division and separation (from infidels, a la the doctrine of al-Wala' wa al-Bara', for instance).

Words aside, even the mosque's scheduled opening date—9/11/2011—has two aspects: to Americans, opening the mosque on 9/11 is to proclaim a new beginning with the Muslim world on the ten-year anniversary of the worst terror strikes on American soil; however, it just so happens that Koranic verse 9:111 is one of the loftiest calls for suicidal jihad—believers are exhorted to "kill and be killed"—and is probably the reason al-Qaeda originally chose that date to strike. So while Americans may think the mosque's planned 9/11 opening is meant to commemorate that date, cryptically speaking, it is an evocation for all out war. A "new beginning," indeed, but of a very different sort, namely, the propagation of more Islamists and jihadists—mosques are, after all, epicenters of radicalization—on, of all places, soil sacred to America.

Some final thoughts on the history of Cordoba and the ominous parallels it bodes for America: though many Christian regions were conquered by Islam prior to Cordoba, its conquest signified the first time a truly "Western" region was conquered by the sword of Islam. It was also used as a base to launch further attacks into the heart of Europe (until decisively beaten at the Battle of Tours), just as, perhaps, the largest mosque in America will be used as a base to subvert the rest of the United States. And, the sacking of the original Cordoba was facilitated by an insider traitor—a warning to the U.S., which seems to have no end of traitors and willing lackeys.

Such, then, is the dual significance of the Cordoba Initiative: What appears to many Americans as a gesture of peace and interfaith dialogue, is to Muslims allusive of Islamist conquest and consolidation; mosques, which Americans assume are Muslim counterparts to Christian churches—that is, places where altruistic Muslims congregate and pray for world peace and harmony—are symbols of domination and centers of radicalization; the numbers of the opening date, 9/11/11, appear to Americans as commemorative of a new beginning, whereas the Koranic significance of those numbers is suicidal jihad. Of course, the two faces of the Cordoba House should not be surprising considering that the man behind the initiative, Feisal Abdul Rauf, also has two faces.

Going along with the historic analogy, there is one bit of good news: As opposed to the vast majority of onetime Western/Christian nations annexed by Islam, Cordoba, Spain did ultimately manage to overthrow the Islamic yoke. Though only after some 700 years of occupation.

 

Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of The Al Qaeda Reader, and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Netanyahu: Place not your trust in princes

by Isi Leibler

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is likely to receive a red carpet reception from President Barack Obama at the White House combined with a reaffirmation about the "unshakeable US-Israel alliance." However we should not delude ourselves. It is clear that Obama's recent charm campaign was primarily in response to pressure from the American people and in particular from Jewish Democratic supporters shocked into action by the administration's increasingly negative approach toward Israel and the crass reception accorded to Netanyahu during his last visit.

The bonhomie was intended to assuage domestic anger to avert loss of votes and funding for the forthcoming congressional elections. Even though administration officials, including Rahm Emanuel, conceded that they "had screwed up the messaging" and are unlikely to repeat their previous boorish humiliation of Israel, there are no signs that the US administration is about to modify its policy.

TWO RECENT events reaffirm this. The greatest disappointment was the US betrayal at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference. Obama reneged on his promise to maintain the policy of former US administrations and continue to veto repeated Arab efforts to isolate Israel at these conferences. He endorsed a resolution which omitted any mention of Iran but specifically targeted Israel, demanding that it sign the NPT and submit to inspections of its facilities. While Obama subsequently disingenuously shed crocodile tears expressing disappointment that Israel had been singled out, his willingness to sacrifice the Jewish state on such a crucial security issue heightened concerns that the US is no longer a reliable ally.

In the aftermath of the vehement international condemnation following the Gaza flotilla interception, Obama made little effort to curb the anti-Israel hysteria.

