UN rights council rebukes Israel for human rights violations

[earth_as_one]

Wonder why this isn't newsworthy?

[JURIST] The UN Human Rights Council [official website] in an emergency special session [materials; JURIST report] in Geneva Friday adopted by majority vote a resolution [draft, PDF text] condemning Israel for violating international human rights laws in the ongoing Middle East conflict [JURIST news archive] involving Lebanon. Twenty-seven of the 47 states with Council seats supported a slightly-amended final version of the measure, with 11 voting against, including 7 EU countries, Canada, Japan, Romania and Ukraine. Eight nations abstained, including Switzerland, although it had been critical of Israel [JURIST report] in the past. The resolution also called for the immediate end to the offensive in southern Lebanon, and for a commission to investigate alleged human rights abuses there. A last-minute amendment broadened a call on Israel to respect humanitarian law to include "all interested parties", but that was not enough to prevent the negative votes.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour [official profile] read a statement [text] at the session setting out its legal context:

click here to read text:

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/08/un-rights-council-rebukes-israel-for.php

Hezbollah was also rebuked:

Hezbollah is also guilty of violating human rights standards, citing Hezbollah's use of human shields and missile attacks on densely-populated areas in northern Israel.

You would think this vote would be at least as newsworthy as the UNSC vote which brought about a temporary ceasefire everyone knows won't last.

 

[BitWhys]

RE: UN rights council reb

I dunno about the ceasefire not lasting. Olmert, Nasrallah and Bush have all declared victory. In my experience that's a good thing.

Bush

heh

talk about your basic being starved for affection.

 

[elevennevele]

Re: RE: UN rights council reb

They need to declare victory now because they would only have more to lose if they continued.

How easy would it be to explain having destroyed Lebanon in it’s entirety with Hezbollah still firing rockets into Israel?

If they are willing to make the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah into a virtual rock star throughout the region, it must mean things were not really working with the strategy of blowing things up.

 

[jimmoyer]

RE: UN rights council rebukes Israel for human rights violat

Israel has no other choice.

Hezbollah has 20,000 some rockets and its leader
wishes all the Jews would come to Israel so they
can all be annihlated in a small area in the smallest
amount of time.

 

[Logic 7]

Re: RE: UN rights council reb

I dunno about the ceasefire not lasting. Olmert, Nasrallah and Bush have all declared victory. In my experience that's a good thing.

Bush

heh

talk about your basic being starved for affection.

Well i do remember when this bush said "mission accomplish" in iraq, and we know what it means now.

 

[Logic 7]

Re: RE: UN rights council rebukes Israel for human rights vi

Israel has no other choice.

Hezbollah has 20,000 some rockets and its leader
wishes all the Jews would come to Israel so they
can all be annihlated in a small area in the smallest
amount of time.

It is like saying one day santa claus will kill us all, we know it won't happen,hezbollah and hamas can wish whatever they want, we know it won't happen, but when you look at the facts,what israel does and did to palestine and lebanon, i am really wondering who really wants to get rid of the other one.In the bible there is a "passage" that talks exactly about it.

"don't look at those who pretend to do it, look at those who does it for real"

 

[jimmoyer]

RE: UN rights council rebukes Israel for human rights violat

Yo buddy.

Leave Santa Claus out of this.

 

[earth_as_one]

RE: UN rights council rebukes Israel for human rights violat

Amazing how the news distorts reality. Israel the victim? Sorry I don't buy it and neither does the UNHRC.

Let's look at the facts:

Since 2000 when Israel pulled out of Lebanon, both sides have conducted periodic raids into each other's territory. It had become routine.

Israel also routinely violated Lebanese airspace with hostile military aircraft.

On July 12, during a raid, Hezbollah killed threee Israel soldiers and captured two others. Israel claims these soldiers were captured along the border on the Israeli side.

Haaretz
July 13, 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=737825

Other sources claim they were on the Lebanese side:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/israeli_solders.html

Most reports agree though that Hezbollah started this minor border skirmish.

Israel responds by using its air superiority to bomb Lebanon from one end to the other. Israel's targets were Hezbollah positions, but also Beruit airport, every bridge of significance, roads, residential homes, office and apartment buildings, industry, power plants... eventually killing about 1000 Lebanese civilians, a handful of UN observers, injuring another 3600 or so and displacing about a million people.

