US Jewish and Pro-Israel Groups Hail American Withdrawal From UN Human Rights Council

Algemeiner Staff

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley delivers remarks to the press together with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, announcing the American withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council at the Department of State in Washington, DC, June 19, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Toya Sarno Jordan.

Top American Jewish and pro-Israel groups have hailed Tuesday’s announcement — made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley — that the US was withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council.

An edited sampling of these responses can be read below:

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said it “appreciates the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and for the leadership of US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley on this issue. Unfortunately, the council has profoundly betrayed its mission through its long and obsessive record of unfairly targeting the Middle East’s only genuine democracy, the state of Israel.”

“The UNHRC’s unrelenting, unbalanced and unfounded attacks on Israel have destroyed its credibility,” the AIPAC statement continued. “The council has passed more country-specific resolutions against Israel than the rest of the world’s nations combined. The United States has repeatedly called for reform of the UNHRC; unfortunately, the council has rebuffed any serious reform — severely impeding its ability to effectively act as an objective guardian of human rights.”

“We also appreciate the important efforts pursued by members of Congress on a bipartisan basis over many years to combat the council’s bias against our democratic ally,” AIPAC concluded.

Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, the dean and associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), stated, “We speak out as an active NGO at the United Nations for more than two decades and as an NGO at another UN agency, UNESCO. We applaud Ambassador Haley’s move and urge other democracies should follow the US lead and leave the UNHRC as well.”

“The UNHRC has perverted its stated mandate by serially abusing Israel, while horrific human rights abuses around the world receive scant attention, if at all,” Hier and Cooper went on to say. “It consistently makes a mockery of its own mandate by serving as a rubber-stamping anti-Israel kangaroo court while providing diplomatic safe haven for state sponsors of terrorism and human rights abuse. Like its disgraced and defunct predecessor, the UN Human Rights Commission, the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 represents all that is wrong with global human rights.”

World Jewish Congress (WJC) President Ronald Lauder said, “The WJC deeply appreciates the US’ strong and unyielding support for the State of Israel, and applauds US Ambassador Nikki Haley’s courageous efforts to call out the United Nations over its continuous obsessive focus and bias against the Jewish State. By withdrawing from the inherently flawed UN Human Rights Council, the US has sent a crucial message to the international community that the repeated abuses flung against Israel, often by some of the most notorious human rights violators in the world, will not be tolerated.”

“The value of an international body committed to defending human rights cannot be understated,” Lauder added. “However, the UNHRC is marred by a blatant anti-Israel bias and a persistent blind spot, which undermines its credibility. It has been politicized and misused by those whose only goal is to demonize the State of Israel. Israel is the only country with a permanent agenda item in the UNHRC, and since the establishment of the council in 2006, it has been targeted in nearly 70 of the 135 country-specific resolutions adopted.”

“The WJC will continue to engage within the UNHRC and with the permanent representations to work toward an impartial and effective UN human rights mechanism,” Lauder concluded. “We urge the UNHRC to focus on its mandate of addressing human rights abuses worldwide and drop its disproportionate focus and obsession with Israel. We profoundly hope that the US’ decision to withdraw will lead to soul-searching among the members of the council and bring about true change from within, including the removal of Agenda Item 7 and a calculated understanding that Israel must be treated as any other country.”

B’nai B’rith International President Gary Saltzman and CEO Daniel Mariaschin said, “The United States’ decision to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) presents the international organization with an important opportunity for dramatic and urgently needed reform, as the steady politicization of the body has rendered it largely irrelevant at best and a destructive actor at worst.”

“Israel, the world’s only Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East, is the only country subjected to a separate, permanent agenda item at the UNHRC, which targets it for more condemnation and punishment than any other country on the planet,” they noted. “In a chilling echo of historic boycotts of Jews, the UNHRC has also singled out for a ‘blacklist’ Israeli and other companies doing business — often to the benefit of ordinary Palestinians — in Jewish communities in Palestinian-claimed areas that sit at the very heart of Jews’ ancestral homeland.”

