Recently in United Nations Category

As noted here, it will take more than asking once to make that happen. "Hezbollah rejects call by U.N.'s Ban to disarm," by Dominic Evans for Reuters, January 14:

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah dismissed on Saturday a United Nations call for his militant anti-Israel movement to disarm, saying it was determined to maintain a military capacity to defend Lebanon.

That's what state armies are for. Lebanon has one. Hizballah's forces are ultimately for the sake of Hizballah, to protect it not only from outside intervention, but from challenges from within Lebanon, including government forces.

"I affirm today, firmly, decisively and with the greatest conviction ... the choice of armed resistance," Nasrallah said. "These weapons, along with the Lebanese people and army, are the only guarantee of Lebanon's protection."

Mocking a demand by visiting U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that Hezbollah lay down its weapons, Nasrallah said he was happy that Hezbollah's military prowess was a cause for concern.

"Your concern, Secretary-General, reassures us and pleases us. What matters to us is that you are worried, and that America ... and Israel are worried with you," he said in a televised speech marking a Shi'ite holy day.

Hezbollah, which fought a devastating month-long war with Israel in 2006, has rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution that demands that it lay down its military arsenal, as all other Lebanese armed groups did at the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.

That's Resolution 1559. Not only did Hizballah defy the resolution, they are now better armed than the regular Lebanese army. What could go wrong?

Nasrallah, in hiding since 2006 for fear of assassination, says his movement has been re-arming since the 2006 conflict, when it fired hundreds of rockets across the border daily into northern Israel.

Ban, speaking in Beirut on Friday, said he was "deeply concerned about the military capacity of Hezbollah" and the lack of progress in disarmament. "All these arms outside of the authorized state authority, it's not acceptable," he declared....

No one is in favor of actual "stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion." The problem is that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which is driving this resolution, considers any truthful speech about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism to be "stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion." This is an attempt to quash truth-telling about Islamic jihad so that the West stands mute and defenseless before its advance. And now the Obama Administration, fresh from a secret meeting with the OIC on just this topic, joins in.

Free Speech Death Watch Alert: "U.N. Adopts ‘Religious Intolerance’ Resolution Championed by Obama Administration," by Patrick Goodenough for CNS News, December 20 (thanks to Wimpy):

(CNSNews.com) – The U.N. General Assembly on Monday adopted a resolution condemning the stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion, and urging countries to take effective steps “to address and combat such incidents.”

No member state called for a recorded vote on the text, which was as a result adopted “by consensus.”

The resolution, an initiative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), is based on one passed by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council in Geneva last spring. The State Department last week hosted a meeting to discuss ways of “implementing” it.

Every year since 1999 the OIC has steered through the U.N.’s human rights apparatus a resolution condemning the “defamation of religion,” which for the bloc of 56 Muslim states covered incidents ranging from satirizing Mohammed in a newspaper cartoon to criticism of shari’a and post-9/11 security check profiling.

Critics regard the measure as an attempt to outlaw valid and critical scrutiny of Islamic teachings, as some OIC states do through controversial blasphemy laws at home.

Strongly opposed by mostly Western democracies, the divisive “defamation” resolution received a dwindling number of votes each year, with the margin of success falling from 57 votes in 2007 to 19 in 2009 and just 12 last year.

This year’s text was a departure, in that it dropped the “defamation” language and included a paragraph that reaffirms “the positive role that the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the full respect for the freedom to seek, receive and impart information can play in strengthening democracy and combating religious intolerance.”

The nod to freedom of expression won the resolution the support of the U.S. and other democracies, with the Obama administration and others hailing it as a breakthrough after years of acrimonious debate.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the opportunity of the State Department-hosted talks with foreign governments, the OIC and other international bodies last week to stress the importance of freedom of speech in the U.S. She argued that “the best way to treat offensive speech is by people either ignoring it or combating it with good arguments and good speech that overwhelms it.”

Saudi initiative singled out for praise

Nonetheless, the resolution adopted in New York on Monday does contain elements that concern some free speech and religious freedom advocates.

It calls on states “to take effective measures to ensure that public functionaries in the conduct of their public duties do not discriminate against an individual on the basis of religion or belief.”

Governments also are expected to make “a strong effort to counter religious profiling, which is understood to be the invidious use of religion as a criterion in conducting questionings, searches and other law enforcement investigative procedures.”

“Effective measures” to counter cases of religious stereotyping and stigmatization include education, interfaith dialogue and “training of government officials.”

And in the worst cases, those of “incitement to imminent violence” based on religion, the resolution calls on countries to implement “measures to criminalize” such behavior....

All such things are in the eye of the beholder, meaning that the enforcement agency will decide what is offensive and what is incitement, and silence people accordingly.

People will die, and al-Shabaab does not care. Controlling the flow of aid allows them to starve out resistance.

The charge of "misappropriating funds" is particularly curious. It's certainly not al-Shabaab's money that groups like UNICEF and the World Health Organization were spending, but clearly, al-Shabaab has made it their business to mind the business of everyone in the territory under their control. The other charges are certainly par for the course under the group's paranoid, supremacist rule. More on this story. "Banned aid agencies warn disaster in Somalia," by Malkhadir M. Muhumed for the Associated Press, November 29:

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Aid workers and Somali residents expressed outrage Tuesday, a day after the militant group al-Shabab banned 16 aid groups from its territory, a decision officials said puts tens of thousands of sick mothers and malnourished children at risk.

Tens of thousands of Somalis have already died from drought and famine-related causes this year, and the U.N. estimates that 250,000 people still face starvation in a country plagued by violence.

Somalis expressed sadness and anger at al-Shabab's decision, one that could further damage a group highly unpopular in many Somali circles because of its strict social rules and harsh punishments like amputations [Qur'an 5:33, 5:38 - ed.] and stonings.

In other words, enforcing Sharia.

Al-Shabab on Monday ordered UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the Danish Refugee Council, among others, to leave.

"Without their help, our children will return to starvation and malnutrition," said Ahmed Awnor, a community leader in Hiraan in west-central Somalia.

Aid groups warned of disaster if the ban stays in place. UNICEF said thousands of children could die if its operations are stopped. UNICEF supports health centers treating tens of thousands of malnourished children, provides access to clean water and carries out vaccinations against measles.

"We are extremely concerned as any disruption to our assistance is like unplugging life support for many children, especially for the 160,000 severely malnourished children in south-central Somalia," said Jaya Murthy of UNICEF Somalia.

Al-Shabab began banning aid groups like the World Food Program in 2009, though it allowed some to operate. The militant force has long accused outside groups of spying and on Monday accused the 16 groups of misappropriating funds, collecting data, and promoting secularism, immorality and the "degrading values of democracy in an Islamic country."

"It's a disgusting decision. It will force us back to famine and misery again," said Ahmed Khalif, a Somali elder in Baidoa town. "The difficult tasks the aid agencies have done to fight the famine are only half-done."

Al-Shabab said it carried out a "meticulous yearlong review and investigation" that documented "the illicit activities and misconducts [sic] of some of the organizations."

Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst with the International Crisis Group, said al-Shabab's action could be motivated by "anger at the West's acquiescence to Kenya's intervention" in Somalia. Hundreds of Kenyan forces moved into Somalia last month to fight al-Shabab.

Abdi also said al-Shabab may have failed to extract the benefits and concessions it wanted from the agencies operating in areas under its control. The militants have been known to force aid groups to pay "taxes" or other fees.

The Danish Refugee Council said militants took over its offices in Belet Weyne and Bulo Burte in Hiraan region. The group called al-Shabab's decision "a sad development" as Somalis are "in dire need of humanitarian aid due to drought and years of armed conflict." The group provides shelter, aid packages and daily meals for tens of thousands of internally displaced people in the capital, Mogadishu.

"The struggling people of Somalia need all the help they can get, therefore we hope and trust that we and the other organizations involved are soon again able to resume our humanitarian operations," said Ann Mary Olsen, the head of the council's international department.

Al-Shabab boasts several hundred foreign militants among its ranks, including veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts and U.S. citizens. The foreign fighters are known to take hardline stances inside the group.

Murthy of UNICEF said his agency's office in Baidoa was occupied after the staff was ordered to leave. Although UNICEF has in the past few years weathered brief disruptions in Somalia, this is the first time it has to stop operations since its arrival in the early 1970s, he said.

The U.N. refugee agency says more than two-thirds of Somalia's estimated 1.46 million internally displaced people live in southern and central parts of the country — al-Shabab land — and humanitarian needs there are immense.

The World Health Organization supports eight hospitals and 16 mobile clinics that cater to tens of thousands of people in the affected regions. The ban "can undermine the fragile progress made this year, and could bring back famine conditions in several areas," said the WHO's Pieter Desloovere.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday condemned al-Shabab for seizing property and equipment belonging to the aid groups. He said the disruption in aid threatens to undermine progress made this year against the famine.

Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for international aid, said the aid ban could force thousands of Somalis to flee....

That is, if al-Shabaab lets them.

The explanation was that the sanctions "will be seen in the international community as an instrument for regime change in Iran." Kicking the can down the road, with another round of time-buying sanctions that would be generally ineffectual in halting the Iranian nuclear program, would be a funny way of going about regime change. "Russia rules out new Iran sanctions over nuclear report," from BBC News, November 9:

Russia has ruled out supporting fresh sanctions against Iran, despite a UN report that says Tehran may be trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Britain, France and the US all said they would pursue new sanctions against Iran in the wake of the IAEA report.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the report showed the need for the world to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons.

The US and its allies suspect Iran of trying to develop a nuclear bomb, which Tehran denies.

The Iranian government insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful means.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told Interfax news agency that extra sanctions "will be seen in the international community as an instrument for regime change in Iran".

"That approach is unacceptable to us, and the Russian side does not intend to consider such proposals."

The Russian foreign ministry later issued another statement saying that the report "does not contain fundamentally new information".

However, Mr Netanyahu accused Iran of endangering world peace.

"The significance of the report is that the international community must bring about the cessation of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons which endanger the peace of the world and of the Middle East," he said in a statement.

"The IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] report corroborates the position of the international community, and of Israel that Iran is developing nuclear weapons," Mr Netanyahu added.

The IAEA said it had information indicating Iran had carried out tests "relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device".

The report - published on the Institute for Science and International Security website - says the research includes computer models that could only be used to develop a nuclear bomb trigger.

It documents alleged Iranian work on the kind of implosion device that would be needed to detonate a nuclear weapon....

The tribunal indicted four Hizballah members for Hariri's death, and said they may be linked to other assassinations. This development is another indication that the parasitic pseudostate of Hizballah continues to succeed in devouring its host. "US warns Lebanon over Hariri court funding," from Agence France-Presse, November 5:

A top US official on Saturday warned that ties with Lebanon would suffer if Beirut fails to pay its share of funding to a UN-backed court probing ex-premier Rafiq Hariri's murder.

