Anne Bayefsky: As Americans gather at Ground Zero...

For Immediate Release:
May 20, 2011
Contact: Anne Bayefsky
anne@hudsonny.org
(917) 488-1558

The following is scheduled to appear in DC newspapers
THE HILL and ROLL CALL on Monday, May 23, 2011.

As Americans gather at Ground Zero...

to celebrate the victory over the enemies of freedom, the United Nations is gearing up to celebrate the hate-mongering that has spawned much of the global terror the world is now forced to confront.

Tragically, the UN, whose origins were noble in theory, has been and continues to be a failure in practice. Its Human Rights Council includes countries that are the worst offenders such as Saudi Arabia, Cuba and China. Gross human rights violations, terrorism and threats of annihilation around the world are ignored, while the ongoing UN preoccupation with demonizing Israel continues unabated.

The United States Congress needs to consider the following FACTS and then move to reconsider its $6.3 billion blind subsidy of the UN:


The UN is questioning the morality of killing Osama bin Laden.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says the United States owes her an explanation of bin Laden's death. She says she wants to know "the precise facts surrounding his killing" so she can decide whether international law has been respected. She and other Human Rights Council "experts," are worried that the United States violated bin Laden's human rights to arrest and trial, because in their view, terrorists are mere criminals and not combatants in a war they refuse to acknowledge.

The UN's ONLY growth industry: Holding racist "anti-racism" conferences
"Durban III," the next UN racism conference will be held on September 22nd 2011 in New York City. As a world summit for heads of government, it will include Holocaust-denier and nuclear weapons-builder, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, even though he remains focused on committing genocide against the state of Israel. The United States and Israel walked out of the Durban I hatefest held in South Africa in 2001 and refused to sign on to its end product, the Durban Declaration. The Declaration uses false accusations of racism to accomplish Israel's diplomatic isolation and defeat. The United States, Canada and other Western nations refused to attend Durban II held in Geneva 2009, which reaffirmed its earlier declaration and was headlined by Ahmadinejad himself. Ironically, Durban III is intended to "commemorate" and celebrate Durban I, elevating the very hate that motivates radical Islam in New York City just days after the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

UN support for a unilaterally-declared Palestinian state will encourage more terrorism.
The UN is poised to back a Palestinian campaign to jettison negotiations with Israel and unilaterally declare statehood. The "unity" P.L.O.-Hamas government-in-waiting will reject peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews, deny the legitimacy of Jewish self-determination and continue to promote terror. After all, the very Charter of Hamas declares, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it...There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad..." And the Palestinian Authority permits the incitement of hatred and violence against Israeli Jews (from media to schoolbooks, to naming public places in honor of murderers.) In other words, the UN is set to enhance the power and authority of terrorists committed to the annihilation of a democratic neighbor.

The UN Human Rights Council is a mockery.
The United Nations top human rights body has adopted as many resolutions and decisions criticizing Israel than all other 191 UN member states combined. By comparison, countries like Algeria, Bahrain, Belarus, China, Cuba, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Yemen, and Zimbabwe, have never been the subject of a single resolution. The UN Human Rights Council has a standing agenda of ten items. One is reserved specifically for condemning Israel and one for all other countries, should they finally be deemed to warrant "the Council's attention." The Council is not alone in its hypocrisy. At the UN General Assembly's annual fall session in 2010, it adopted 20 resolutions condemning Israel alone, while adopting just a single human rights-related resolution on each of five other countries (including the United States) from among its 191 other members. Not a word, for instance, on the violations of the most basic civil and political rights of more than a billion Chinese.

The UN still cannot even define terrorism.
The United Nations top Counter-Terrorism Committee, the CTC, has never named a single terrorist, terrorist organization or state sponsor of terrorism. On April 15, 2011, 15 years after being tasked with the job, the UN committee assigned to draft a comprehensive treaty to combat the scourge of terrorism ended in failure - again. Why is there no definition? Why is there no comprehensive treaty? Because, as a diplomat for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad claimed recently, speaking at the UN on behalf of the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, there is allegedly a "distinction between terrorism and the struggle for the rights of self-determination by people under foreign occupation and colonial or alien domination."

The UN spends billions of American dollars with minimal accountability.
The UN does not have a single unified budget. As U.S. Senator Tom Coburn points out, due to the UN's lack of accountability and transparency, it is impossible to know how much money flows through the UN. Somewhere between $25-30 billion annually is most likely but no one really knows. What is known, thanks to the probing of Senator Coburn, is what Americans spend on the UN. The last reported summary of U.S. contributions to the UN system for the FY 2009 is $6,347,415,000, which leaves U.S. taxpayers footing about 25% of the total bill.

We can stop this.

We can repudiate the actions of a UN whose resolutions inspire and incite terror, and whose leaders are dictators who kill their own citizens with impunity.

Our Government needs to:

• Declare immediately that they will not attend or support the September 2011 Durban III summit.
• Stand up for America, its principles and democratic allies and take urgent steps to deny international support for a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, and
• Stop funneling billions of unaccountable American tax dollars to a UN that has failed freedom, its promise and humanity.

www.EyeontheUN.org

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