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WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS: LIBYAN-LED UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION SPREADS VIRULENT ANTI-ISRAEL RHETORIC Under its Libyan leadership, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has perverted and destroyed the very ideals underlying the mandate of what was once the leading international human rights body, said Dr. Avi Beker, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, noting that the 59th Session of the UNCHR has become a farce under the chairmanship of a representative of one of the world's most repressive regimes and serial abusers of human rights. Citing the concerted attacks on Israel by representatives of autocratic dictators, Beker noted that "the Commission on Human Rights . . . has been undermined by the willingness of its chair to countenance virulent anti-Israel rhetoric." For example, he noted, the Commission silently accepted the call for the elimination of the State of Israel by the Palestinian observer, who said: "The Government of Israel has and is still perpetrating crimes of genocide against Palestinians. . . . the world has not yet eliminated new Zionist Nazism." Furthermore, the Libyan chair, Ambassador Najat Hajjaji, stood silently by as Algeria perverted Holocaust imagery and terminology to condemn Israel, declaring, "The Israeli war machine has been for trying for five decades to arrive at a final solution," and "Kristallnacht has been daily inflicted on the Palestinian people." "This is not surprising, as the chair herself devoted much of her opening speech to condemning the 'humiliat[ion] and kill[ing]' of Palestinians," said Beker. "Despite the Libyan chair's pledge to uphold the spirit of the UN Charter in the proceedings, one should not be surprised that the Chair has failed to do so. Muammar Quaddafi, the ruler of one of the most notorious terrorist regimes and architect of one of the most deadly terror attacks in history, is hardly in a position to lead the battle for human rights. Indeed, Libya's very selection as chair of the Commission cheapens the noble ideals for which so many struggle and die." The World Jewish Congress representative in Geneva, Daniel Lack, has submitted a letter of protest (attached) to Vieira de Mello, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, urging him to condemn the Palestinian observer's "scurrilous and obscene" remarks. "Mr. de Mello, as the chief UN spokesman for human rights, has the opportunity to restore some sense of balance and morality to the United Nations by speaking forcefully against all efforts to cynically distort the language and principles of human rights in the continued Arab campaign to isolate and destroy Israel. The silence of nearly all the members of the Commission in the face of such hostility once again illustrates the moral bankruptcy of the United Nations," added Beker.
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