Instead, he pressured Israel to co-opt international observers to its inquiry and failed to condemn the proposed United Nations Human Rights Council demand for an international inquiry which would unquestionably be a replay of the outrageous Goldstone Report. In this context, Vice President Joseph Biden's positive declaration endorsing Israel's right to blockade ships to prevent the smuggling of arms to Gaza sounded somewhat like a good cop, bad cop routine.

The perception of the US failing to support long-standing allies was highlighted by its tepid response to the unprovoked sinking of the South Korean naval corvette by a North Korean submarine. To Israelis, this conveyed a chilling interpretation of Obama's concept of an alliance.

His inability to retain the support of traditional US allies was also exemplified when Turkey and Brazil displayed their contempt by undermining the minimal Iran sanctions the US was finally able to impose with grudging approval from Russia and China.

US appeasement and renewal of diplomatic relations with Syria, Iran's surrogate state, only encouraged Damascus to strengthen its relations with Teheran, supply Hizbullah with Scuds and intensify its aggressive posturing.

ON A broader level, Obama has reiterated that the US could neither afford nor desired to remain the policeman of the world, preferring to delegate and conduct global affairs in conjunction with other countries and international organizations. To abdicate leadership of the free world during these perilous times is a bad omen, especially if it implies delegating more influence to Europe, Russia or worse to the dysfunctional UN, dominated by Islamic countries.

The most bizarre policy proclamation came from White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan. Following a National Security Council pronouncement stipulating that the term "extremist and militant Islam" should no longer be employed, he made the extraordinary assertion that Hizbullah was not "purely a terrorist body" and that he intended to cultivate the "moderate elements."

Subsequently in an address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Brennan limited Islamic fundamentalism to al-Qaida and opined that the term "war on terror" should be excluded from the American political lexicon.

"Our enemy" he said "is not terrorism because terrorism is a tactic or a state of mind, and as Americans we refuse to live in fear."

He added, "Nor do we define our enemy as jihadists or Islamists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam to purify oneself or one's community."

Such remarks from a high-ranking US official are mind boggling.

IN RELATION to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the US had warned that it would confront any party indulging in provocative statements or acts. Yet while expressing concern regarding Israeli celebrations on Jerusalem Day, the administration remained silent as the PA lobbied the OECD to block Israel's affiliation. Nor did it respond when PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the most "moderate" Palestinian leader, personally participated in a burning ceremony to promote a campaign to boycott products manufactured over the Green Line, a direct violation of the Oslo Accords. They even failed to react when Fatah leaders reiterated their right to launch armed resistance unless their demands were fulfilled.

American friends of Israel should thus be aware that despite Obama's charm offensive, US policy is no less ominous now than it was during Netanyahu's previous visit to Washington. However public opinion is a factor that a Democratic administration does take into account and Israel can take comfort in the fact that support from the American people and both houses of Congress have strengthened considerably since the Gaza flotilla imbroglio.

In this context, Netanyahu must now clearly spell out his game plan and ensure that Israel is not again confronted by accusations of having misled the administration.

When he meets with Obama, he should assure him that short of endangering its security, the country will do all in its power to avoid embarrassing the US. But he must be definitive and inform the administration which areas are negotiable while simultaneously drawing red lines which his government cannot contemplate crossing.

He must emphatically reject returning to the 1949 armistice lines on the grounds that it would pose a longterm existential threat to the Jewish state.

He must reiterate that Israel will only extend concessions based on reciprocity and that the Palestinians must cease their provocations and incitement.

He must clearly elucidate building policies in Jerusalem and make it known that irrespective of what happens, the building freeze will not be renewed in the major settlement blocs that the Bush administration had agreed would remain within Israel.

If Netanyahu fails to reach a full understanding over Iran, he must request greater transparency in the relationship and be assured that Israel will be kept fully informed and able to provide input. He should also request unequivocal American support against global boycotts and pressures at the UN and other international organizations, including an assurance that in future the US will divert pressures against Israel's ambiguous nuclear deterrent.