"If Lebanon is unable to produce its share of the funding for the Special Tribunal, we're going to have to take some pretty tough decisions, and I think you're going to see some consequences in terms of the US-Lebanese bilateral relationship," Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman said in an interview with Al-Arabiya television in Washington.

"I’d expect the same thing in terms of some other countries as well."

Lebanon is responsible for meeting 49 percent of the costs of the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which has charged four Hezbollah members in the 2005 assassination of billionaire ex-premier Hariri.

But the Hezbollah-dominated government has yet to pay its share, estimated at $35 million (25.2 million euros) for 2011, as international pressure mounts on Prime Minister Najib Mikati to uphold his commitment to the STL.

"Mr Mikati has said publicly ... that he is committed to meeting Lebanon’s obligations to the international community," said Feltman.

"One of those obligations is payment of the Lebanese contributions to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon."

Mikati in recent weeks has received a series of notifications from the court on the overdue funds.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, whose Shiite militant party is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Washington, has openly opposed Lebanon paying its annual share to the Netherlands-based STL.

Nasrallah has dismissed the court as a US-Israeli conspiracy against his Iranian-backed party, warning that no member of Hezbollah would ever be found or arrested.

In January, Hezbollah toppled Lebanon's Western-backed government, led by Hariri's son Saad, in a feud over the STL, ushering in telecommunications tycoon Mikati to replace him.

In 2010, the Hariri government transferred funds to the STL without cabinet approval.

High culture: The infamous Palestinian art exhibit celebrating the Sbarro pizzeria jihad mass murder

This makes sense. After all, the Palestinians have contributed so much to world culture: children's shows celebrating jihad murder, jihad/martyrdom suicide bombers blowing people up on buses and in restaurants -- it's a veritable cornucopia of cultural and artistic achievement. "Palestine becomes member of UN cultural body," by Sarah DiLorenzo for the Associated Press, October 31:

PARIS (AP) — Palestine became a full member of the U.N. cultural and educational agency Monday, in a highly divisive move that the United States and other opponents say could harm renewed Mideast peace efforts.

U.S. lawmakers had threatened to withhold roughly $80 million in annual funding to UNESCO if it approved Palestinian membership. The United States provides about 22 percent of UNESCO's funding.

Huge cheers went up in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization after delegates approved the membership in a vote of 107-14 with 52 abstentions. Eighty-one votes were needed for approval in a hall with 173 UNESCO member delegations present.

"Long Live Palestine!" shouted one delegate, in French, at the unusually tense and dramatic meeting of UNESCO's General Conference....

Monday's vote is definitive. The membership formally takes effect when Palestine signs UNESCO's founding charter.

The U.S. ambassador to UNESCO, David Killion, said Monday's vote will "complicate" U.S. efforts to support the agency. The United States voted against the measure.

Israel's ambassador to UNESCO, Nimrod Barkan, called the vote a tragedy.

"UNESCO deals in science, not science fiction," he said. "They forced on UNESCO a political subject out of its competence."...

Breaking stories aside, there is also Iran's regularly scheduled exercise in deception and subterfuge. An update on this story. "IAEA seen giving more detail on Iran atom bomb fears," by Fredrik Dahl for the Associated Press, October 11:

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. atomic watchdog is expected to spell out in more detail soon the reasons for its growing concern that Iran may be working covertly to develop a nuclear missile, diplomats say.

The secrecy and lack of cooperation automatically pose the question of what Iran is hiding. It would be exceedingly expensive for them to stonewall the rest of the world just for fun.

Such a move by the International Atomic Energy Agency, possibly in a new quarterly report on Iran due early next month, could raise pressure on Tehran and offer more arguments for Western powers to tighten sanctions on the major oil producer. The United States and its allies have urged IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano to declare plainly whether he believes that there have been military aspects to Tehran's nuclear activities and whether such work may still be going on.

Lather, rinse, repeat until an Iranian nuclear test:

It remains to be seen whether the report's conclusion will be sufficiently clear-cut to prompt the agency's 35-nation board of governors to take action at a November 17-18 meeting, possibly by reporting Iran once again to the U.N. Security Council.

"Many countries have called on Amano to give his best possible assessment of the possible military dimension of Iran's nuclear program," one Western envoy said.

But it is hard to know now what Amano will say and it is "much too early to make a judgement" on whether it could provide the basis for referring the issue to the Security Council in New York, as happened in 2006, the diplomat added.

A divided board decided in June to report Syria, Iran's ally, to the Security Council for stonewalling an IAEA probe into a suspected reactor site that was bombed by Israel in 2007.

Russia and China opposed the U.S.-led diplomatic crackdown on Syria, highlighting big power rifts that the West would want to avoid in any similar IAEA board vote on Iran.

"Russia and China appear to be in no mood for imposing additional pressure on Iran without a pressing reason for concern," said Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the Federation of American Scientists think-tank.

Iran says it is enriching uranium solely for peaceful electricity generation. But its history of concealing sensitive nuclear activity, continued restrictions on access for IAEA inspectors and its refusal to suspend work that also can also yield atomic bombs have drawn four rounds of U.N. sanctions, as well as separate U.S. and European punitive steps.

Western analysts and diplomats say Iran has no logical civilian use for the enriched uranium it is stockpiling because it would take many years for it to launch even one of a series of nuclear power stations it says it is planning.

Iran's only existing nuclear power plant, at Bushehr, was built by Russia and is fuelled by Russian enriched uranium.

Pierre Goldschmidt, a former IAEA deputy director general, said Iran's "nuclear-related activities and uncooperative behaviour make more sense if their objective is to become a nuclear threshold state rather than developing an exclusively peaceful nuclear program."

Pamela Geller was on Hannity last Friday discussing the latest front of the Palestinian jihad against Israel: the United Nations. It is refreshing to see some common sense on the airwaves.

Get the urgently needed book, the only one that offers free citizens practical and proven strategies for resisting the advance of Sharia in the U.S.: Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.

And he spoke honestly about the UN's demonization of Israel. "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Addresses U.N. General Assembly, Says Palestinians Are Not Interested in Peace," from FoxNews, September 23 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

In addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to Palestine’s request for statehood. Netayahu said, “It’s here, year after year that Israel, is unjustly singled out for condemnation. It’s singled out for condemnation more often than all the nations of the world combined.”

Netanyahu said that he didn’t come to the United Nations for applause, but instead came to speak the truth. He continued, saying, “The truth is that Israel wants peace. The truth is that I want peace. The truth is that in the Middle East, at all times, but especially during these turbulent days, peace must be anchored in security.”

He argued that peace can’t be achieved through U.N. resolutions, but only through direct negotiations, which Palestine isn’t interested in.

Netanyahu went onto describe militant Islam as a “malignancy [that] is growing between East and West,” that seeks to destroy.

Indeed.

“Since 9/11, militant Islam has slaughtered countless innocents. The most dangerous threat is that these fanatics arm themselves with nuclear weapons and this is precisely what Iran is trying to do. Can you imagine that man [Ahmadinejad] armed with nuclear weapons?”

"Netanyahu: Palestinians want state without peace," from Ynet News, September 23 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The Palestinians should recognize Israel as the Jewish state and make peace with it, before seeking a state of their own, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly Friday.

“Israel has extended its hand in peace from the moment it was established,” offering Israel’s response to a fiery anti-Israel speech delivered by the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas earlier.

Netanyahu said that he extended his hand to the Arab nations of the Middle East “on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people,” and mostly to the Palestinian people, “with whom we seek a just and lasting peace.”

“I came here to speak the truth. The truth is that Israel wants peace. The truth is that I want peace. The truth is that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians, but they want a state without peace, and the truth is you shouldn’t let that happen,” he said. “The Palestinian should first make peace with Israel and then get their state. After peace is signed, Israel won’t be the last country to accept a Palestinian state – we will be the first.”

'Recognize Jewish state'

Declaring that Israel is a Jewish state, Netanyahu said: “We don’t want the Palestinian to change the Jewish character of the state. We want them to give up the fantasy of flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians. “

The prime minister added that settlements were not the main obstacle to peace, saying: “The core of the conflict is not the settlement, the settlements is a result of the conflict. The core of the conflict is the refusal of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state in any border.”

“Recognize the Jewish state and make peace with us,” he said, referring to Palestinian President Abbas.

Referring to the terrorism threat faced by Israel, the PM said: “Thousand of missiles have already rained down on our cities. So you might understand why Israelis rightfully ask what’s preventing it from happening again.”

“Would any of you bring danger so close to your cities, to your families? Would you act so recklessly with the life of your families?” he said.

“Since 9/11, militant Islam has slaughtered countless innocents. The most dangerous threat is that these fanatics arm themselves with nuclear weapons and this is precisely what Iran is trying to do. Can you imagine that man armed with nuclear weapons?” Netanyahu added, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Abbas delivers anti-Israel speech

Earlier, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas asked the United Nations on Friday to recognize a state for his people, accusing Israel of engaging in ethnic cleansing in his United Nations speech....

That about sums it up. Ahmadinejad's spectacle at the UN has become something of a tradition by now. If the UN sold popcorn at this gathering, this speech would outsell anyone else's. Once again, he does not disappoint where antisemitism and conspiracy paranoia are concerned, with an extra touch of megalomania. "Walkout at U.N. as Ahmadinejad speaks," from CNN, September 22:

United Nations (CNN) -- Delegations from the United States and several European nations walked out of the U.N. General Assembly Thursday during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech, in which he repeatedly condemned the United States and said some countries use the Holocaust as an "excuse to pay ransom... to Zionists."

Delegates from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom were among those who walked out. Delegations from Canada and Israel were not present from the beginning.

In his remarks, Ahmadinejad called the September 11, 2001, attacks "mysterious" and said they were a pretext for a U.S.-led war against Afghanistan and Iraq.

He said the United States killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden instead of assigning a fact-finding team to investigate "hidden elements involved in September 11."

He also placed blame on the United States for numerous global problems including the financial crisis, criticizing it for dominating the world's "policy-making establishments," overspending on the military, and "printing trillions of dollars" that triggered inflation, according to an English translation of his speech provided by Iran's U.N. mission.

Ahmadinejad said the U.S. government views Zionism as "sacred," and that "European countries still use the Holocaust after six decades as the excuse to pay (a) fine or ransom to the Zionists."

After assailing the United States, Ahmadinejad said "the main question is the quest for the root cause of such attitudes. The prime reason should be sought in the beliefs and tendencies of the establishment. An assembly of people in contradiction with the inner human instincts and disposition who also have no faith in God and in the path of the divine prophets, replace their lust for power and materialistic ends with heavenly values. To them, only power and wealth prevail, and every attempt must bring into focus these sinister goals."

On the eve of the address, the Iranian president declared his country to be "a new model for life to the world."

He also said that the United States might be willing to "hijack" the Middle East uprisings, according to the Iranian state-run news agency IRNA, but did not further explain his assertion.

Ahmadinejad's appearance at the United Nations in New York comes a day after two U.S. hikers, held in an Iranian prison for more than two years, were released.