“Perhaps the US withdrawal from the UNHRC will serve as a wake-up call for all UN agencies to begin a process of systemic reform, in order to return the organization to its original mission and principles of equity and fairness,” Saltzman and Mariaschin stated.

Republican Jewish Coalition National Chairman Norm Coleman said, “We applaud the Trump administration, and specifically Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, for withdrawing the United States from the UNHRC. The UNHRC should stand for human rights around the globe. Instead, it has become a club for the worst of the worst human rights violators. Since its inception it has had a permanent agenda item to debate Israel’s ‘human rights abuses.’ The UNHRC has passed 78 resolutions condemning Israel, more than it has passed against all other countries combined. Israel, of course, is the only democracy in the Middle East and the only Middle Eastern country to guarantee freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and many other freedoms that are not protected in much of the world.”

“President [George W.] Bush wisely withdrew the United States from the UNHRC during his tenure. President [Barack] Obama made a foolish mistake by rejoining,” Coleman pointed out. “We praise President Trump for fixing yet another grave mistake by President Obama and for standing up for Israel in the international arena.”

Meanwhile, J Street took a contrarian stance, claiming, “By withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the Trump administration has taken another disturbing step toward abdicating the United States’ longstanding role as a principled leader in the international system, advocating for the rights and freedoms of people across the globe.”

“While the UNHRC has a sad and troubling record of showing strong bias against Israel, US withdrawal will do nothing to address this issue,” the J Street statement said. “On the contrary, it will exacerbate it. The move will simply remove remaining American leverage and influence, further undermining the interests of the US and Israel and empowering those who oppose them. Those who are embracing this decision as a rebuke to critics of Israel are favoring self-destructive spite over serious diplomacy and strategy.”

THE POSTMAN KNOCKS TWICE: IT’S NOT FUNNY

AVRAHAM AVI-HAI

As I look back across Jewish history, Sabbath observance has always been a problem.

The exhibit in its glory at the First Station.. (photo credit: Courtesy)

Two Polish non-Jewish maids meet after not seeing one another since they went into service a couple of years earlier. One works for a Polish Christian family; one for a Jewish family.
The conversation:

– “What’s it like working for Jews?”
– “They’re okay. They treat me nicely. But…”
– “But what?”
– “They have some weird customs. I can’t figure them out.”
– “What do you mean?”
– “One day a week, they eat in the dining room and smoke in the toilet. One day a year they smoke in the dining room and eat in the toilet. And one day a year, they eat in the toilet and smoke in the toilet….”

JOKES ARE often a form of social commentary, a way of looking at reality sideways. This joke was born out of the reality of creeping secularization of the millions of Polish Jews before World War II. In case the reader has missed some of the joke, let’s make it clear: One day a week smoking in the toilet refers to Shabbat. One day a year smoking in the dining room and eating in the toilet is the fast of Tisha Be’av, and of course the epitome of leaving Orthodoxy: both smoking and eating on Yom Kippur.

To belabor the point, the joke pokes fun at those who have left Orthodoxy but are afraid to “come out of the closet,” to go against the consensus. The reason could be fear of causing a family rift or social ostracism or even refusing to do business with them. We see similar phenomena in Israel when a young person leaves the ultra-Orthodox cocoon.

Here in Israel, Shabbat is the official day of rest. This has led to many places of work making Friday a day off, and for those that do operate on Friday, such as supermarkets and restaurants, to shortened Friday hours. I don’t know how it is in Tel Aviv (and would love to be enlightened by residents of that and other large cities) but here in Jerusalem, there is a pre-Shabbat hush as Friday evening approaches, traffic abates, and traditional food aromas trigger salivary glands.

Now a word of clarification to what comes next. In terms of observing Shabbat as a day of re-creation of oneself, or a day of “delight” as the Bible calls it, I include here all those who are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist or who practice Humanistic Judaism. All of these make Shabbat a “separate” day.