Instead of whispering and making light of differences, Netanyahu must speak plainly and unequivocally to ensure that Israelis and our friends abroad understand our position.

Should he continue fudging the issues by basking in the superficial warmth of pleasantries, he will be setting us up for a second and possibly much more unpleasant confrontation with our only global ally.

 

Isi Leibler
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

I'm Looking and I Don't See Any Palestinian State-Building Going On

 

by Barry Rubin

 

I read an article on Foreign Policy blog which, like many things I see on the Middle East, convinces me of the precise opposite conclusion to what the author wants me to think. The article, by Hussein Ibish, a Palestinian activist in the United States, is entitled: "While No One's Looking, the Palestinians Are Building a State: Now it's time for the rest of the world to pitch in. "


Well, I'm looking and I don't see any Palestinian state-building going on. Yes, there is some improvement in the West Bank security forces, including U.S. training, but the changes are not enormous. And at any moment, these forces could launch a war on Israel or start fighting each other. Yes, there is some economic improvement happening but it's based on foreign aid money and much of it is unproductive (i.e., real estate and housing speculation). And again, it could be blown up any moment in a new Palestinian-Israeli or Fatah-Hamas war or just major instability.


A more accurate title for this article would be: The Rest of the World has Pitched in, Paid Lots of Money, and the Palestinians Still Aren't Building a State!" The article provides not a single example of any material action being done to create strong institutions or do anything else that a state requires. Indeed, the only actual action was the passing of a resolution saying that the Palestinian Authority is building a state.

Here's the link but if I were you I wouldn't waste the time on it. Incidentally, his claim that half the PA budget comes from Palestinian taxation is totally ridiculous. But then any nonsense will do to drop on the West. The Western journalistic and intellectual discussion today is all too often like restaurant patrons who will gobble up offal gladly and proclaim it haute cuisine.

What's happening, though, and that's why this article is of some significance, is that the PA is trying to build a foundation for a unilateral declaration of independence in a year or two. That doesn't mean it will ever happen but rather than negotiate with Israel, a process requiring compromises and concessions, the PA prefers to have the world recognize it as a state without having to do anything: end the conflict, agree to resettle Palestinian refugees in Palestine, recognize Israel as a Jewish state, provide Israel with security guarantees, and so on.

Remember that the Palestinian Authority originated about 17 years ago. That means babies born then are now adults and the PA has done remarkably little to prepare for stable and well-governed statehood, not to mention losing the Gaza Strip to Hamas. And how can places like Foreign Policy blog run articles without a single real argument to prove its thesis?

 

 

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Hezbollah acts local, thinks global

 

by Tony Badran

A couple of recent arrests have once again shined the spotlight on the subject of Hezbollah's global networks, namely its financial networks and illicit sources of funding worldwide. Some of these are based not only at the United States' doorstep, but actually within its borders.
 
On June 3, it was reported that a Lebanese couple was arrested in Ohio for attempting to smuggle $500,000 to Hezbollah in the hollow sections of a vehicle. Then last week, Interpol announced that it had arrested Moussa Hamdan (a dual Lebanese-American national who was indicted in the US last year) on suspicion of funneling money to Hezbollah in Ciudad del Este, on the Paraguayan side of the notorious tri-border area where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet. Hezbollah has allegedly set up a lucrative base in this region from which to finance its operations.
 
The Ohio couple was not the first to be held in the US this year on charges of Hezbollah-related smuggling. For instance, back in February, three Florida businessmen were arrested for smuggling game consoles and other electronics to a mall in Paraguay, which was identified by the US Treasury Department as a Hezbollah front establishment. The episode highlighted the potential danger posed by the party's logistical bases in South America.
 
The question of Hezbollah's finances remains somewhat obscure, and the militia's budget continues to be the subject of speculation. Hezbollah watchers regularly note that the group receives anywhere from $100 to $200 million a year from its patrons in Iran (a sum that may have been increased substantially in 2006 to cover for the losses suffered in that year's war and the compensation effort that followed).
 