Wednesday evening, Ahmadinejad met with a group of U.S. university students, and then gave an interview to Iranian satellite television.

His office provided translated quotes from both.

The Iranian leader said "that the world is in need of change, and Marxism, liberalism, humanism and the West could not solve man's problems," his office said. Ahmadinejad added that "relying on its culture and rich civilization," Iran is "the only nation" that "can offer a new model for life to the world."

He told the students "that the U.S. may be willing to hijack the regional uprisings but a stormy movement is under way," IRNA reported.

"Elsewhere in his speech, he said that the U.N. was set up with the objective of preventing bullying in the world, but this did not happen," IRNA reported....

Indeed. The OIC has made a booming business of it.

Bravo. A Palestinian state would become just another jihad base for a renewed onslaught against a diminished Israel. There has never been a Palestinian state or even a distinct Palestinian nationality. The whole thing was invented in the 1960s to distract from the reality of tiny Israel surrounded by a large number of hostile Arab Muslim states. A return to reality and honesty about these matters in Washington would be refreshing, albeit wildly unlikely.

"Hatch: Defund UN if it votes for Palestinian state," by Joel Gehrke for the Washington Examiner, September 21 (thanks to Wimpy):

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced the Solidarity with Israel Act today, a bill that would defund the United Nations if that body votes to recognize Palestine as a state.

“This vote undermines Israel’s security, and should the United Nations change Palestine’s current status, this legislation would prevent valuable American resources from funding the United Nations," Hatch said. "Make no mistake, there will be consequences associated with efforts to undermine the security of America’s friends and allies."

And that's exactly what this push toward Palestinian statehood is.

The United States will veto any vote by the UN Security Council that recognizes Palestine as a state, but Hatch's bill would pull funding if the General Assembly voted to classify Palestine as an "observer state," which the United States cannot interdict.

The head shake heard 'round the world occurs around 1:50. As Bill Clinton found out, there can be no breakthrough if one side is coming to the table in bad faith. Clinton himself told Yasser Arafat: "A summit’s purpose is to have discussions that are based on sincere intentions and you, the Palestinians, did not come to this summit with sincere intentions."

That was but one of 31 opportunities for statehood the Palestinian side has discarded, while Nabil Shaath now insists the UN spectacle is the "only alternative to violence."

As we have noted before, the Palestinian Authority does seem to have calculated a win-win situation by forcing the issue at the UN: either they get what they want, or they get an excuse for another intifada, with all of the gratuitous invocations of the "Arab Spring" that are bound to accompany it.

"'The only alternative is violence': Palestinian fury after Obama urges them to drop U.N. independence bid," by Mark Duell for the Daily Mail, September 21:

Barack Obama triggered fury among Palestinians tonight just hours after he pushed them to withdraw their United Nations independence bid.

Nabeel Shaath, a senior adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said after Mr Obama’s speech to the General Assembly in New York that going to the U.N. is the ‘only alternative to violence’.

During the President's speech, a Palestinian representative was caught on television shaking his head when Mr Obama said the Palestinians and Israelis must learn to 'see the world through the other's eyes'.

Hours after Mr Obama's address, a top Palestinian official said Mr Abbas had no plans to agree to a delayed vote on his bid for membership in the U.N. - rejecting mounting pressure from the U.S. and France.

The Palestinians plan to submit their application on Friday when Mr Abbas is to speak to the General Assembly, but he faced a withering lack of support as the world body opened its annual meeting.

Mr Obama said there could be no ‘shortcuts’ in the quest for Middle East peace – but Mr Abbas’s senior aide Saeb Erekat stated: ‘We will not allow any political manoeuvring on this issue’. [...]

The graphic show of displeasure by a Palestinian official at the speech will enrage White House aides who want to promote Mr Obama’s bid to play a central role in finding a Middle East breakthrough....

Yet the Fantasy-Based Policymakers at the UN and in Washington continue to believe that a two-state solution will bring peace. In fact, it will only embolden the Palestinian jihad. "In UN, PA Maps Erase All of Israel," by Gil Ronen for Israel National News, September 21 (thanks to David):

Palestinian Authority representatives in the United Nations are handing out maps of "Palestine" that show it in place of all of Israel, including Tel Aviv, reports David Bedein of the Israel Resource Review.

Bedein, who is currently in the United States, told Arutz Sheva: "They do not want a Palestinian state, but all of Palestine. The maps they hand out in their offices include all of 'Palestine.' They erase Israel completely in their maps."...

This is the kind of leader that the President of the United States should be. "Palestinian UN statehood gambit ‘counter-productive,’ Harper says," by Campbell Clark for the Globe and Mail, September 20 (thanks to Wimpy):

Stephen Harper is telling Palestinians to go back to the negotiating table with Israel if they want a sovereign state, rather than seeking recognition at the United Nations.

The Palestinian Authority’s campaign for a United Nations vote that would recognize their statehood – even if it has no effect on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza – is dominating discussions as world leaders descend on New York for the opening of the UN General Assembly.

Mr. Harper has made it clear that Canada will oppose the Palestinian bid, but he warned forcefully Tuesday that it could damage Mideast peace prospects, and appeared to put the onus on the Palestinian Authority to restart peace talks .

“I think there’s no likelihood of this initiative by the Palestinian Authority doing anything to further the peace process. I think it’s possible that it could be counter-productive,” Mr. Harper told reporters at UN headquarters in New York after a high-level conference on Libya.

“But I would say if the Palestinian Authority is serious about establishing a sovereign state, the method to do that is not a declaration here at the United Nations. It’s to get back to the negotiating table and negotiate peace with Israel.”...

That's if the UN cancels the sanctions against Iran. "Iran ready for 'full' UN oversight if sanctions go," from Reuters, September 5:

TEHRAN - Iran would be ready to grant the UN atomic watchdog "full supervision" of its nuclear activities for five years if UN sanctions were lifted, a senior official was quoted as saying on Monday, an offer the West may greet with skepticism.

One would hope.

Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, did not spell out whether he meant unrestricted access for the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its probe into Tehran's nuclear program.

Since talks between global powers and Iran foundered in January, Russia has advocated a phased plan in which Tehran would address concerns that it may be seeking nuclear weapons, and be rewarded with an easing of sanctions.

But Abbasi-Davani made clear Iran has no intention of suspending its uranium enrichment program, a condition enshrined in a series of United Nations sanctions resolutions passed against Tehran since 2006.

Western nations suspect Iran is trying to use its nuclear program to develop atomic weapons. The Islamic Republic has denied the charge, saying it wants to produce nuclear energy.

The IAEA, which in a report last week said it was "increasingly concerned" about possible nuclear weapons development work in Iran, has long complained of a lack of Iranian cooperation with agency inspectors.

It has called on Tehran to implement the IAEA's so-called Additional Protocol, which would give the UN agency unfettered access to Iranian sites, even those not declared to be nuclear-related, at short notice.

While granting inspectors regular access to its declared nuclear facilities, including the Natanz enrichment site, the Islamic state has so far refused to allow the Vienna-based agency wider inspection powers.

Some analysts believe the West may have to accept some continued enrichment in Iran for any chance of an end to the standoff over Tehran's nuclear aims. In return, Iran would have to accept much more intrusive inspections.

Iran has recently sought to demonstrate increased openness about its nuclear program, allowing a senior IAEA official rare access to a research and development facility last month.

But Western diplomats have dismissed this as a "charm offensive" and an apparent maneuver by Iran to ease world pressure on the country, while forging ahead with an enrichment drive that can have both civilian and military purposes.

"By lifting the UN sanctions ... the International Atomic Energy Agency can have full supervision over Iran's nuclear work for five years," Abbasi-Davani told ISNA....

Nabil Shaath said: "The Palestinians are going to the UN Security Council to ask for recognition for the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders... and there is no turning back or other choice than than this one."

They see a win-win situation. They can either twist the arm of the UN to let them bypass the usual criteria for being a state (and acting like one), and get the UN to make a land grab for them in defining the borders, or they have the excuse they can use for the next intifada, which will proceed with gratuitous invocations of the "Arab Spring," of course.

They will almost certainly not get full statehood. The U.S. is still promising to veto any such measure at the Security Council. Thus, the end result will probably be a yet-undetermined mixture of both scenarios: some degree of upgrade at the UN, and some attempts to finish the job through blackmail via increased violence, or the threat of it.

An update on this story. "'We won't give up UN bid': Palestinians," from Agence France-Presse, September 4:

The Palestinians will not be deterred from seeking United Nations membership, a senior official said here Sunday, after reports Washington was trying to head off their bid.

"The Palestinians are going to the UN Security Council to ask for recognition for the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders... and there is no turning back or other choice than than this one," said leading Palestinian official Nabil Shaath.

"There is no alternative to this decision and no going back on it and if the United States vetoes it, we will continue to knock on the door of the UN Security Council seeking full Palestinian UN membership," he told AFP.

The comments from Shaath, a member of the Fatah party led by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, came after The New York Times reported that Washington was trying to put together a new peace talks proposal that would convince the Palestinians to hold off seeking membership at the United Nations.

Washington has said it will veto any Palestinian bid, but has made it clear it would prefer that the issue does not reach a vote at the Security Council.

The Times, citing US officials and foreign diplomats, said Washington was labouring to find language that would be sufficient to lure the Palestinians away from their bid, bring Israel to the negotiating table and be acceptable to the other members of the peacemaking Quartet -- the EU, UN and Russia.

Europe has struggled to define a unified position on the Palestinian bid, and Shaath said Sunday that EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton would visit Ramallah this week for talks with Abbas on the issue.

Quartet envoy Tony Blair and US special Middle East envoy David Hale were also expected to hold talks in Ramallah this week, Shaath said.

The Palestinians have insisted that they will not scrap their bid for UN membership, even if a new peace proposal is floated, insisting the move does not exclude the possibility of new talks.

Abbas and other senior Palestinian officials have spent recent months meeting with diplomats and officials from around the world, seeking to garner their support for the statehood bid.

Abbas was expected to continue his tour with a trip to Portugal at the end of this week, Shaath said.

The Palestinians are also launching a major public relations and protest campaign, seeking to garner popular support for the UN bid through media messages and peaceful demonstrations.

The director general of the official Voice of Palestine radio Ahmed Aridi told AFP on Sunday that the station would soon begin broadcasting radio spots in six languages to promote the membership bid.

The messages, which will run in English, Arabic, Hebrew, French, Spanish and Russian, state: "You are being offered peace with the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders."

Maybe it's the passive voice, maybe it's the translation, but even that has a menacing ring to it.

The spots are part of the broader "Palestine 194" campaign, which is being officially launched later this week and is expected to include adverts and peaceful protests inside the West Bank and overseas.

More on this story. The IAEA will kick the can down the road for another couple of months, and then issue another report. At some point, there will be an Iranian nuclear test, and they'll issue a really big report. "UN: Credible evidence Iran working on nuke weapons," by George Jahn for the Associated Press, September 2 (thanks to all who sent this in):

VIENNA (AP) — The U.N. nuclear agency said Friday it is "increasingly concerned" about a stream of intelligence suggesting that Iran continues to work secretly on developing a nuclear payload for a missile and other components of a nuclear weapons program.

