Via The National-Abu Dhabi:

In the recent tension in southern Lebanon between villagers and the UN force UNIFIL, Hizbullah saw an opportunity to send a warning to the international peacekeepers that their freedom to maneuver was limited. Initially, the Lebanese army and government failed to back up the UN. After the angry response of states contributing soldiers to UNIFIL, Lebanon backtracked, vowing to continue cooperating with the UN. However, the incidents confirmed that Hizbullah has substantial control over the Lebanese army, particularly the army’s intelligence services. Hizbullah’s freedom to act both politically and militarily is essential to its role as an extension of Iran on the Israeli border. At a broader level, the quarrel with UNIFIL may also be seen as an Iranian reply to the recent passage of Security Council sanctions against Tehran.

More proof that the United Nations condones murderers, rapists and perpetrators of terrorism.  Via UN Watch:

Ali Hassan al-Majeed, the Iraqi general known as “Chemical Ali” for ordering poison-gas attacks on Kurdish civilians, was hanged in Baghdad after a special tribunal handed him his fourth death sentence for crimes against humanity during the regime of his cousin, Saddam Hussein. Responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Kurds, Shiites, and other Iraqi minorities, Ali’s brutality stood out even amid a regime marked by brutality.

Yet at the Human Rights Council in Geneva last Monday, Halima Warzazi, the woman who personally shielded the Saddam regime from international censure over these gas attacks, received a different treatment altogether: she was seated at the dais, gavel in hand, as Chair of the 47-nation body’s Advisory Committee, solemnly presiding over a week-long session.

In other words, the same individual who in 1988 initiated the “No Action” motion that killed a UN attempt to condemn Saddam Hussein for failing to “ensure respect for human rights and fundamental freedom,” urge his regime to “immediately halt the use of prohibited chemical weapons,” and dispatch a special human rights investigator to protect Iraqi victims, now serves as chief advisor to the highest UN body charged with protecting human rights. Click here for 1988 official UN summary.

Via NY Daily News:

The UN has just rolled out a new, overhauled website and the amount of UN webspace dedicated only to Palestinian claims is huge. There is the “UN Information System on the Question of Palestine,” and the anti-Israel “NGO network on the Question of Palestine.” Added to that is the material churned out by the only UN Division focused on a single people – the UN Division on Palestinian Rights. Then there is the UN Human Rights Council, which has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all other 191 UN states combined.

Via YnetNews:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a letter of gratitude to the states that boycotted the UN anti-racism conference in Geneva this week. He also praised the countries whose representatives walked out during Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s speech.

The states that boycotted the conference, in addition to Israel, are the U.S., Germany, Italy, Holland, Poland, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

The states whose representatives walked out during Ahmadinejad’s speech are Austria, Ireland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Hungary, Greece, Luxemburg, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia, Slovakia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Czech Republic, France, Cyprus, Romania, and Sweden.

Islamic states win another resolution on ‘defamation of religions’; UN Watch leads 188 NGOs in global protest

The Islamic states scored another win today at the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council for their campaign to ban any criticism of religion, with a resolution calling for curbs on free speech to protect Islamic sensitivities. The 23 votes supporting the restrictions showed an increase of two in comparison to last year.

Eleven countries voted No: Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and Italy, while 13 abstained, including Bosnia, Brazil, and Mexico.

With the alarming rise in resolutions throughout the U.N. against individual rights, UN Watch initiated a global appeal, together with the International Humanist and Ethical Union, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and Freedom House — along with 184 other non-governmental organizations from more than 50 countries around the world — calling on U.N. member states to protect basic liberties. Our campaign was covered by the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France Presse, and numerous other media. (See joint NGO statement below, followed by media coverage.)

The resolution on “defamation of religions” is an attempt to gut the concept of human rights of its original meaning, which is to protect individuals from harm or state control, not to shield a set of beliefs from critical inquiry. Our freedoms of speech and religion are facing a combined assault this week by multiple regressive resolutions at the Council, and proposed provisions for next month’s Durban 2 conference that endorse the Islamic proposal to change a core UN treaty on racism.

For further information:

* Hillel Neuer, “The defamation of human rights, ” Radio Free Europe, December 22, 2008
* “Defamation of religions” postings on the UN Watch blog.
Following is the joint NGO statement and list of 188 signatories:

Joint NGO Statement on Danger of U.N. “Defamation of Religions” Campaign

We, the undersigned non-governmental organizations,

Deeply concerned by the pervasive and mounting campaign by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to produce U.N. resolutions, declarations, and world conferences that propagate the concept of “defamation of religions,” a concept having no basis in domestic or international law, and which would alter the very meaning of human rights, which protect individuals from harm, but not beliefs from critical inquiry;

Deeply concerned by the attempt to misuse the U.N. to legitimize blasphemy laws, thereby restricting freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press;

Deeply concerned that “defamation of religions” resolutions may be used in certain countries to silence and intimidate human rights activists, religious dissenters, and other independent voices;
Alarmed by the resolution on “defamation of religions” recently tabled at the current 10th session of the UN Human Rights Council;

Alarmed by the draft resolution on freedom of expression circulated by Egypt, whose amendments seek to restrict, not promote, protections for free speech;

Alarmed by the recently-announced initiative of the U.N. “Ad Hoc Committee on Complementary Standards” to amend the International Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) by adding a protocol on “defamation of religions”;

Alarmed by provisions in the latest draft outcome document of the Durban Review Conference that, through coded language and veiled references, endorse and encourage these anti-democratic initiatives;

1. Call upon all governments to oppose the “defamation of religions” resolution currently tabled at the UN Human Rights Council, and the objectionable provisions of the freedom of expression resolution;

2. Call upon all governments to resist the efforts of the “Ad Hoc Committee on Complementary Standards” to alter the ICERD;

3. Call upon all governments not to accept or legitimize a Durban Review Conference outcome that directly or indirectly supports the “defamation of religions” campaign at the expense of basic freedoms and individual human rights.

www.unwatch.org

h/t to reader Jacob.

