Michael Posner tackled the Goldstone Report in a clever way – by pointing out all the world’s terror spots, all of which are ignored, while the UN chooses to focus on Israel instead.

Read his whole column here: http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:wTMPgAKKBnkJ:cjhsla.org/newsRealease/091005-HumanRights.htm+%22Human+rights+leaders+get+their+priorities+in+order%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=il

In summary, though, here’s a few of the trouble spots the UN chose to ignore:


The atrocities committed in recent years by Russian forces in Chechnya, and later in Georgia, where scores of innocent civilians were murdered.

The genocide in Darfur -- perpetrated by Janjaweed militias, agents of the Sudanese government -- who slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people.

The Chinese army soldiers killing Muslim Uighur protesters in Xinjiang and in Tibet, which was captured on film.

The military junta in Myanmar, who deployed troops to assault thousands of protesting monks and students.

The tribal warfare in Somalia, where the death toll, again, climbed into the hundreds of thousands.

The accounts of child soldiers – kidnapped, trained and coerced into warfare in Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and several other countries – as many as 300,000 of them, fighting in various parts of the world, most of them under the age of 15.

The heartbreaking stories of 1.7 million Pakistan villagers who were forced to flee the violence in Swat province, innocent people caught up in the country’s deadly war against Al Qaeda.

The struggle in Afghanistan between the Taliban and a coalition of Western forces – make that US and British military – who are trying to stabilize the Afghan president’s tenuous hold on power.

The brave bloggers in Iran, who suffered when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s special forces launched a brutal crackdown on anyone who dared to protest his landslide win in the 2009 national elections.

The daily suicide bombings, roadside ordinances and other acts of insurgency taking place in Iraq.

The Human Rights Committee of the United Nations wasn’t interested in any of those atrocities. What did the Committee members concern themselves with, instead?

The flagrant encroachments carried out by Israelis against their peace-loving neighbors, the peace loving Palestinians.

As Posner sarcastically notes, “All other infringements of fundamental human rights pale beside those now being inflicted upon the peace-loving Palestinians.”

“How can we turn a blind eye to the plight of peace-loving Palestinians, forced to undergo hours of humiliating inspection at Israeli army checkpoints, simply because one or two of them might want to visit a pizza parlor in Jerusalem or a discotheque in Tel Aviv with an unfashionable belt tied around their waist?” Posner asks.

“What are the killing fields of Darfur when measured against the injustice of the vast, impersonal separation wall that has been erected along the border between what was once Palestine and the West Bank, and with which peace-loving Palestinians must now sadly contend?”

What else could compare, Posner says, with “the hardships peace-loving Palestinians must endure, watching a few Israeli settlers on the West Bank turn the arid desert into productive farms and communities, while incessantly singing Hebrew songs in praise of God?”

“Can there be any doubt that if only Israel would dismantle the settlements, tear down the apartheid wall, remove the checkpoints, return to its original borders, and allow peace-loving Palestinians everywhere to reclaim their ancestral homes that this festering conflict would finally be resolved?”

“Isn’t that, fundamentally the heart of the matter – the settlers, the Israelis, the Jews, if you will? Isn’t that, in fact, the core of all our problems?

“I think we all know the answer to that.”


It’s a brilliant piece. The whole situation boggles the mind.