In its report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said "many member states" are providing evidence for that assessment, describing the information it is receiving as credible, "extensive and comprehensive."

The restricted 9-page report was made available Friday to The Associated Press, shortly after being shared internally with the 35 IAEA member nations and the U.N. Security Council. It also said Tehran has fulfilled a pledged made earlier this year and started installing equipment to enrich uranium at a new location — an underground bunker that is better protected from air attack than its present enrichment facilities.

Enrichment can produce both nuclear fuel and fissile warhead material, and Tehran — which says it wants only to produce fuel with the technology — is under four sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze enrichment, which it says it needs for fuel only.

It also denies secretly experimenting with a nuclear weapons program and has blocked a four-year attempt by the IAEA to follow up on intelligence that it secretly designed blueprints linked to a nuclear payload on a missile, experimented with exploding a nuclear charge, and conducted work on other components of a weapons program. In a 2007 estimate, the U.S. intelligence community said that while Iran had worked on a weapons program such activities appeared to have ceased in 2003. But diplomats say a later intelligence summary avoided such specifics, and recent IAEA reports on the topic have expressed growing unease that such activities may be continuing.

Talk about escalation:

The phrase "increasingly concerned" has not appeared in previous reports discussing Iran's alleged nuclear weapons work and reflects the frustration felt by IAEA chief Yukiya Amano over the lack of progress in his investigations. His report said that choice of language is due to the "possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities" linked to weapons work. In particular, said the report, the agency continues to receive new information about "activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile."

Acquired from "many" member states, the information possessed by the IAEA is "extensive and comprehensive ... (and) broadly consistent and credible," said the report.

Other findings of the report, prepared for a session of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors starting Sept. 12 included:

— Confirmation of reports by diplomats to the AP that Iran has started setting up uranium enriching centrifuges at Fordow, a fortified facility dug into a mountain near the holy city of Qom. Iran intends to use Fordow to triple its 20-percent enrichment of uranium — a concern because that level is easier to turn into weapons grade uranium quickly than its main stockpile of low enriched uranium at 3.5 percent.

— Further accumulation of both low-enriched and higher enriched or 20 percent uranium. The report said Iran had now accumulated more than four tons of low enriched uranium and over 70 kilograms — more than 150 pounds — of higher enriched material. Those two stockpiles give it enough enriched uranium to make up to six nuclear warheads, should it choose to do so.

The report praised Iran for its decision earlier this month to allow IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts to tour a facility where it is developing more efficient centrifuges, saying Iran "provided extensive information" on its development of such machines.

It, however was generally critical of Iran's record of secrecy and lack of cooperation, noting that without increased openness on the part of the Islamic Republic the IAEA is unable to "conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities."

Iran, for its part, congratulated itself on its "transparency."

Your tax dollars at work, in ways you never intended: "The US contributed over half a billion dollars ($560 million) from 2009-2010."

Just what you needed to hear in the ongoing debt crisis. Arab donors, by comparison, threw in $7 million. "Do UNRWA schools encourage terror against Israel?" by Anav Silverman for the Jerusalem Post, August 22:

‘Peace starts here” is the key marketing slogan that UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East) uses in its videos, posters and other fundraising material. One UNRWA video clip depicts smiling Palestinian children against backgrounds that feature “peace” graffiti in Gaza.

The video leaves you with the impression that UNRWA has successfully instilled a message of peace into the young generation that has been under UNRWA’s care since the agency’s inception in 1950.

The reality is far different.

Operating under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNRWA is the only UN organization responsible for one select group of refugees. While the UNHCR is mandated to “promote durable solutions” for refugees worldwide, which include such alternatives as “resettlement in third countries”" UNRWA has followed a fundamentally different policy.

Throughout UNRWA’s 60 years, the agency has done nothing to promote creative resolutions to the Palestinian refugee problem. Instead, it has done everything possible to support the Palestinians’ “right of return” aspirations. The agency has fermented a policy that seeks to maintain the Palestinians’ refugee status. UNRWA is the only UN body that assigns the refugee definition not only to refugees but also to their descendants. Thus, from the original 750,000 Palestinian refugees in 1948, UNRWA has now registered 4.7 million living in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza.

More on the problems of the "right of return" that few of its proponents seem to have thought through can be found here.

While the former Commissioner General of UNRWA, Karen AbuZayed, claims UNRWA has helped create a “self-reliant refugee population,” recent protests in Gaza indicate otherwise. In July 2011, UNRWA dropped the words “relief” and “works” from its website’s logo, sparking an outcry among refugees and Hamas leaders, who accused UNRWA of being part of a conspiracy to end their refugee status and deny them the “right of return” to Israel.

The agency tried unsuccessfully to explain that the changes were being made to redesign and upgrade the website on the 60th anniversary of UNRWA, but the massive protests continued, with UNRWA capitulating to the protesters’ demands.

Indeed, this event goes to show just how much the Palestinian population has been rendered totally dependent both psychologically and socially on a refugee status that was supposed to have been temporary and now defines a way of life.

This way of life is further sustained by the UNRWA education system, one of the largest in the Arab world, which does not used textbooks of its own. Instead, UNRWA schools use Palestinian Authority textbooks, which teach anti-Israel attitudes, and implicitly encourage and praise jihad against Israel while promoting the refugees’ return to 1948 homes. The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACTSE), has analyzed these books and found that peace is not mentioned at all. Israel is presented as a usurper, occupier and aggressor, and Jews and Israelis as cunning and deceitful.

Even more disturbing is that certain members of UNRWA’s teaching staff actually carry out jihadist activities themselves.

Take for example, Awad al-Qiq, a respected science teacher and deputy headmaster at the Rafah Prep Boys School run by UNRWA in Gaza. Al-Qiq, who taught at UNRWA schools for eight years, worked by night as a leader of a rocket engineering squad for Islamic Jihad. In response to al- Qiq’s death in an Israeli airstrike in May 2008, Islamic Jihad praised the science teacher as a martyr who would now find ‘paradise.’ The terrorist organization hung a poster in the entrance to the UNRWA school where he taught, praising al-Qiq’s terrorist activities. His students praised his memory, as a “great educator, who departed as a great warrior.”

Although UNRWA spokesman, Chris Gunness said that there was a “zero-tolerance policy toward politics and militant activities in schools,” one can only wonder how a chief terrorist was able to work in a school system for eight years.

Another noted Hamas extremist, Sayed Seyam, was an UNRWA math and science teacher for 23 years from 1980 until 2003.

Seyam was active in the first Palestinian intifada in 1987, and oversaw rocket and mortar attacks against Israel. Another UNRWA employee, Suheil al-Hindi, an UNRWA teachers’ representative in 2003, applauded suicide bombings in a school in the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza. In 2009, UNRWA’s teachers’ union voted to allow Hamas to control the curriculum both in Gaza and the West Bank. [...]

With UNRWA’s annual budget of one billion dollars per year, the United States, followed by several other western countries, are the leading financial supporters. The US contributed over half a billion dollars ($560 million) from 2009-2010, followed by the European Commission. The UK, Norway, Netherlands and Spain were also among the top 10 donors of 2010. [...]

Much of UNRWA’s budget goes to education.

According to the agency’s website, UNRWA earmarked 52 percent of it regular budget to education in 2009. Only 19 percent was given to health services and 10 percent to relief and social services that year. Arab donors provided only 1.5 percent of UNRWA’s general fund that year ($7 million).

Until UNRWA’s mandate is adjusted to conform to that of UNHCR’s ‘durable solutions,’ Palestinian children under the agency’s care will continue to be educated in a culture that promotes despair and hate in a system that works against their future.

China, an ally of Damascus, says it sees no point in pursuing this issue because the plant is not there anymore -- only because Israel did the world a favor. Otherwise, the UN's interaction with the Syrian nuclear program would be following the Iranian playbook to the letter: alternately paying lip service to cooperation and stonewalling outright, getting a scolding in a U.N. resolution and perhaps some incrementally more restrictive sanctions, and continuing to work on the bomb the entire time.

Even with the plant gone, some of those tactics appear in the report below. There are also at least three other facilities in Syria currently of interest to investigators. It would be dangerous to assume Assad put all his radioactive eggs in one basket at the now-destroyed plant.

An update on this story. "U.N. Nuclear Agency Brings Syria to Security Council," by Patrick Warsnip and Megan Davies for Reuters, July 15:

(Reuters) -- The U.N. nuclear watchdog brought allegations of covert atomic work by Syria before the Security Council on Thursday, but the 15-nation body took no immediate action amid divisions among key powers.

The International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors voted in June to report Syria to the council, rebuking it for stonewalling an agency probe into the Dair Alzour complex, bombed by Israel in 2007.

Western countries said Thursday's closed-door briefing by Neville Whiting, head of the IAEA safeguards department dealing with Syria and Iran, had made clear that Syria had a secret nuclear plant. They said the council should pursue the issue, but suggested it might not discuss it again before September.

Russia and China, allies of Damascus who can veto any council action, queried whether the council should be involved, as the Syrian complex no longer exists.

U.S. intelligence reports have said the complex was a nascent, North Korean-designed reactor intended to produce plutonium for atomic weaponry, before Israeli warplanes reduced it to rubble. Syria has said it was a non-nuclear military facility.

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told reporters Whiting had given a "devastating briefing ... from which you could only draw one conclusion -- that Syria did have at Dair Alzour a clandestine nuclear plant."

Damascus had "tried to conceal the purpose of that plant ... misled the IAEA about what the purpose was and ... failed to cooperate effectively with the IAEA in following up the questions that the IAEA put to them," he said.

Key word: "effectively."

Both Lyall Grant and German Ambassador Peter Wittig noted that the IAEA was due to produce a new report on Syria for its board of governors in September. "And then we take it from there," Wittig said.

But Chinese envoy Wang Min said Beijing was "not very happy" about the council's involvement. "We should not talk about something that does not exist. There are a lot of things that happened in the past -- should we discuss all of them?" he asked.

After the discussion about Syria, there would be plenty to talk about regarding China at the Security Council.

Russian envoy Alexander Pankin, asked what he had learned from Thursday's briefing, said "not much."

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said the meeting "didn't come to any conclusion because the Security Council considers only matters related to threats to peace and security, not to prefabricated, unfounded accusations against a member state of the United Nations."

"The point is that there is no case for the Security Council to consider in its deliberations," he said.

Diplomats have said council members could strive for language urging Syria to cooperate with the IAEA but that Damascus is unlikely to face U.N. sanctions over the issue.

Syria pledged on May 26 to cooperate with the IAEA and provide access to sites and information related to the probe, but Lyall Grant quoted the nuclear watchdog as saying cooperation had not improved since then.