“Separate” is quite probably the original meaning of the Hebrew kadosh, usually translated as “holy.” That is to say this spectrum of Jews add to the element of “rest” on the Sabbath, an expansion of their intellectual and spiritual selves and enhancing family ties. That is the theory. The actual practice again may differ not only between one and another of these streams of Jewishness, but between members of the same group.

As I look back across Jewish history, Sabbath observance has always been a problem. As opposed to the conventional view that in past generations, Jews were shining examples of pure Sabbath observance, the truth is just the opposite. The early biblical narrative tells of the Sabbath being violated by a man gathering wood (Numbers 15) and later the prophet Isaiah in effect says, “If you would only observe the Sabbath…” (Isaiah 58).

Shabbat should be shown to be a gift. It is a revolutionary idea: one day a week you belong to yourself and your loved ones. You are not answerable to another human being. Men and women are free and equal that day. Rather than seeing Shabbat as a day of “don’t,” make it a day of joy. People listen to the radio; watch television; go to national parks and to swimming beaches; use WiFi appliances. They make these practices part of the separateness of Shabbat, see Shabbat not as day of no no no, but a day of assertion of of freedom and awareness of the beauty of our tradition.

SOME OF you may think I am trying to sneak “religion” into the consciousness of the non-observant Jew. Not so. As proof, I cite lines from an interview by The Jerusalem Post’s brilliant Judy Siegel-Itzkovich with Lord Rees of Ludlow, one of the great scientists of our age.

“Rees… describes himself as an atheist. ‘I was brought up attending the English church. I value its musical and architectural legacy and would be saddened if this were eroded. Religion is part of our communal heritage. I make a comparison to the Jewish faith. There are a lot of people who identify as Jews but say they are atheists, but nevertheless light candles on Friday. It is a custom. I understand and resonate with that attitude. Likewise, even though I don’t have any religious beliefs, I cherish the culture I grew up in.’”

The key words used by Lord Rees, who is the Astronomer Royal and master of Trinity College at Cambridge University, are “custom, heritage and culture.” There are hundreds of thousand of Israelis, born here or who immigrated in the last few decades, who see Shabbat as a day off, a day to do the laundry or the shopping. In this high-pressure world this is a fact and no amount of coercion will stop it. Nor do I have the right to request that they desist.

Rather, I would like to heighten their recognition of Shabbat as a “special, or separate” day as part of our culture and heritage, rich and a delight. How we do that is not easy. I have come up with some initial ideas and would welcome more.

One of the beauties of an Orthodox Shabbat is the quiet, the break from the mundane. Perhaps we could ask some of the radio stations and television channels not to carry advertising during a couple of hours on Friday night. Also not to carry the news or political discussions at that time. Perhaps then they could broadcast classical traditional music, just as on Sundays church music is broadcast. Certainly quiet music, food for the soul. Perhaps other stations and channels would do the same Saturday morning, say from 9 to 10:30 a.m.

I remember the first time I heard the announcer on Kol Israel say “Shabbat Shalom’ at the approach of the Sabbath. Imagine hearing an announcer saying, “In honor of Shabbat, we now bring you the following program….”

What difference would it make? Instead of asking that question, so negative, think positively. Let’s try it and see. Maybe the culture minister can find a budget for this to help compensate the media.

Now my dear observant friends, don’t snarl at me or at these ideas. I am acting in accordance with the Bible. In the Book of Exodus, we are told, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it separate (holy).” We need to remind ourselves, by whatever means, that Shabbat is a gift our culture and heritage gave us, and eventually to almost the entire world.

The writer believes his form of Sabbath observance has enriched every facet of his life and that of his family in Israel. It was and is a day of relief from the stress and sometimes even the horrors of modern history, a day of rich intellectual seeking, of learning and of love, especially of family.

Kinneret, Israel Amazing drone vie

   Ruslan Paul