Hezbollah is also said to depend on an array of illicit enterprises the world over. According to a 2004 report by the American Naval War College, Hezbollah raises $10 million annually in the tri-border region alone. This is not to mention its assets in Africa and the Persian Gulf, or, for that matter, in the US. These ventures are said to cover such activities as contraband (for example cigarette smuggling); CD, DVD and software pirating; fraud schemes; money laundering; counterfeit currency (with Iranian help); and, according to media reports and official testimonies, narcotics trafficking, and the trade in diamonds.
 
As in Lebanon, Hezbollah embeds itself in tightly-knit Shia communities of the diaspora. In this way it makes it difficult for law enforcement and other agencies to penetrate their networks.
 
In the course of discussing the group's sources of funding with a reporter in 2004, Hezbollah parliamentarian Mohammad Raad noted that the party also counted on the support of "wealthy Shia." Raad was being truthful. When Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashed off the Lebanese coast this year, one passenger, Hassan Tajeddin, received the Hezbollah equivalent of a state funeral. Tajeddin was identified as the owner of the Angola-based Arosfran Company, which he ran with his brothers. One of the firm's board members, Kassim Tajeddin, was designated by the US Treasury Department in May of last year.
 
The Treasury declared that Kassim and his brothers ran several cover companies for Hezbollah in Africa. Kassim had also "contributed tens of millions of dollars to Hezbollah and has sent funds to Hezbollah through his brother, a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon." He was also previously imprisoned in Belgium on charges of large-scale tax fraud, money laundering and trade in conflict diamonds.
 
Another Tajeddin, this one named Ali, also said to be involved in the conflict-diamond trade, is better known in Lebanon for buying swaths of real estate in Druze and Christian areas. In this way, he has helped provide geographical continuity between Lebanon's disparate Shia areas, in which Hezbollah has allegedly established "security zones."
 
Much in the same way that Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps has set up multiple business ventures, Hezbollah is partnering with Shia businessmen in the diaspora, voluntarily or through coercion and intimidation. This is not without consequences for the Shia communities abroad. For instance, in October of last year, news broke that the Emirati authorities had deported dozens of Lebanese Shia, perhaps more, on suspicion of working with Hezbollah.
 
Aside from embedding themselves with local diaspora communities and taking advantage of lawless areas in weak or failed states, Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons have also allegedly collaborated with accomplice states such as Venezuela. There, the US Treasury has designated Ghazi Nasreddin as a Hezbollah facilitator and financier employed by the Venezuelan government.
 
The US authorities view these Latin American bases and transit routes (through Mexico) with much concern for the potential threat they pose for US national security. For example, it has been suggested that bombings in Buenos Aires during the early 1990s were planned in the tri-border area, and that the highest echelons of the Iranian regime were also implicated.

When Hezbollah's secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, declared, after the 2008 assassination of the group's military commander, Imad Mugniyah, that he was ready for "open war" well beyond the Lebanese theater of operations, he wasn't exaggerating. As has been evident from the early 1990s, Hezbollah has by many accounts been setting up a global infrastructure to support such a capacity.

 

Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Why Is U.S. Supporting Sham U.N. Human Rights Council?

 

by Anne Bayefsky

 

The U.N. Human Rights Council ended its latest three-week session on Friday by abandoning human rights victims the world over and contributing to the spread of anti-semitism. With the United States now a member of the Council, the Obama administration is neck deep in the Big Muddy but telling Americans to push on.

President Obama's decision to join the Council, the U.N.'s lead human rights body, was one of his first foreign policy moves. It has been an unmitigated disaster – for human rights.