In a statement, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice called on Syria to fulfill its pledge and that Damascus's "positive and prompt cooperation with the IAEA would be the best way to resolve outstanding questions about its nuclear program."

Surely the Taliban jihadists' hearts and minds were deeply touched by this gesture of "courageous restraint." "Soldier killed after Army bosses barred him from opening fire on Taliban insurgents planting roadside bombs," from the Daily Mail, July 9:

A widow revealed how her soldier husband was blown up in Afghanistan days after senior officers had apparently ‘laughed off’ his complaints that insurgents were being allowed to plant explosive devices unchallenged. [...]

Mrs Rayner told Bradford Coroner's Court her husband, who joined the Army at 17, had feared his own death.

She said: ‘He was concerned about the number of explosive devices being planted in the area they were patrolling and had told higher ranks because he feared one of them would be killed.

‘He said they could see people planting these devices but could do nothing about it. [...]

Sergeant Rayner told his wife that officers told him that he and his men could not open fire on insurgents planting bombs or make contact with them.

His complaints were rejected by a Sergeant Major and a Captain, the inquest heard.

‘I think that if more notice had been taken of him, then he might not have died,’ she said.

‘Peter loved his men and would have done anything to stop them being killed.’

Mrs Rayner told the coroner, Professor Paul Marks, the Army had promised that her concerns would be dealt with, but she said: ‘I have been fobbed off.’

The widow said: ‘I thought about it long and hard and I think he deserves his last words to be heard.’ Adding: ‘Now it's my day, people will listen because I'm in court.’

Mrs Rayner rejected the offer by the coroner to adjourn the hearing so that officers involved could be called to give evidence. The coroner recorded a verdict that Sergeant Rayner was unlawfully killed.

Outside Bradford Coroner’s Court Mrs Rayner fired a further broadside at the Ministry of Defence, calling for rules of engagement to be changed to protect soldiers.

‘They are not allowed to return fire unless they are fired upon. But all the lads have expressed concern because the patrol area was filled with IEDs.

‘They can shoot at us and take us out but the lads can’t do that to them.

These terrorists and Taliban can do what they want yet our soldiers try to do their job and get persecuted by the law.

‘If they are going to be soldiers let them be soldiers and do their jobs. The job is hard enough as it is.

‘There will be an internal investigation, but I think the rules of engagement need to be looked into if someone is planting IEDs and threatening lives.’ [...]

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: ‘The whole point of a counter insurgency operation is to protect the civilian population.’ He said soldiers had to go through a series of stages before opening fire and were sometimes asked to exercise ‘courageous restraint’ even when shots had been fired.

There it is:

‘It is all about winning hearts and minds and using the least force possible,’ the spokesman said.

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister (Najib) has sought the support of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for the International Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza, saying that the mission scheduled to set sail at the end of this month "only seeks to deliver humanitarian assistance to alleviate the sufferings of the Palestinians in Gaza.

...Najib also urged Ban to call upon the government of Israel not to use any force against the flotilla.

It would appear Ban Ki-Moon has only read the headlines -- largely skewed to portray Israel firing on harmless "protesters" -- and not any of the specifics of yesterday's incidents. The would-be invaders were bused in from Damascus' suburbs, and one report mentioned below alleges they were paid and promised a bigger payout to their families if they were killed. They charged the border with Molotov cocktails, and set off land mines when they ran into a minefield -- on the Syrian side, according to this report. And when the IDF held fire to allow the wounded to be treated, the mob took advantage of the situation to try to gain more ground, trying to cut the barbed wire border fence.

Israel already showed "maximum restraint" against the other side, which showed none. The attackers get condolences, while Israel is scolded for defending itself. "UN head airs 'deep concern' over Naksa Day border clashes," from the Jerusalem Post, June 6:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday expressed "deep concern" over Naksa Day clashes that took place between IDF soldiers and pro-Palestinian protesters attempting to infiltrate Israel's borders on Sunday, AFP reported. He called on all parties involved in the Israeli-Arab conflict to exercise "maximum restraint."

"The secretary-general regrets the loss of life, and extends his condolences to the families of the victims," said a statement by Ban's spokesman. Syria claimed 23 activists were killed, and 350 were wounded, in the clashes to commemorate the Palestinian “Naksa,” or “setback” of the 1967 Six-Day War on Sunday, although the numbers could not be verified. The IDF rejected the reports of 23 deaths as "exaggerated," Army Radio reported on Monday.

Ban condemned "the use of violence and all actions intended to provoke violence," in the statement. "The events of today and of 15 May on the Golan put the long-held cease-fire in jeopardy," the statement warned, referencing last month's Nakba Day protests, which reportedly left 14 infiltrators on the Lebanese and Syrian borders dead. "The secretary-general calls for maximum restraint on all sides and strict observance of international humanitarian law to ensure protection of civilians."

Earlier on Monday, Israel Radio reported that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman plans to file a complaint with the United Nations against Syria for its use of Palestinian demonstrators to challenge Israel's sovereignty.

A government official stated that it was clear the Syrian government gave the green light for the protesters to move toward the border. [...]

The Reform Syria opposition website said on Sunday that the “Naksa” protesters were poor farmers who were paid $1,000 by the Syrian regime to come to the border. The source also claimed that Syria has promised $10,000 to the families of anyone killed.

More on the protesters' conduct: "IDF: Protesters caused their own deaths," by Hanan Greenberg for YNet News, June 6:

The IDF said Monday morning that many of the Syrian protesters who stormed the border fence and Quneitra crossing in honor of 'Naksa Day' were responsible for their own deaths by igniting mine fields on the border.

Meanwhile the army also announced at around 11:30 am that although the border demonstration had ended by late Sunday night, many were gathering once again in an area nearby. No violence was reported.

The Associated Press reported that Syrian police are preventing pro-Palestinian marchers from approaching the border. The report says police have set up a pair of checkpoints near the border and security forces have been telling people not to cross and sending them away.

Responding to Sunday's violence, IDF sources said the protesters who ignited minefields on 'Naksa Day' did not bring fire extinguishers with them and thus posed a danger to themselves and others by behaving irresponsibly. Others threw firebombs near Quneitra crossing to the same effect, they said.

The sources are also assuming that many protesters were hurt or killed as a result of the Red Cross's inability to reach them, due to protesters' refusal to cease violence in order to allow for medical evacuations.

IDF officials say commanders ordered three ceasefires, each of which were taken advantage of by the protesters in order to gain ground....

Why the apparent change of heart? "Syria's sudden readiness to cooperate seems to be an attempt at derailing U.S.-led attempts to have Damascus referred to the U.N. Security Council." They will do what they have to in order to take the pressure off in the short term, but will otherwise most likely follow the playbook of big-brother Iran's years of shell games and stonewalling, which has been met with little more than the threat of another U.N. resolution, and therefore rewarded.

An update on this story. "AP Exclusive: Syria to end nuclear secrecy," by George Jahn for the Associated Press, May 29 (thanks to JCB):

NEW YORK – In a major turnaround, Syria is pledging full cooperation with U.N. attempts to probe strong evidence that it secretly built a reactor that could have been used to make nuclear arms, according to a confidential document shared with The Associated Press on Sunday.

If Syria fulfills its promise, the move would end three years of stonewalling by Damascus of the International Atomic Energy. Since 2008, the agency has tried in vain to follow up on strong evidence that a target bombed in 2007 by Israeli warplanes was a nearly built nuclear reactor that would have produced plutonium once active.

Syria's sudden readiness to cooperate seems to be an attempt at derailing U.S.-led attempts to have Damascus referred to the U.N. Security Council amid already strong international pressure on the Syrian leadership to end its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

An IAEA report last week said the Vienna-based agency "assesses that the building destroyed ... was a nuclear reactor" — the finding sought by Washington and its allies to push to have Syria reported to the council by a 35-nation IAEA board meeting next month.

That, in turn, apparently triggered Syria's decision to compromise.

In confidential note sent Friday to board members, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano cites top Syrian nuclear agency officials as saying "we are ready to fully cooperate with the agency" on its probe of the suspect site. Amano said the pledge was contained in a letter dated Thursday — two days after his agency delivered its assessment.

But Washington is continuing its push. It has put forward a restricted draft of a resolution to be voted on at the 35-nation IAEA board meeting beginning June 6 that — if passed — would report Syria to the U.N. Security Council for violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The draft, which also was made available to the AP on Sunday, notes "with serious concern" Syria's refusal to allow IAEA inspectors follow-up visits to the bombed site after the one they made in 2008. As a consequence, the board "decides to report ... Syria's noncompliance" with its NPT commitments," says the document.

Syria's maneuvering will complicate Western attempts to bring its nuclear secrecy to the attention of the Security Council. Still, Washington said it remained committed to trying.

"We are aware that the Syrian government has sent a letter to the IAEA regarding the agency's long-standing requests for full Syrian cooperation," says a letter dated Friday from the U.S. mission that was sent to board members with a copy of the draft resolution.

"Such cooperation would indeed be welcome but would not have any bearing on the finding of noncompliance" by Syria of its NPT obligations, says the letter, which urges "board action" on the draft. [...]

Syria has denied hiding a nuclear program. But it has refused to allow IAEA inspectors to revisit the bombed site after an initial mission found traces of uranium and other materials that strengthened suspicion that the site was nuclear.

The Syrian pledge of cooperation will allow it to lobby uncommitted nations to vote against any IAEA resolution on U.N. Security Council involvement. Western nations fear that it is a tactic meant to allow Damascus to draw out the issue even further and destroy any remaining evidence of nuclear activity at the site.

If Syria is reported, the council has options ranging from doing nothing to passing its own resolutions demanding compliance with the IAEA, followed by sanctions to enforce such demands — as has been the scenario for Iran.[...]

But diplomats say that beyond sending a signal to Syria that defying the IAEA carries a price tag, reporting it to the U.N. Security Council also would be a rehearsal for more action against Iran. They said that after more than four years of gridlock in IAEA attempts to investigate Iran's alleged nuclear weapons-related experiments, Amano, the IAEA chief, also is planning to draw up an assessment — perhaps by the end of the year — saying that such experiments were likely conducted.

That, in turn, would open the path for renewed IAEA referral of Iran to the Security Council and lead to potential tightening of existing sanctions or a new set of U.N. penalties, the diplomats said.

Along with Iran, Syria denies allegations that it is — or was — interested in developing nuclear arms. But its refusal to allow IAEA inspectors new access to the bombed desert site has heightened suspicions that it had something to hide, along with its decision to level the structure that was destroyed by Israel and later to build over it.

Drawing on the 2008 visit to Syria by its inspectors, the IAEA determined that the destroyed building's size and structure fit specifications that a reactor would have had. It also found graphite and natural uranium particles that could be linked to nuclear use of the structure....

Priorities. This is what you use the United Nations for: stopping a private entity in a distant country from republishing some drawings in a book. Under any other circumstances, the absurdity would be obvious and rightly laughed off, but, of course, double standards abound. "Tajikistan urges UN to try to stop republication of Muhammad cartoons," from Interfax, May 6 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Dushanbe, May 5, Interfax - Tajikistan has urged the United Nations to take measures to stop a Norwegian firm from republishing a book containing cartoons satirizing the Muslim prophet Muhammad that set off global turmoil in 2005.

A letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon "expresses anxiety over the fact that the Norwegian printing press Cappelen Damm plans to republish the book Tyranny of Silence in May 2011," the Tajik Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "This book contains cartoons that blaspheme the name of the Islamic prophet."

Action must be taken. This urgently needs a response, from UNHCAAYPI, the United Nations High Commission on Asking "And Your Point Is?"

Tajikistan, which currently presides in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, had the text of the letter approved by all the other 56 member states of the OIC.

The 12 cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005 first sparked protests in the Danish Muslim community, and were then condemned at an OIC summit in December 2005 and set off mass anti-Danish demonstrations in Muslim countries resulting in numerous fatalities.

Ale-Habib: Playing the victim card

This is, as I've explained here many, many times, an attempt to impose Sharia restrictions on the freedom of speech upon the West. If Ale-Habib really wants to stamp out "Islamophobia," he needs to stamp out Islamic jihad terrorism, Islamic supremacism, stealth jihad creeping Sharia initiatives, and the like, and "Islamophobia" will disappear. He probably knows this, and yet he retails this victimhood narrative -- which in itself indicates what his real agenda really is: the stifling of all criticism of Islam in the West, including all accurate reporting about how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence. That in turn will pave the way for the unimpeded advance of Sharia in the West.

"Iran Urges UN Action against Spread of Islamophobia in West," from the Fars News Agency, April 29:

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian diplomat lashed out at growing trend of insults to Islam in the West, and called on the United Nations to take proper measures to confront the spread of Islamophobia in the western societies.

Iran's Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Eshaq Ale-Habib called on the UN and its Committee on Information to take practical steps to promote "religious tolerance" and to counter the growing Islamophobic trend in the West, and to stop the desecration of Islam.

Ale-Habib also condemned the recent act of burning Islam's holy book, the Quran, by an extremist US pastor, and said the incident runs counter to the UN's efforts to promote "religious tolerance and mutual respect between religions and cultures."

He further slammed Western media for their bias against developing countries as well as their monopolistic control over global information and communications technology.

"This is unfortunate that, by using their modern and exclusive communications technology, some developed countries are constantly distorting the realities and fabricating events… especially with regard to developing countries," Ale-Habib told the UN's Committee on Information on Thursday.

"Developing countries have been hindered by the unfair… duplicitous and exclusive approach of the [Western] media," he added.

The Iranian diplomat urged the international community to promote "fair" media coverage of world events and called for essential steps to promote equal access to information and communications technology.

"We encourage the UN's information department to play an effective role in establishing a new order of information and global communications based on the free and balanced flow of information," Ale-Habib noted.

It seems doubtful, however, that the OIC-led UN will pay any heed. "Israel: New Gaza flotilla has ties to Hamas, terrorist organizations," from Haaretz, April 21 (thanks to Block Ness):

Israel warned the United Nations Security Council on Thursday not to allow a new flotilla to sail to Gaza, saying that the flotilla organizers had "ties to Hamas and other terrorist organizations."

Another flotilla to Gaza is being planned for May, one year after Israel's deadly raid on the aid flotilla that sailed from Turkey. The new flotilla being planned is larger than the last one, with 15 ships that will transport over 1,000 people in an attempt to break Israel's naval blockade on the Strip.

While speaking to the UN on Thursday, Israel's UN Ambassador Meron Reuben said, "Numerous participants engaged in the planning of this flotilla have made very troubling statements expressing their willingness to become martyrs in this effort," Reuben said.

Flotilla organizers aim at "political provocation and not to advance any humanitarian goal," Reuben said.

He said Israel is determined to enforce the naval blockade of Gaza and "stop additional terrorists from infiltrating the area."...

One of the resolution's sponsors notes that "continued use of the report by the U.N. shows a bias against Israel." It would be an uphill battle to get the U.N. to admit 2 + 2 ≠ 5 when the OIC, which initiated the report, insists it is so. An update on this story. "US Senate wants UN to retract report accusing Israel of war crimes after author backtracks," from the Associated Press, April 15:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate is calling on the U.N. Human Rights Council to revoke a report that accused Israel of war crimes after the study's author retracted his conclusions.

In a unanimous vote late Thursday, the Senate backed a nonbinding resolution sponsored by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, and Republican James Risch. pressing for the council to rescind the report. Richard Goldstone, who wrote the study, has backtracked on his claims.

The Senate resolution also urges Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to deal with the damage to Israel's reputation caused by the report.

Gillibrand said Goldstone's admission of error was not enough to undo the damage and libel against Israel and pressed for the Council to act. Risch said continued use of the report by the U.N. shows a bias against Israel.

The Arab League knows the jihadists would stand to gain on every possible outcome from such a measure, if it succeeded in passing. On the most basic level, they would have a free-fire zone from Gaza into Israel. They would score propaganda points if Israel chose to defy the ban in order to exercise its right to defend itself. They would scream "occupation!" at the top of their lungs if Israel opted for a ground incursion, claiming casus belli for "defensive jihad," which is ultimately a jihad waiting for an excuse.

They could thus potentially draw Israel into a broader conflict not only with Hamas and Hizballah, but neighboring countries, for which the deck is substantially stacked more against the Jewish state as Islamic parties are vying for power across the region. Above all, the Arab League would love to see Israel forced to choose between entering into an armed conflict with United Nations forces enforcing the no-fly zone, or having its hands tied, at the mercy of neighbors intent on destroying it.

"Arab League plans to ask UN to impose no-fly zone over Gaza," from the Jerusalem Post, April 10 (thanks to Tziona):

The Arab League on Sunday announced during a special meeting in Cairo that it plans to press the UN to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza amid an escalation in violence in the area, AFP reported.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said he plans to present the proposal to the UN Security Council, the report said.

The announcement came as Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported on Sunday that UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Roberty Serry successfully brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip including Hamas....

The hudna is never meant to last, but Hamas will take full advantage of the chance to regroup and reload under cover of the legitimacy (such as it is) of a U.N.-brokered ceasefire... if they ever actually stop firing. As the all-too-true Israeli quip puts it: "We cease and they fire."

More on this story. "Gaza ceasefire reportedly brokered by UN official," from the Jerusalem Post, April 10:

UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Roberty Serry successfully brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip including Hamas, Palestinian news agency Ma'an quoted senior Palestinian sources as saying on Sunday.

The deal, reportedly reached Saturday night stipulated that the IDF stop its air and artillery strikes against Palestinian terrorist groups, who also reportedly have agreed to halt their rocket and mortar fire.

Neither Jerusalem nor Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip have announced a ceasefire, but senior officials made statements Sunday hinting to their openness towards such a deal.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said early Sunday that Jerusalem was willing to accept a mutual ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza after several days of projectile fire and IDF strikes, adding that "If necessary, we will act, but," he said, "restraint is also a form of strength."

"If they stop firing on our communities, we will stop firing. If they stop firing in general, it will be quiet, it will be good," Barak told Israel Radio.

On the Gazan the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, Al-Quds, said that it was committed to a ceasefire with Israel, saying it was in the "interests of our people not to give Israel an excuse to launch a major military operation in Gaza."

The announcement came only hours after the group claimed responsibility for firing three mortars and a rocket into Israeli territory Sunday morning.

Abu Ahmed, Islamic Jihad's spokesperson, said that his group would cease violence "so long as Israel fulfills it's responsibility and stops attacks against the Palestinian people in Gaza."

Hamas also softened its language on Sunday.

The group's spokesman in the Gaza Strip, Sami Abu Zuhri, on said that "The Palestinian factions are not interested in escalation." He added, "if the Israeli aggression stopped, it would be natural for calm to be restored."

This, from the group that fired an anti-tank missile into an Israeli school bus on Thursday.

The Associated Press reported that, in a rare move, Hamas's Deputy Foreign Minister Ghazi Hamad told Israel Radio in Hebrew that Hamas was "interested in calm, but want the Israeli military to stop operations."

The current round of violence began on Thursday when Hamas' armed wing, the Izzadin Kassam Brigades, fired an anti-tank missile at an Israel school bus, leaving a 16-year-old in critical condition. Over the weekend, Palestinian terrorist groups in the Strip fired over 120 mortars, Kassam and Grad rockets into Israeli territory. Nearly two-dozen Palestinians, including members of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups have been killed in IDF strikes.

Israel Radio reported that officials in Jerusalem had received a request from Hamas' political wing through intermediaries asking for a cease fire Saturday afternoon....

Proving yet again that violent intimidation works, Ban Ki-moon helps set the stage for coming UN actions against the freedom of speech. "Ban Ki-moon condemns desecration of Quran," from Dawn, April 6:

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned recent act of desecration of the Quran in Florida, stressing that “such actions cannot be condoned by any religion.”

In a meeting with a group of ambassadors representing Member States of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) to the United Nations, Ban said: “The recent burning of a copy of the Quran in the United States and similar actions anywhere else contradict the efforts of the United Nations to promote tolerance, intercultural understanding and mutual respect between cultures and religions.”

The Secretary General termed the despicable act of burning of Islam’s Book as unacceptable and said he supported the UN High Representative of the Alliance of Civilizations, Jorge Sampaio, who noted in a statement on Sunday that the “desecration of the Qoran as of any text should be vehemently repudiated.”

The burning of the Quran sparked widespread protests in Afghanistan in recent days, and resulted in the killing of three UN staff members and four Nepalese guards at the UN compound in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday.

The Secretary-General thanked the ambassadors for their condemnation of and condolences for the attack on UN staff in Afghanistan. He said such an attack cannot be justified under any circumstances.

Ban and the OIC diplomats also discussed issues related to the work of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the Middle East peace process, as well as the evolving situation in the Middle East and North Africa.

The OIC Group of Ambassadors, comprising Tajikistan (OIC Chair), Morocco (OIC Coordinator for Human Rights), Pakistan, Iran and Egypt, Palestine and Permanent Observer of OIC, conveyed OIC’s strong condemnation of this act and requested the Secretary General to assume the leadership role to address the issue.

The OIC ambassadors also expressed their strong condemnation of the unfortunate killing of UN staff at Mazar-i-Sharif Afghanistan and offered their condolences to the bereaved families.

Voicing strong condemnation of the burning of the Quran, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN, Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon, who was amongst the OIC ambassadors, met the Secretary General and expressed his profound concern at the increasing acts of Islamophobia and growing trend of intolerance.

He said the Quran is not merely a book; it was indeed the word of Allah, and it included scriptures from all faiths, including Christianity and Judaism. He expressed OIC’s grave concern that the despicable act had severely hurt the feelings of 1.5 billion Muslims around the world....

In the face of Richard Goldstone's own retraction, Hamas seems to be resorting to a Dan Rather-esque defense: it's false... except it's true, darn it! In calling attention to itself here, of course, Hamas knows it will face no consequences for its ongoing, intentional targeting of civilians.