“The new figures come in a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, released on Thursday.

This revealed that Iran’s production of low enriched uranium had previously been underestimated.”

Oh yeah, gee, “oops”. Stupid UN.

UN: IRAN HAS ENOUGH URANIUM FOR NUKE BOMB

For once, the monster on the East River has backed off Israel. Via RTTNews:

The United Nations Thursday backed down from a claim that one of its schools in Gaza was hit by an Israel Defense Force mortar attack last month, correcting its earlier media statements that a massacre occurred within the UN education facility.

The UN’s latest field report reads, “The humanitarian coordinator would like to clarify that the shelling, and all of the fatalities, took place outside rather than inside the school.”

The revelation reinforces the Israeli assertions that Hamas had been attacking the Israeli forces from civilian locations, thus the high civilian casualties from Israeli retaliation.

In amoral societies, family breakdowns are of little significance. In traditional, moral societies, family breakdowns should be a red flag. Leave it to the United Nations to redefine “family” and to deny that there is a crisis. Via LifeSiteNews:

A leader in the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has declared that the breakdown of traditional families, far from being a “crisis,” is actually a triumph for human rights.

Speaking at a colloquium held last month at Colegio Mexico in Mexico City, UNFPA representative Arie Hoekman denounced the idea that high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births represent a social crisis, claiming that they represent instead the triumph of “human rights” against “patriarchy.”

“In the eyes of conservative forces, these changes mean that the family is in crisis,” he said. “In crisis? More than a crisis, we are in the presence of a weakening of the patriarchal structure, as a result of the disappearance of the economic base that sustains it and because of the rise of new values centered in the recognition of fundamental human rights.”

The UN is an Islamist cesspool.  Get the UN out of the US.  Via FoxNews:

The UN agency that administers a school in Gaza – where Hamas operatives firing mortars at Israelis led to the deaths of civilians by Israeli return fire last week – has admitted to employing terrorists to work at its Palestinian schools in the past, has no system in place to keep members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad off its payroll, and provides textbooks to children that contain hate speech and other incendiary information.

There is evidence that students educated in UNRWA schools are much more likely to become homicide bombers, said Jonathan Halevi, a former Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer who specializes in Palestinian terrorist organizations. Halevi has spent several years building an extensive database for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs of terrorist attacks by Hamas and other Islamic extremist groups. Halevi estimated that over 60% of homicide bombers were educated in UNRWA schools.

Join us in calling for the United States to say YES to racial and religious equality and freedom from anti-semitism by saying NO to attending the United Nations Durban II Conference. A 2008 U.S. State Department report on global anti-semitism highlighted the malicious role played by the 2001 United Nations Durban I Conference.

Durban I was, IN THEORY, intended to be an “anti-racism” conference. It was, in practice, anything but… Durban I ended just three days before 9/11. So deeply disturbed that the conference was hijacked by global harbingers of hate, that the United States and Israeli delegations walked out on principle in protest.

The agenda for Durban II?
Scheduled for April 2009 the stated purpose of Durban II is to “further the implementation of the (2001) Durban Declaration.”

What does the Durban Declaration declare?
That ISRAEL, and ONLY ISRAEL, is guilty of racism.

And who sits on the Planning Committee for the Durban II Conference?

Make no mistake, this conference will not combat racism, but will promote and fuel hatred toward Israel, America and the free world. This conference will not be about the spread of free expression, but how to curb it.

The United States has always been a world leader in the battle against anti-semitism.

We walked away once in protest… let us now stay away on principle.

Today, there is an immediate way to act against growing anti-semitism around the world … say no to Durban II. Declare that the United States will not participate in a dialogue that promotes prejudice. The United States has consistently opposed Durban II, its funding and planning. The latest October 2008 documents from the Planning Committee confirm that the Durban II platform will be used to demonize Israel and launch an attack on free speech.

We ask President-elect Obama and Secretary of State-designate Clinton to take the next step and deny legitimacy to Durban II.

We urge the United States to join the lead of Canada and Israel by announcing now that the U.S. will not fund or attend Durban II. Please make your views known—Write to the president-elect, secretary of state designate and Others—tell them to say no NOW, that America DECLINES to participate in the upcoming Durban II International Hatefest.

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Secretary of State-Designate
Hillary Clinton:
202-647-4000;

President-Elect Barack Obama:
202-456-1111;

Congressman Howard Berman (Chair, House Foreign Affairs Committee):
202-225-5021, 202-225-4695

Senator John Kerry:
202-224-2742, 202-224-8525;

Sponsored by Lawrence Kadish, Human Rights Voices

For more United Nations coverage see www.EYEontheUN.org.