 

Kyrgyzstan

On Friday, the United States delegation in Geneva teamed up with the government of Kyrgyzstan to protect the authorities instead of the people. In the face of what the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has called an "immense" humanitarian crisis, the Council adopted a U.S.-Kyrgyz initiative as trivial as its title suggests: "technical assistance and cooperation on human rights in Kyrgyzstan."

 

Southern Kyrgyzstan is engulfed in ethnic violence that has affected more than one million people, left 400,000 homeless and thousands of dead and injured according to the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the ICRC. The Kyrgyz government is failing to provide protection and to stop the violence, with numerous reports that government security forces are contributing to the targeting of Uzbeks.

 

Freedom House describes Kyrgyzstan as among the least free states on the globe. Leading journalists are murdered, and the country is ranked 162 out of 180 countries surveyed in Transparency International's 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index.

In addition to the immediate evidence of an ethnic slaughter, the Human Rights Council had before it a report from one of its own special investigators which alerted it to a number of other disturbing facts.

 

"Kyrgyzstan is recognized as the country with the highest prevalence of bride-kidnappings," and as many as "30 per cent of all marriages are the result of bride-kidnapping." That's the practice of kidnapping women and forcing them to marry either before or after they are raped. The report also said that forty per cent of women in Kyrgyzstan "had been denied the right to work outside the home or to seek an education."

 

But as if on another planet, the U.S.-led resolution adopted by the Council, "Expresses its support and encouragement for…efforts made to restore democratic and constitutional order and the rule of law in Kyrgyzstan." No reference is made to current events whatsoever. The resolution mentions only "the loss of life of 7 April 2010," (when the country's former president was toppled).

 

Instead of criticism or an immediate move to alleviate the crisis, the resolution calls upon the U.N. "to work with the Government of Kyrgyzstan …to identify areas of technical assistance that will assist Kyrgyzstan in its ability to fulfill its human rights obligations."

Think back to three weeks earlier. Nine people were killed by Israel in an attempt by Turkish-backed extremists to run a legal naval blockade of the terrorist-run Gaza strip.

 

With American approval, the same Human Rights Council suspended its normal proceedings and held its first ever "urgent debate" on the subject. The one million people affected by an ethnic conflict in Kyrgyzstan attracted no call by the U.S. (or any other Council member) for an urgent debate, or a condemnatory resolution, or a report to the Council, or a demand for immediate steps to halt the violence.

 

Moreover, the U.S.-Kyrgyzstan resolution merely requests the country conduct "a full and transparent investigation that holds perpetrators accountable" for events on one day in April.

 

In the case of Israel – with American approval – the U.N. Security Council adopted a unanimous call for "a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards," a formula which led to the immediate launch of a Human Rights Council investigation, with another one by the Secretary-General in the offing. Democratic Israel can't run its own investigation, but corruption-infested Kyrgyzstan can.

 

And, oh yes, Kyrgyzstan is an elected member of the Human Rights Council.

Iran

 

The long-suffering people of Iran fared no better. To mark the anniversary of last June's stolen Iranian election, the Obama administration contrived to manufacture the appearance of Council action.

 

On June 15, Norwegian Ambassador Bente Angell-Hansen read a statement that spoke about human rights violations in Iran for a total of 171 seconds. She spoke on behalf of 56 states, or just 29% of U.N. members. She was interrupted by fourteen separate points of order. The controversy resulted in a suspension of the meeting for two hours and another half-hour was lost debating whether the statement could be read at all.

 

When the Ambassador was finally allowed to proceed, she gingerly read the remainder of the statement by omitting the word 'Iran' three times from the original written text. How painful to listen to her plead "We call on the *aforementioned government* to live up to the commitments it has undertaken…and to fulfill its obligations…[We] wish to see an improvement in the human rights situation of individual people *in this country.*"

 

While the State Department broadcast the written statement (and not the one actually delivered), the U.S. Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe spun the story this way. She called it "a significant accomplishment" and an "important moment" for the Human Rights Council. She explained the toothless nature of the remarks by telling Reuters that the statement "is intended as a show of solidarity with the human rights defenders, rather than a condemnation of the government."

