Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

United Nations Tag

Posted by David Gerstman on December 05, 2013 16 Comments
The Washington Post's fact checker, Glenn Kessler asks, "Did the United Nations demand Iran suspend uranium enrichment as part of a final deal?" At issue are statements made by Senators Robert Menendez and Bob Corker about Iran's right to enrich on the Sunday morning talks shows. Kessler, for example, took exception to Corker's response here:
CBS NEWS’S JOHN DICKERSON: Senator Corker, is it a red line for you? You talked about the standards of any ultimate deal. Is enrichment of any kind by Iran, is that something everybody should stay focused on? That any deal that includes that is a non-starter for you, because, of course, the Iranians say that they expect to be able to keep enriching? SEN. BOB CORKER (R-Tenn.): Yes, so to me that’s a baseline that the U.N. Security Council has agreed to, I think, six times, certainly this administration negotiated that in 2010. So they negotiated that in 2010. So as long as they can enrich, it seems to me that we are violating the very standards that we set in place in the first place. – exchange on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Dec. 1, 2013
Kessler didn't hand out any Pinnochios to the senators but still found fault with their responses:
With their comments, Menendez and Corker might have left viewers with the impression that the U.N. resolutions already require a suspension of enrichment in any final agreement. That’s not the case — though it can certainly be an ongoing demand. The administration, for its part, appears to have set that goal aside in an effort to keep the diplomacy moving. The lawmakers are certainly within their rights to call attention to this decision, but they should be more precise in their language about what the U.N. resolutions actually require. Given that they were speaking on live television and this is a complex issue, their comments, at this point, do not yet rise to the level of a Pinocchio.
Perhaps the senators were a bit sloppy, but I think the question asked of them was misleading. The question shouldn't have been whether Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium as part of any final agreement, but whether Iran would prove that its nuclear program was strictly civilian. In introducing his analysis, Kessler wrote:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 02, 2013 4 Comments
We have written many times before about how we only hear about the non-Jewish Arab refugees created when the Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948, but hear almost nothing about Jewish refugees from Arab countries: The claim that the Nakbah -- the catastrophe -- created only one refugee problem is a fundamental part of anti-Israeli agitation and an impedement to peace as Palestinians insist on a right of return for non-Jewish refugees and their descendents. In fact, there were an equal number of Jewish refugees who fled Arab countries for Israel. (The Forgotten Refugees - Full Documentary Movie is available on YouTube) Approximately half of Israel's current Jewish population are such Jewish refugees from Arab countries or their descendents. This exchange of populations goes unrecognized because Israel absorbed and welcomed its refugess, while Arab countries -- long before there was a "Palestinian" national identity -- kept the non-Jewish Arab refugees in separate camps and refused them and their descendents citizenship or other civil rights in many cases. There is an effort to change this misperception and to recognize the Jewish Nakbah, the ethnic cleansing of Jews in Arab countries, as part of any international discussion of Palestinian refugees. The effort at the U.N. is being led by Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor, as reported by The Times of Israel, UN Jewish refugees panel aims ‘to rectify history’:

Posted by David Gerstman on October 29, 2013 10 Comments
In the more recent iterations of the Star Trek television show, there were villains called Cardassians. They were even more ruthless than the Klingons. They also had a remarkable justice system as is shown in the following dialogue:
Gul Dukat: In Cardassia, the verdict is always known before the trial begins; and it's always the same. Commander Sisko: In that case, why bother with a trial at all? Gul Dukat: Because the people demand it. They enjoy watching justice triumph over evil, every time. They find it comforting. Commander Sisko: Isn't there ever a chance you might try an innocent man by mistake? Gul Dukat: Cardassians don't make mistakes. Commander Sisko: I'll have to remember that.
When reading Anne Bayefsky's latest account of the machinations of UN Human Rights Council, it's hard to think of a better analogy than the Cardassia's predetermined verdicts.  Israel is scheduled to sit before the UNHRC and be subjected to its Universal Periodic Review (UPR), here's how it works, as Anne Bayefsky explains:
As the UPR theory goes, once every four years the Council spends a few hours talking about the human rights record of each UN member state. The process has a number of stages. The country under consideration sends representatives to make some speeches about its terrific human rights situation. Other states are each given no more than two minutes to comment and make recommendations for improvement. The state concerned voices its acceptance or rejection of those recommendations. NGOs – including phony NGOs sponsored by governments – are allotted a limited time to make comments. And then the recommendations – and the government’s rejection of any of them – are put into a report which is perfunctorily “adopted.” In practice, the UPR looks like this. A very large number of friends of each rights-abusing country line up to praise its human rights record and generate a long list of faux congratulatory recommendations which can be easily “accepted.” The favor is repaid when their pals’ turns come along. These states then announce that serious recommendations “do not enjoy their support.” The praise and the rejections, all get included in a report that contains no findings and no conclusions, and there are no decisions to take action.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 02, 2013 11 Comments
The full text is here. Scott Johnson at Power Line has some of the key excerpts exposing the history of Iran's new "moderate" President Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani is anything but moderate, he was a key player in numerous terrorist attacks and the building of Iran's nuclear program. Excerpts (and additional videos) after the video. But I'll start with the ending lines:
In our time, the biblical prophecies have been realized: As the prophet Amos said: They shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit them, They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, They shall till gardens and eat their fruit. And I will plant them upon their soil, never to be uprooted again. Ladies and Gentlemen, The people of Israel have come home, never to be uprooted again.
I feel deeply honored and privileged to stand here before you today representing the citizens of the State of Israel. We are an ancient people. We date back nearly 4,000 years to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We have journeyed through time, we’ve overcome the greatest of adversities, And we reestablished our sovereign state in our ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel.... Well, Rouhani headed Iran’s Supreme National Security Council from 1989 through 2003. During that time, Iran’s henchmen gunned down opposition leaders in a Berlin restaurant. They murdered 85 people at the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires. They killed 19 American soldiers by blowing up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Are we to believe that Rouhani, the National Security Advisor of Iran at the time, knew nothing about these attacks? Of course he did.