BBC
Day-by-day: Lebanon crisis - week one
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5179434.stm

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict

Attacks on United Nations personnel during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack...onnel_during_the_2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict

Seven Canadians — including four children — were killed in an Israeli air raid
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/07/16/lebanon-canadians.html

2006 Qana airstrike
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Qana_airstrike

By the way, that's not the first time Israel did this:

1996 shelling of Qana
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_shelling_of_Qana

Because these aircraft were at altitude, neither Lebanon nor Hezbollah had an effective means to defend itself from these attacks. Hezbollah's only means to retailiate against Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians was to fire missiles back at Israel. Even though Hezbollah's missiles weren't nearly as accurate as Israeli munitions, Hezbollah did manage to kill about 43 Israeli civilians, wound about 2500 more (most lightly) and displace about half a million people.

I'm certainly not praising either side for its ability to kill innocent civilians, although as the numbers show, Israel is much better at it than Hezbollah. My point is that Israel began targeting civilians first. Hezbollah's attacks against Israeli civilians was in response to Israel deliberate attacks on Lebanese civilians. No one can deny this, unless you believe Hezbollah was launching rockets at Israel from Beruit airport.

We aren't talking about accidents or colateral damage here. We are talking about the deliberate killing of innocent people uninvolved in the military conflict. In effect Israel's message to Hezbollah is, mess with us and we'll kill your friends and families. But the media portrays this as Hezbollah using Lebanese civilians as human shields. BS. Most of the civilians Israel killed weren't near Hezbollah positions.

Israel's objective was to kill innocent civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure. Israel's actions were war crimes as defined by international law.

War crimes and Lebanon
August 3, 2006
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1835915,00.html

Human Rights Watch
Some Israeli Attacks Amount to War Crimes
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/08/02/lebano13902.htm

...Human Rights Watch researchers found numerous cases in which the IDF launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military objectives but excessive civilian cost. In many cases, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some instances, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians...

Israel's crimes were intended to cause the Lebanese people to blame Hezbollah and plunge Lebanon into civil war. But that didn't happen. Instead Lebanese public opinion blames the IDF and the Israeli government for the killings, not Hezbollah. If anything, Israeli actions have unified Lebanese against Israel.

Not only did Israel fail to bomb the Lebanese people into submission, their alleged war crimes against innocent civilians are now the subject of a UNHRC investigation. Hopefully the UNHRC will file criminal charges as a result.

Additional information

UN ‘Israeli War Crimes’ Vote Reveals the West is Isolated
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MAS20060813&articleId=2950

 

[tamarin]

RE: UN rights council rebukes Israel for human rights violat

I suggest the UNHRC gives us a thorough update on Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia before it bites off more to chew. Rwanda saw tens of thousands of nationals commit horrific crimes. How many have been convicted?

 

[earth_as_one]

RE: UN rights council rebukes Israel for human rights violat

So what you are saying is the UNHRC should overlook Israeli war crimes because others have committed far worse crimes in the past.

Or do you mean that the UNHRC should ignore Israeli war crimes until they have thoroughly investigated these other war crimes first?

Is that how the police work? Do police overlook a single murder because they are still investigating a series of murders? Should police wait until they have completely finished one murder investigation before starting another one?

Israel is accused of serious war crimes. The UNHRC has a duty to investigate these accusations as well as the others above.

 

[elevennevele]

Re: RE: UN rights council rebukes Israel for human rights vi

I suggest the UNHRC gives us a thorough update on Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia before it bites off more to chew. Rwanda saw tens of thousands of nationals commit horrific crimes. How many have been convicted?

Any failure to hold accountability for crimes against humanity in one part of the globe does not exempt another country from their crimes. It would be the same in reverse. The same as saying the crimes committed in Rwanda are now exempt because Israel and Hezbollah have bombed civilians and the Leadership behind them have not been taken to an international court.

So as for the UN, it’s only as effective as it’s members. It’s failure has been the failure of it’s members. If the USA acts as a veto against accountability for breaches in human rights, then really is it the UN’s fault, or is an inability to act because of the power wielded by it’s collective members?

The UN would be very effective if all it’s members adhered to a common standard and acted on that. However, if the standards of it’s membership are low or inequitable, then you can expect the same out of it’s ability to act. In my mind, the best thing they could do with the UN right now is to move it out of the United States and put it in a country much more neutral.

Asking about another’s crimes in the face of other offenses is simply diversionary. If a murder gets off in court on a technicality, how many other murderers thereafter should we let off? As a way of pointing out travesty, I can see it, but as an argument in itself it is meaningless.