 

A short lesson in U.N. processes is necessary to fathom the fraud involved in the administration's actions on Iran. The Human Rights Council can respond to human rights violations by a state in a number of ways. It can (1) adopt a resolution launching a human rights investigation, (2) adopt a resolution condemning the violations of human rights, (3) adopt a decision read by the Council President reflecting unanimous concern, (4) decide to hold a special session devoted to the state's human rights abuses, and/or (5) decide to hold an urgent debate on the country at hand. In the case of Iran, the Council did none of the above – no resolution, no decision, no special session, no urgent debate, no condemnation by the Council of any kind.

 

While Iranians are denied the most elementary civil and political rights, and Americans are held hostage by its government, the Obama administration managed to get the U.N.'s lead human rights body to permit a fraction of U.N. members to read haltingly a statement with no consequences. Yet Donahoe crowed before the cameras: "American engagement and leadership matters at the Human Rights Council."

 

Freedom of Expression

The fallout from the Obama administration's "leadership" on the Council got worse. On Friday, the Council adopted a resolution on freedom of religion or belief. It was instantly heralded by none other than the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) – with good reason.

 

In the context of a major push by the OIC to expand the reaches of their notions of "freedom" of thought, conscience, religion or belief, the United States agreed to remove a reference to freedom of expression as a countervailing principle.

 

The last time such a resolution on the subject was adopted by the Council, pre-dating an Obama presence, it read: "appeals to all Governments to take all appropriate measures…to counter intolerance and related violence based on religion or belief,…recognizing that every individual has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, expression and religion."

 

Even in the General Assembly last fall, the resolution on the subject said: "freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression are interdependent, interrelated and mutually reinforcing." With Obama's people on the Council, freedom of expression was erased from the statement of entitlements flowing from religion and belief.

The U.N.'s Durban Racist Anti-racism Conference

 

And it didn't end there. Friday the Obama administration changed course on nine consecutive years of clear American opposition to the product of the anti-semitic hatefest known as the 2001 Durban conference.

 

The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA), which was adopted after Israel and the United States walked out of the conference in disgust, names only Israel and charges it with racism. The UN system has made so-called "follow-up" of the DDPA one of its central goals. So has its fan Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who opened a Durban II conference in Geneva in April of 2009.

 

Now the U.N. is planning to hold two more such meetings as "commemorations" of the tenth anniversary of the 2001 conference. There will be a one-day event in September 2011 organized at the same time as presidents and prime ministers are in New York for the opening of the General Assembly.

 

Most of them refused to attend Durban I and II, but the plan is that this time they will be a captive audience.

 

And on Friday the Council adopted a resolution which decides to hold a second commemorative meeting at the UN Human Rights Council in June of next year. It also urges the widespread participation of civil society in the festivities. Civil society members used Durban I to adopt a declaration that zionism is racism.

 

One would have thought that encouraging the celebration or repetition of Durban I would be anathema to a U.S. administration. After all, between 2002 and 2009 the United States faced twelve main U.N. resolutions on Durban follow-up in the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights, and voted against each and every time. But no longer.

 

Ambassador Donahoe explained that the United States would allow the resolution to be adopted without a vote, and the U.S. would simply dissociate itself. Donahoe explained her failure to demand a vote, rally like-minded states to oppose the resolution, and vote against, as a consequence of the resolution's sponsors agreeing to place one paragraph dealing with an unrelated report of a working group into the resolution's preamble instead of its "operative" part.

 

Her feeble story ignored the obvious inconsistency between prior policy and three remaining operative paragraphs which give birth to son of Durban.

 

Cuba

In addition to this kind of American "leadership," there were only three votes held during the Council session, and the United States was on the losing end of the stick every time.