Posted by David Gerstman on September 25, 2013 10 Comments

NY Times Op-Ed placement inadvertently reflects Obama's foreign policy...

Posted by David Gerstman on September 17, 2013 6 Comments

“Our collective failure to prevent atrocity crimes in Syria over the past two and a half years will remain a heavy burden on the standing of the United Nations and its member states.” Ban Ki-Moon Secretary General of the United Nations, September 10, 2013 "The United States...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 11, 2013 23 Comments

Why not? The Kurds out number Palestinians several times over, and unlike Palestinians, have a real ethnic and cultural distinction from surrounding Arabs (and in Turkey, Turks). But for Europeans drawing lines on maps and Turkish national ambitions, there should have been an independent nation for...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 31, 2013 4 Comments

David Gerstman a/k/a SoccerDad has a Mideast Media Sampler he circulates by email which is very informative and used by many bloggers. With his permission, I'm posting today's sampler about the anti-Israel lawfare being conducted by the U.N. Human Rights Council cheered on by The New York Times and law professor George Bisharat (who...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 02, 2012 17 Comments

The United States nominally opposed the General Assembly Resolution granting nonmember state status to "Palestine." In the short run, it changes nothing on the ground, but it does embolden the Palestinians to hold out for everything, including  a reversion to the 1949 Armistice borders, commonly and...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 30, 2012 13 Comments

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird gave a very strong speech (embedded at bottom of post) yesterday at the United Nations against the "nonmember" status for "Palestine," in violation of the Oslo Accords. Damn fine speech by #Canada.— Act for Israel (@ActForIsrael) November 29, 2012 Canada is following...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 30, 2012 7 Comments
Yesterday was other-worldly, watching the sick march of hypocrisy on display at the U.N. for the vote in the General Assembly to grant "Palestine" nonmember state status. Of course, "Palestine" already declared independence in 1988 and that declaration was recognized by almost all of the 138 countries that voted "yes" yesterday. What was other worldly was watching the speech of the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.  I watched it live.  I haven't been able to find a link to the text, but it was unreal, talking about the inalienable rights of peoples to a state.  This is the same Turkey which brutally supresses the Kurdish independence movement both inside Turkey and neighboring states, and which has threatened in the past to go to war if Kurds in neighboring Iraq established their own state. The same Turkey whose Prime Minister declared Israel a "terrorist state" because it defended itself against hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza, even though Turkey retaliated against Syria when a handful of shell landed on Turkish territory, and which repeatedly has launched retaliatory attacks against Kurdish rebels in Iraq. The same Turkey which has threatened military action over Israel's exploration for natural gas in conjunction with Greek Cyprus. The same Turkey which continues to occupy the northern part of Cyprus. The same Turkey which threatened to send warships to break Israel's military blockade of Gaza, a blockade which even the U.N. found to be legal. The same Turkey whose Islamist ruling party has been methodically destroying secular institutional counterweights. There was a parade of hypocrites yesterday, but none more so than Turkey.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 29, 2012 5 Comments

Around 5 p.m. today the U.N. General Assembly will vote to grant "Palestine" non-member status. For what is the General Assembly voting? Definitely not for a state. "Palestine" clearly does not qualify. Definitely not for a government.  Who controls?  Hamas? Iran? Islamic Jihad? Mahmoud Abbas? Definitely not for peace. ...

Posted by Anne Segal on September 27, 2012 16 Comments

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York today, using a drawing of a bomb as a visual aid to express the Iranian nuclear program. He drew a red line where he believes the UN should intervene. Netanyahu: I brought a...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 19, 2012 10 Comments

As detailed here many times, there are just as many Jewish refugees from Arab countries as there are Arab refugees from Israel.  The Jewish refugess are the refugees whose name the United Nations dare not speak. Israel finally is starting to put on the table the...

Accessibility by WAH