UN Watch, an organization that monitors the United Nations and promotes human rights for all reports on instances where Israel is unfairly criticized at the UN.
Following Operation Protective Edge, Israel was accused of war crimes at the United Nations. In response, Richard Kemp, a highly-respected colonel in the British Forces and CAMERA speaker, testified on Israel’s behalf. Colonel Kemp addressed the UN’s false and misleading accusation:
“While the IDF made efforts, unprecedented in any other army, and exceeding the requirements of the laws of war, to save Palestinian civilian lives, including warning them to leave target zones, Hamas forced them to remain in those areas.”
Hamas’s cornerstone strategy was, as he explained, to “cause large numbers of casualties among their own people in order to bring international condemnation against Israel, especially from the United Nations.” According to Kemp, the UN not only unjustly condemns Israel but also faithfully reiterates Hamas’s own false narrative in doing so.
More recently, this past May, UN Watch reported that, “the UK, France, Germany and other EU states voted…for a UN resolution, co-sponsored by the Arab group of states and the Palestinian delegation, that singled out Israel at the annual assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) as the only violator of ‘mental, physical and environmental health.’”
Ironically, however, the UN Assembly did not address Syria and Russia for bombing Syrian hospitals, or criticize Saudi-led groups for bombing millions of Yemenis and blockading their access to food and water. In fact, the UN did not even pass any other resolution on any other country in the world.
This resolution against Israel, Item No. 19, serves as an example of what Hillel Neurer, Executive Director of UN Watch deems absurd. As he explains, this “resolution…accuses Israel of violating the health rights of Syrians in the Golan, even as in reality Israeli hospitals continue their life-saving treatment for Syrians fleeing to the Golan from the Assad regime’s barbaric attacks.”
This past April, the NY Daily News reported that the “United Nations [singled] out Israel for anti-women bias in the middle east.” In reality, women in Israel have full rights as citizens. The integration of women in the IDF serves as a great example for foreign militaries.
However, twenty countries in the UN voted to condemn Israel as women’s victimizer, and somehow decided to specifically only condemn Israel.
The criticism of Israel aside, more troubling is how the UN chose not to confront other countries regarding women’s rights.
Other countries cry for reform yet were not criticized at all by the UN.
In Saudi Arabia, women are denied the right to drive, walk around without a chaperone, or do other basic day-to-day activities. And even more tragically, in Sudan especially, women are subjected to genital mutilation. The UN fails to fully advocate for women when they choose to not condemn such horrific standards.
While Israel was exclusively blamed for victimizing women, a recent UN report exposing the genocide of Yazidis in Syria and Iraq did, however, finally include criticism of ISIS for ongoing mass rapes.
One must wonder—in disgust and astonishment—how this could possibly be.
Even more recently, UN Watch exposed the unfair reporting of the Tel Aviv terror attack by Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein of Jordan. UN watch reported that he “noticeably refused to call Wednesday’s Palestinian shooting of Israelis in Tel Aviv a terrorist attack…and he refused to mention that the attackers were Palestininan. Moreover, [he] declined to call out Hamas leaders for celebrating the murder.”
In a recent report republished by the Washington Post, the Associated Press finally exposed the mistreatment of Israel at the United Nations. While Israel has been an active part of the UN since 1949, as the AP article explains, Israel is unfairly criticized in many UN committees, while fellow member states get away with horrific atrocities.
Until now, unfair criticism of Israel at the UN has not been confronted by the media. The succinct AP report has allowed mainstream media to cover the issue, and will hopefully raise awareness and outrage.
Contributed by CAMERA Intern Penina Simkovitz