Rewarding bad behavior ensures it will be repeated. "Hamas: Goldstone report substance remains unchanged," from CNN, April 3:

(CNN) -- While the recent retraction of the most damning criticism against Israel's military offensive in Gaza came as a surprise to Hamas, the militant group says the substance of the controversial "Goldstone Report" hasn't changed.

The report, issued in September 2009 and authored by former South African jurist Richard Goldstone, found both Israel and Hamas likely committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the conflict between December 27, 2008, and January 18, 2009. Israel launched the offensive against Gaza militants in response to ongoing firing of rockets against southern Israeli towns.

However, in a Washington Post op-ed column posted on the newspaper's website Friday, Goldstone said he would have reached different conclusions if the Israeli military had been more forthcoming and if he had known the results of subsequent investigations.

"If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document," wrote Richard Goldstone, a former South African jurist, in a Washington Post op-ed column Friday.

Still, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told CNN on Sunday that Hamas continues to support implementation of the Goldstone report as it was originally published and approved.

"Hamas (is) surprised by the position by Judge Goldstone that he expressed his retreat on parts of the international report and accepting the Israeli narrative even though the Israeli occupation refused the welcoming and corporation and we welcomed and facilitated the work of the team," he said.

Against Israel.

The report was a group effort by a commission, and not just Goldstone, so his sole change of opinion does not take away from from the report's credibility, he said. [...]

Pleading for the document's validity through circumstances, not facts.

In 2009, when the Goldstone Report came out, Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to the United Nations, called it professional and unbiased.

"This report should not be another report to just document and archive," Khraishi said. "My people will not forgive this council if they let these criminals go unpunished."

That was the whole point of the OIC-initiated report, as Melanie Phillips observed: "putting rocket-fuel behind Israel’s delegitimisation as a pariah in the eyes of the world"

But the United States, which along with with the European Union considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization, has contended the report was "deeply flawed."

In February 2010, Alejandro Wolff, U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations, criticized the report and "its unbalanced focus on Israel, the negative inferences it draws about Israel's intentions and actions, its failure to deal adequately with the asymmetrical nature of the Gaza conflict, and its failure to assign appropriate responsibility to Hamas for deliberately targeting civilians and basing itself and its operations in heavily civilian-populated urban areas."

A detailed rebuttal to Goldstone 2.0, the full text of which can be found here. "Richard Goldstone recants. What price the Israel witch-hunt now?" by Melanie Phillips for the Spectator, April 2:

In an extraordinary article in the Washington Post, Richard Goldstone has now admitted that his infamous report was wrong. Having fuelled the blood libel that in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza Israel had targeted civilians and possibly had committed crimes against humanity, he now says that, as a result of the final report of the UN committee of independent experts and other evidence that has emerged since his report was published, he accepts that

civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy

and further states that

if I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

What self-serving rubbish. There was ample evidence at the time from numerous sources that Hamas was telling lies about the number of civilians who were killed by Israeli fire. There was ample evidence that Hamas was deliberately putting civilians in harm’s way. There was ample evidence that Hamas does not operate under the rule of law or uphold human rights. There was ample evidence that Israeli rules of engagement required the IDF to avoid hitting civilians wherever possible. There was ample evidence that Israel always investigates allegations of misconduct made against its soldiers and holds them to acount under the rule of law. Yet Goldstone, having accepted the poisoned chalice from the UN Human Rights Council to subject Israel to a show trial whose verdict preceded the evidence (despite his protestations that he modified this odious remit), chose to believe the propaganda put out by Hamas and its proxies among NGOs with a long track record of malevolent hostility to Israel.

Even now, in this purported mea culpa, Goldstone does not take responsibility for the Big Lie he helped perpetrate with such terrible consequences in putting rocket-fuel behind Israel’s delegitimisation as a pariah in the eyes of the world. Instead, he blames his false conclusions upon Israel’s refusal to co-operate with his inquiry.

So for the second time, he is again blaming Israel for its own victimisation – first at the hands of Hamas, and now at his own hands. [...]

Can you believe this? He appears to have expected genocidal aggressor Hamas to behave in a civilised fashion by investigating its alleged abuses -- while he chose to throw the book at its democratic victim, Israel. And now the most he will acknowledge is that expecting Hamas to do so

Can you believe this? He appears to have expected genocidal aggressor Hamas to behave in a civilised fashion by investigating its alleged abuses -- while he chose to throw the book at its democratic victim, Israel. And now the most he will acknowledge is that expecting Hamas to do so

may have been a mistaken enterprise. [...]

Regardless of its manifest moral and intellectual inadequacies, however, his recantation carries inescapable consequences. All those who have used Goldstone’s report as a basis for their own delegitimisation of Israel now also stand revealed as having endorsed one of the worst officially sanctioned international falsehoods in history. All their attacks on Israel which relied upon Goldstone’s report are now shown to be equally baseless and discredited. Any future such attacks which use this report as an authority will be demonstrably false and malicious. The UN should now declare the Goldstone report null and void. Any less will make it knowingly and demonstrably party to a travesty of justice.

But of course, like all previous blood libels against the Jews, the poison this one has injected into the global bloodstream has no antidote. The damage is done – and no amount of self-serving recantations by Richard Goldstone will undo the terrible harm he has done.

Read it all.

More on this story. Here is the original text of Goldstone's commentary on the OIC-initiated, anti-Israel report bearing his name. "Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes," by Richard Goldstone for the Washington Post, April 1:

We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

The final report by the U.N. committee of independent experts — chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis — that followed up on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report has found that “Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza” while “the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.”

You don't "investigate" your standard operating procedure. You don't investigate wrongdoing for possible "wrongdoing" when it's how you do business.

Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and “possibly crimes against humanity” by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.

The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.

For example, the most serious attack the Goldstone Report focused on was the killing of some 29 members of the al-Simouni family in their home. The shelling of the home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack. While the length of this investigation is frustrating, it appears that an appropriate process is underway, and I am confident that if the officer is found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly. The purpose of these investigations, as I have always said, is to ensure accountability for improper actions, not to second-guess, with the benefit of hindsight, commanders making difficult battlefield decisions.

While I welcome Israel’s investigations into allegations, I share the concerns reflected in the McGowan Davis report that few of Israel’s inquiries have been concluded and believe that the proceedings should have been held in a public forum. Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn’t negate the tragic loss of civilian life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.

Israel’s lack of cooperation with our investigation meant that we were not able to corroborate how many Gazans killed were civilians and how many were combatants. The Israeli military’s numbers have turned out to be similar to those recently furnished by Hamas (although Hamas may have reason to inflate the number of its combatants).

"War is deceit."

As I indicated from the very beginning, I would have welcomed Israel’s cooperation. The purpose of the Goldstone Report was never to prove a foregone conclusion against Israel. I insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, which was skewed against Israel. I have always been clear that Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within. Something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations. I had hoped that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted.

Some have charged that the process we followed did not live up to judicial standards. To be clear: Our mission was in no way a judicial or even quasi-judicial proceeding. We did not investigate criminal conduct on the part of any individual in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank. We made our recommendations based on the record before us, which unfortunately did not include any evidence provided by the Israeli government. Indeed, our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a significant degree; Hamas has done nothing.

Some have suggested that it was absurd to expect Hamas, an organization that has a policy to destroy the state of Israel, to investigate what we said were serious war crimes. It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would do so, especially if Israel conducted its own investigations. At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case. Hundreds more rockets and mortar rounds have been directed at civilian targets in southern Israel. That comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality. The U.N. Human Rights Council should condemn these heinous acts in the strongest terms.

In the end, asking Hamas to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise. So, too, the Human Rights Council should condemn the inexcusable and cold-blooded recent slaughter of a young Israeli couple and three of their small children in their beds.

I continue to believe in the cause of establishing and applying international law to protracted and deadly conflicts. Our report has led to numerous “lessons learned” and policy changes, including the adoption of new Israel Defense Forces procedures for protecting civilians in cases of urban warfare and limiting the use of white phosphorus in civilian areas. The Palestinian Authority established an independent inquiry into our allegations of human rights abuses — assassinations, torture and illegal detentions — perpetrated by Fatah in the West Bank, especially against members of Hamas. Most of those allegations were confirmed by this inquiry. Regrettably, there has been no effort by Hamas in Gaza to investigate the allegations of its war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

Again: you don't "investigate" your standard operating procedure.

Simply put, the laws of armed conflict apply no less to non-state actors such as Hamas than they do to national armies. Ensuring that non-state actors respect these principles, and are investigated when they fail to do so, is one of the most significant challenges facing the law of armed conflict. Only if all parties to armed conflicts are held to these standards will we be able to protect civilians who, through no choice of their own, are caught up in war.

What consequences will Hamas face?

Good news, albeit after so many years of damage already done by the OIC-initiated report. Muhammad said it himself: "War is deceit." "Israel urges UN to nullify Goldstone Report on Gaza war," from BBC News, April 2:

Israel has called on the UN to cancel a report that said it possibly committed war crimes during its 2008-2009 military offensive in Gaza.

The report's author, South African judge Richard Goldstone, said on Friday that new accounts indicated Israel had not deliberately targeted civilians.

He said that if he had known what he knew now, "the Goldstone Report would have been a different document".

Israel's prime minister said the remark meant the report "should be buried".

Operation Cast Lead was launched in response to repeated rocket attacks on Israeli territory by militants in Gaza. Some 1,400 Palestinians were killed, including hundreds of civilians, as well as 13 Israelis.

Hamas criticised

The Goldstone Report, published in September 2009, concluded that both the Israeli military and militants from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls Gaza, had committed potential war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the offensive.

The UN-appointed expert panel led by Mr Goldstone accused Israel of using disproportionate force, deliberately targeting civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, and using people as human shields.

The report also accused Hamas of deliberately targeting civilians and trying to spread terror through by firing rockets at Israeli towns and cities.

Israel refused to co-operate with the investigation, accusing the panel of being biased, and rejected its accusations. It did, however, conduct independent investigations into more than 400 allegations of misconduct.

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post on Friday, Mr Goldstone wrote that his conclusions about Israel appeared to have been wrong.

He said the Israeli investigations, which were recognised by a UN committee, indicated that "civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy".

"We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war," he explained. "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document."

On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement: "Everything we said has been proven to be true.

"Israel does not purposely target civilians and its investigative institutions are competent, while Hamas intentionally fires at innocent civilians and does not investigate anything.

"The fact that Goldstone has backtracked means the report should be buried once and for all."

Mr Goldstone also noted that Hamas had "done nothing" to examine its rocket attacks, which were "purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets".

There was no immediate response from Hamas.