One was a successful Cuban-driven initiative, entitled the right to peace. It pushes for "the renunciation of the use or threat of use of force in international relations," which is not to be confused with turning swords into plowshares. The idea is to ensure that countries engaged in breaches of international peace and security and human rights have nothing to fear, ever.

 

And there was a second successful Cuban-led resolution on foreign debt, which alleges human rights eliminate any connection between the entitlement to debt relief and responsibilities of the debtor.

 

The resolution says: "the exercise of the basic rights of the people of debtor countries to food, housing, clothing, employment, education, health services and a healthy environment cannot be subordinated to the implementation of structural adjustment policies, growth programmes and economic reforms arising from the debt."

 

Israel and Anti-Semitism

In addition to losing every time it cared enough to vote, the Obama administration has utterly failed to diminish the Council's lethal obsession with Israel and Jews – contrary to its undertakings when it joined. Today, it is clear that U.S. membership has simply given it undeserved credibility.

 

The Council has a standing agenda of ten items. One is reserved specifically for condemning Israel. One is for all of the other 191 UN states, should anybody consider them to raise "human rights situations that require the Council's attention."

 

The practical consequence of such a skewed agenda was plain this session. On the basis of the regular agenda, five hours were devoted to Israel-bashing and four hours were devoted to all other countries.

 

The Council thought that was insufficient. By deciding to hold an additional "urgent debate" over the pro-Hamas blockade-busting enterprise, they spent another 4.5 hours on Israel.

 

In total, the Council spent more than twice as much time on Israel than the rest of the world taken together. Sitting there twiddling its thumbs was the Obama administration, which made no objection to the change in the procedural rules to increase the amount of time spent on Israel.

 

To get a full sense of the U.N. Human Rights Council pathology, consider the number of Israel-focused investigations in play at this session. First, on June 1 the Council chartered a supposed "investigation" of Israel over the flotilla event (after already deciding to "condemn" Israel for its "outrageous attack.")

 

Second, on June 14 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay announced the formation of a three-person committee to follow-up the findings of the infamous Goldstone Report. The report is a modern manifestation of the ancient blood libel against the Jewish people, since it alleges that Israel really intended to murder civilians rather than defend itself against eight years of rocket attacks. (In Goldstone's words, Israel "deliberately…terrorize[d] a civilian population" and Israeli "violence against civilians w[as] part of a deliberate policy.")

 

And third, the Council took up a document from another of its investigators who is charged with reporting on Israeli human rights violations on a year-round basis. September 11 conspiracy enthusiast Richard Falk advised the Council this month that 4 million Palestinians have a right to return to Israel (thereby eliminating a Jewish state), and encouraged the Council to back a "Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign" (intended to isolate and cripple the country).

 

That's a total of three separate investigations on Israel alone currently sponsored by the Human Rights Council. But as part of the Obama administration's decision to become a member, it also decided American tax dollars should pay for it.

So U.S. taxpayers are now on the hook for 22% of the cost – trips, meals, assistants, press conferences, webcasts, printing…all the everyday items that make hate-mongering possible.

 

Last, but not least, there was the old-fashioned anti-semitism characteristic of the day-in and day-out proceedings. This session, Syrian representative Rania Al Rifaiy told the Council that Israeli school children "sing merrily as they go to school and I quote 'With my teeth I will rip your flesh. With my mouth I will suck your blood.'"

 

Sitting in the room listening to her, not a peep of protest was uttered by the American delegation. Nor was anything heard from the Belgian president of the Human Rights Council, who in the past has had no difficulty interrupting and reprimanding speakers on less popular themes.

 

Bottom Lines

With the conclusion of this latest Human Rights Council session, the grim statistics sum up the disastrous disregard for human rights from both the Council and the administration.

 

There are more Council resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all other U.N. states combined.

 

The Council has held fourteen regular sessions on human rights everywhere and six special sessions on Israel alone. The Council has had only one urgent debate about human rights anywhere – on Israel.

 

The Council is now sponsoring three simultaneous investigations of Israel. Seven other countries are subject to a single Council inquiry, and 181 states are deemed not worth investigating at all.

 

Why is the Obama administration there and why are Americans paying for it?

 

 

Anne Bayefsky is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Obama's Not Even Popular in the Middle East! So What's the Point?

 

By Barry Rubin

The last pillar of President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy, his alleged popularity in the region, has gone bye-bye. All the apologies, distancing from Israel, the Cairo speech, the Istanbul speech, the engagements with Syria and Iran, the ban on using the word “Islamism,” and all the other apparatus of the new, non-strategic strategy have availed him—and U.S. interests—not.

Why? It’s very simple. On one hand, there are the enemies of America who don’t take that stance just because they thought George W. Bush was icky. They want--depending on who we are talking about--to conquer the Middle East, take over their own countries, establish a Caliphate, lord it over neighbors, wipe Israel off the map, turn women into chattel, get rid of the Christians, expel Western influence from the region, and/or transform their own countries into Islamist utopian dictatorships.

So why should we expect them to care whether the U.S. president is a nice guy who likes them and is really sorry for any time in the past when America actually did or tried to do something in the region? Indeed, Middle East dictators and revolutionaries also believe that nice guys finish last.

Then there are those who depend on the United States for their survival. You may think first of Israel but the list includes pretty much every Arabic-speaking government—more than a dozen—all of them except for Syria, Yemen, Sudan, and the Gaza Strip Islamist dictatorship of Hamas. They want a strong, determined U.S. policy that protects them from their radical enemies at home and abroad. If Washington can't provide that, these rulers seek their own deal with the revolutionaries in order to survive.

Thus, it shouldn’t surprise anyone—but does due to bad ideology and media coverage—that Obama isn’t popular. According to the latest Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project poll, he’s gone down in every Muslim-majority country. Only 17 percent of people in Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt have a positive view of the United States. In Egypt, America is less popular than it was when Bush was president.

And in some cases, Obama is less popular than the United States as a country! In Pakistan 17 percent like America, only 8 percent like Obama, despite billions in U.S. aid rained down unconditionally on that country. In Turkey, he leads the popularity of the United States by only 6 percent.

Of course, the low figures are being spun by administration supporters to suggest that if only the United States pulled out of Afghanistan and Iraq, abandoned Israel completely, and perhaps held its breath until turning blue, this would all change.

Meanwhile, despite all of Obama’s efforts to prove that he isn’t a leader and listens to everyone, most people in the world still think the United States is too unilateral in its actions. And they always will.

It is true America's unpopularity stems from its values. It is also true that America's unpopularity stems from its policies. But that doesn't mean the policies are "wrong." It also doesn't mean that changing these policies will make America popular.

First, the changes would have to be very extreme. Really and fully abandoning Israel, for example, so its people could be wiped out or repressed by anti-American forces.

Second, they would have to go against U.S. interests. Really and fully, perhaps, abandoning Arab regimes so that they are overthrown by anti-American Islamist revolutionaries.

Third, not everyone in the region wants the same thing. For example, U.S. support for Turkey's Islamist regime makes it very unpopular among large segments of the Turkish public, while if government policy were to oppose Egypt's regime as repressive it might alienate as many Egyptians as it would please.

That's why an obsessive hunt for popularity should never be the foundation of policy or strategy. In that framework, for example, a U.S. government might accept a terrorist, revolutionary Islamist, genocidal-oriented, client of Iran on the Mediterranean that would treat women like the Taliban and chase out Christians. Why? Because supporting sanctions to weaken that regime is unpopular in the Muslim-majority world! (And, yes, that's precisely what's happening now.)

A sensible public will stop saying that Obama has succeeded because he made America more popular in the world.

A sensible government would evaluate this situation and all the administration's failures, rethink its world view, and change course. Good news? Well, I said a “sensible government.”

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.