Back in the 80s and 90s I used to joke that there was no real need in the world for papal infallibility, since we had the ACLU. Whatever stand they took on any issue, you could infallibly say the opposite, and you'd be dead right, every time. From their origins as a front group for the Communist Party, USA, to their defense of antiwar extremists in the 60s and violent felons, their “First Amendment” defense of kiddie porn but disdain for pro-life demonstrators, right up to their sick espousal of the “right” of Neo-nazis to march past and mock Holocaust survivors... they had a perfect record: Wrong about everything. Then the Bush administration came along, and in its well-meaning but ham-handed War on Terror it took actions that seemed to many of us to violate real (as opposed to fictitious) civil liberties, and the ACLU was ruined for me: On occasion, if only by accident, it was right.

Still, they do their best. The ACLU has partnered up with the terrorist-friendly CAIR on a regular basis, and it opposes even sane and necessary domestic security measures, border control.... Give those guys credit, they're wrong about almost everything!

Now they have to go and confuse me again. The ACLU has stumbled, surely inadvertently, onto the right side of an issue, as the Mansfield News Journal reports:

MANSFIELD -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio expressed disappointment and concern over a decision by Mansfield City Schools to withdraw permission for a controversial speaking event that had been scheduled Monday at a school building.

The event, organized by the Mansfield North Central Ohio Tea Party Association, included a presentation by Usama Dakdok, characterized by some as "anti-Islam."

"While we might disagree with the message of the speaker, they have a right like any other group to fully air their views without interference by government officials. Public officials -- sheriff and superintendent included -- have a duty to provide a safe venue for all speakers. Shutting down an event because some individual or group does not like the message is dangerous to free society and the democratic process," ACLU of Ohio Executive Director Christine Link said in a written statement Tuesday.

Mansfield City Schools Superintendent Dan Freund announced Monday the school would not host the evening event organized by the tea party group, citing safety concerns about the number of people who would turn out to support or oppose Dakdok.

Freund said the presumed content of the speaking event was not a factor in the decision.

A coalition of advocacy groups opposed to the message of the keynote speaker was scheduled to host a press conference later that morning. The groups, including the Mansfield branch of the NAACP, applauded the school district for not allowing the event to happen.

Bonnie Oleksa, an organizer with the tea party group that invited Dakdok, said she was disappointed with the district's decision.

"We don't deserve this treatment," she said. "We paid to rent (space in) that school, we had a contract for that school and we put out radio spots advertising the event."

Oleksa said the district was pressured to cancel the event. She said the tea party group will be pursuing legal action in response to the school district's decision.

"I don't want this to happen to us again," Oleksa said.

She said she was grateful for the ACLU's words of support.

The tea party group is scheduled to host several future events at Mansfield Senior High School, including a mayoral candidate's forum and a rally commemorating the founding of the tea party movement. The ACLU expressed concerns whether the group would be allowed to hold the events at the school.

"Shutting down the venue for one speech does not eliminate the message. Censorship is counterproductive for all groups, as it lays the groundwork for the government to suppress future messages of the very groups protesting," Link said. "Speech must be protected for all, or ultimately it will be available to no one."

Freund said the school district has not discussed whether it will allow the tea party group to hold future events on school grounds. He said the district's decision to withdraw permission for the Monday event was the right move. Freund consulted with Mansfield police before making the call.

"We think we followed our policy and did what was best to protect our children, who are in and around our building in the evening," he said.

Police Chief Dino Sgambellone said allowing the event to be held on school property presented a potentially dangerous situation.

"It was just unknown if 20 people would attend or 500," he said. "When you have passionate people coming together on both sides of an issue, I would hate to see something tragic happen.

"It's not that people don't have the right to protest, but let's do it at a venue that doesn't present a possible danger for children."

The tea party group was able to arrange an alternate location for the Monday speaking event, an office complex at 1456 Park Avenue West. More than 350 people crowded into the space to hear Dakdok. Tea party members receptive to the lecture bumped elbows with concerned listeners from the local branch of the NAACP and the Islamic Society of Mansfield.

No one was observed protesting outside during Dakdok's 150-minute lecture. The Christian evangelist's interpretations of Islam and the Koran drew mixed reactions from the crowd. The meeting included a few outbursts, but was otherwise orderly.

In the past we've seen the Organization of the Islamic Conference herding U.N. delegates from all their godforsaken countries to demand a global ban on “religious defamation” (which would only apply to anti-Muslim speech—since if it covered Muslims it would ban the hateful, anti-pagan, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian Qur'an). It seems for now they'll have to settle for a resolution by the UN Human Rights Council “combating religious intolerance and negative stereotypes [and] stigmatization” as a first step.

It's grimly amusing to see the lead country opposing intolerance is... Pakistan, where “blasphemy” is punishable by death and government ministers are murdered with impunity for opposing such laws. But the OIC's agenda is out on the table: They want the world body to solemnly impose the equivalent of blasphemy laws... on the world as a whole. This flows as predictably as arithmetic from the fundamental Muslim belief that Islamic sovereignty, like Allah's, is universal.

So CAIR, the creature of the Muslim Brotherhood, is using American leftists to ban “blasphemous” speech in American schools—using the ludicrous canard that criticism of Islam could lead to violence and endanger children. The grotesquerie of this effort, the crass menagerie of distortions and hypocrisy proved too much even for the professional destroyers of social order who staff the ACLU. Maybe it gave them a too acute glimpse into the future.

I know better than to see in this a sign of hope that American liberals are waking up to the threat we (that even they) face. To people like this, every policeman is still a cossack, every Western flag bears the swastika, every pushback against an aggressive minority making outrageous claims is another Dred Scott decision. Some ideologies really are impervious to new information, and cannot be reformed. How ironic that a world-view which claims the honorable old title of “liberalism” (a word once associated with freedom lovers like Frederic Bastiat) should decay into a mirror of the old joke about the Bourbons: “They learn nothing, and they forget nothing.”

No one supports actual religious discrimination, but the OIC is dedicated to quashing all honest discussion of jihad and Islamic supremacism under this rubric. Hence their happy reaction to this resolution. More on this story. "OIC commends resolution on religious discrimination," from Arab News, March 26:

JEDDAH: The UN Human Rights Council unanimously adopted a new resolution on the elimination of forms of discrimination and violence based on religious beliefs.

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), which represents the Islamic group at the council participated in the March 24 discussion. The United States and the European Union too were represented.

Informed sources in the OIC General Secretariat here said that the new resolution related to combating religious intolerance and negative stereotypes, stigmatization, discrimination, and incitement to violence, and violence against individuals based on religion and belief is not a substitute for an earlier resolution adopted by the UN on combating defamation of religions, which the Human Rights Council had adopted many times in the past several years.

The sources stated that the new resolution is a qualitative breakthrough because it was adopted unanimously, adding, it gives the widest margin of freedom of expression, with the rejection of discrimination and incitement and stereotypes used by the other or against the symbols of the followers of religions.

The sources emphasized that the OIC approved the new resolution from a position of strength, particularly after the adoption of the Human Rights Council resolution on defamation of religions over the past four years with a clear majority.

However, the sources stressed that the issue of acceptance of the new resolution comes as a goodwill gesture by the organization in order to reach the necessary consensus, bridge the gap, and partner with the West in addressing the anti-Islam sentiments that prevailed in some Western communities toward Muslims.

There is no discussion in this context of Islamic jihad terrorism and supremacism as having something to do with the alleged "anti-Islam sentiment" in "some Western communities." That connection is precisely what the OIC is trying to obscure.

The new resolution came after the OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu proposed last year, a number of proposals on the possibility of reaching a common ground toward a solid platform for its adoption.

According to informed sources, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had invited the OIC to lead, along with both Washington and the European Union, the efforts to draft a new resolution to ensure the foundations adopted by the previous resolution, giving a wider margin of freedom of expression.

The sources confirmed at the same time that the decision regarding defamation of religions has not been abandoned.

This is the most contentious of the resolutions, because in countries with strong protections on speech and other forms of expression, the idea that a religion can have the same defamation protections as living individuals is considered an affront to individual rights.

But the OIC is dedicated to overcoming that obstacle.

Criminal asks government to stop police. "Report: Hamas calls on UN to halt Israel's strikes on Gaza," from Haaretz, March 25 (thanks to Alexandre):

Hamas called on the United Nations on Friday to put an end to the "crime of the recent attacks on Gaza," referring to the stepped up Israeli air strikes on the Strip which have come in the wake of increased rocket fire, the pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported.

The report, which was carried by Israeli media, also said that Taher al-Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas regime, called on the Arab League to work urgently to stop "recent Israeli aggression."

Israel must be prevented from "exploiting the instability in the region and world to carry out massacres against the Palestinian people," Taher said....

Projection Alert!

It's almost as if the UN has a secret agenda of seeing how far it can go into dhimmitude and idiocy before the U.S. pulls the plug. And no, this won't be the limit, either. "UN set to adopt report that praises Libya's human-rights record," by Steven Edwards for Postmedia News, February 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

UNITED NATIONS — The UN Human Rights Council is set to adopt a major report hailing Libya’s human rights record — despite moving to suspend the Arab country’s council membership amid an international outcry over attacks on civilians.

The report shows countries applauding and commending Libya as they note “with appreciation the country’s commitment to upholding human rights on the ground.”

Even Canada “welcomed improvements” Libya made “in its respect for human rights,” according to the report, which is scheduled for a vote before the Geneva-based 47-member council March 18.

But the Canadian government also made a number of critically framed recommendations to the Gaddafi regime, including one calling for reinforced measures aimed at fully investigating torture claims.

The 23-page report was compiled as part of the council’s “Universal Periodic Review” — a process the UN bills as a rigorous scrutiny of the human rights records of each UN member state every four years.

Highlighting what it called the council’s “hypocrisy,” UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitoring group, on Monday called on the body’s president to withdraw the report.

“It’s now clear that the session on Libya was largely a fraud,” said Hillel Neuer of Montreal, UN Watch executive director....

No kidding, really?

The Obama Administration told Muslim governments last Tuesday that it would support a toned-down version of this resolution, but their contemptuous "You still haven't done enough for us" response staved off an American betrayal of Israel -- this time. "US vetoes anti-settlement resolution," from Earth Times, February 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

New York - The United States on Friday vetoed a resolution that received 14 votes in favour from the UN Security Council's 15 members, effectively killing the demand by Arab and Muslim countries to brand Israeli settlements "illegal."

US Ambassador Susan Rice cast a negative vote, which constituted a veto. The five permanent members with veto power are the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China.

Rice said the veto should not be understood as US support of Israeli settlements.

"We reject in the strongest terms the lack of legitimacy of Israeli settlements," she said after raising her hand to vote against the draft resolution.

A negative vote by one of the permanent members constitutes a veto.

The draft, which was supported by 130 countries including Europeans, had called for the Security Council to declare that "Israeli settlements established in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace."

The draft said that Israel - "the occupying power" - should immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.

It was the first US veto since 2006 and the first under President Barack Obama, which had tried to convince Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to withdraw the draft and accept a compromise in order to avoid the US veto.

Abbas and Palestinian organizations rejected the US offer, and the council took action on the draft knowing that the US veto would kill it anyway....