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Feb. 8, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Lofty ideals must be followed with grounded applications

Clifford D. May: Letter from the West Bank
Steve Rothaus: Judge OKs plan for gay man, lesbian couple to be on girl's birth certificate
Gloria Goodale: States consider drone bans: Overreaction or crucial for privacy rights?
Environmental Nutrition Editors: Don't buy the aloe vera juice hype
Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Harvard Experts: Regular exercise pumps up memory, too
Erik Lacitis: Vanity plates: Some take too much license
The Kosher Gourmet by Susie Middleton: Broccoflower, Carrot and Leek Ragout with Thyme, Orange and Tapenade is a delightful and satisfying melange of veggies, herbs and aromatics
Feb. 6, 2013

Nara Schoenberg: The other in-law problem

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. : A see-no-jihadist for the CIA
Kristen Chick: Ahmadinejad visits Cairo: How sect tempers Islamist ties between Egypt, Iran
Roger Simon: Ed Koch's lucky corner
Heron Marquez Estrada: Robot-building sports on a roll
Patrick G. Dean, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: How to restore body's ability to secrete insulin
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: 3 prostate-protecting diet tips
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen 7 principles for to help you make the best soup ever in a slow cooker
Feb. 4, 2013

Jonathan Tobin: Can Jewish Groups Speak Out on Hagel?

David Wren: Findings of government study, released 3 days before Newtown shooting, at odds with gun-control crusaders
Kristen Chick: Tahrir becomes terrifying, tainted
Curtis Tate and Greg Gordon: US keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to hear case on arrests, DNA
Harvard Health Letters: Neck and shoulder pain? Know what it means and what to do
Andrea N. Giancoli, M.P.H., R.D.: Eat your way to preventing age-related muscle loss
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington Baked Pears in Red Wine and Port Wine Glaze: A festive winter dessert
Feb. 1, 2013

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: Redemption

Clifford D. May Home, bloody, home
Christa Case Bryant andNicholas Blanford Why despite Syria's allies warning of retaliation for Israeli airstrikes, the threats are likely hollow
Rick Armon, Ed Meyer and Phil Trexler Ex-police captain cleared by DNA test is freed after nearly 15 years
Harvard Health Letters: Could it by your thyroid?
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: When 'healthy food' isn't
Sue Zeidler: Coke ad racist? Arab-American groups want to yank Super Bowl ad (INCLUDES VIDEO)
The Kosher Gourmet by Nealey Dozier The secret of this soup is the garnish
January 30, 2013

Allan Chernoff: Celebrating 'Back from the Dead Day'

America isn't a religious country? Don't tell Superbowl fans!
Mark Clayton Cybercrime takedown!
Germany remembers Hitler rise to power
Israel salutes U. N. --- with the one finger salute
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Get cookin' with heart-healthy fats
Ballot riles Guinness World Records
The Kosher Gourmet by Elizabeth Passarella Potato, Squash and Goat Cheese Gratin
January 28, 2013

Nancy Youssef: And Democracy for all? Two years on, Egypt remains in state of chaos

Fred Weir: Putin: West is fomenting jihadi 'blowback'
Meredith Cohn: Implantable pain disk may help those with cancer
Michael Craig Miller, M.D. : Ask the Harvard Experts: Are there drugs to help control binge eating?
David Ovalle Use of controversial 'brain mapping' technology stymied
Jane Stancill: Professor's logic class has 180,000 friends
David Clark Scott Lego Racism?
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali The celebrated chef introduces us to PANZEROTTI PUGLIESI, cheese-stuffed pastry from Italy's south


Jewish World Review Sept. 18, 2009 / 29 Elul 5769

U.N. Disgraces Itself Again; Obama Helps

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The United Nations Human Rights Council, a putrid perversion of every high ideal upon which it was founded, has issued a report calling the Israelis war criminals. The HRC has also, in obedience to the wishes of Chavez and Castro, ejected the representative from Honduras. In the very week it has committed these outrages, the Obama administration has announced that the United States, which quit the organization in 2006, will rejoin. Brilliant.


The Human Rights Council is the successor to the thoroughly discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission, which boasted such members as China, Zimbabwe, Russia, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. In 2004, the commission unanimously accepted membership for Sudan, a state actively engaged in genocide in Darfur. (That was when the U.S. walked out.)


Changing one word in its name, the Human Rights Council instantly resumed its former practices: ignoring massive human rights violations around the globe and condemning Israel. Anne Bayefsky of Eye on the UN summarizes:


"The council has passed more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all other 191 U.N. members combined. The council has one (of only ten) formal agenda items dedicated to criticizing Israel. And one agenda item to consider the human rights of the remaining 99.9 percent of the world's population. ... It has terminated human rights investigations on Belarus, Cuba, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And all investigations of 'consistent patterns of gross and reliably attested violations of all human rights and all fundamental freedoms' in such states as Iran, Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have been 'discontinued.'"


The council's "investigation" of war crimes in Gaza, published this week, is everything we have come to expect from an organization that gives Cuba a pass and welcomes Sudan to monitor human rights violations.


In the first place, the mission's mandate was slanted from the start. It was tasked with investigating violations of international law by "the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people." One of the mission's four members, Christine Chinkin, signed a public letter denouncing Israel for "war crimes" before the investigation got under way. For this reason, Mary Robinson, former high commissioner for human rights (and no great friend of Israel) refused to participate. She said the mandate was "not balanced because it focuses on what Israel did, without calling for an investigation on the launch of the rockets by Hamas." She might have added that Israel is not the "occupying" power in Gaza, having withdrawn in 2005.


While the report accuses "both sides" of committing war crimes (and mentions those rockets, in passing), the bulk of the 575 page report addresses supposed Israeli offenses. The mission's capacity to hear impartial testimony was hampered by its willingness to permit Palestinian witnesses to be accompanied by Hamas officials. Call it the Middle Eastern version of Card Check. Nor could they expect to hear a balanced presentation from the representatives of radical non-governmental organizations within Israel who routinely side with the Palestinians. Without offering evidence for its conclusions, the mission denied widespread reporting that Hamas combatants dressed in civilian clothing, hid in hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings, and used ambulances for military transports.


Seated comfortably in Geneva, the mission denounced Israel for failing to take more precautions to protect civilians. It acknowledged neither Israel's extensive use of warning leaflets and phone calls, nor the culpability of Hamas in placing rocket launchers in civilian areas. But above all, the report turned reality on its head by conceiving of Israel, the target of 12,000 rockets fired directly into civilian areas, as the aggressor, and of Hamas, a terrorist gang behaving as terrorists do, as the victims. After enduring the terror of rocket attacks for eight years, Israel defended herself militarily. Now Israel stands morally condemned by the United Nations for doing so. Hamas, whose unrelenting aggression provoked a response, and whose use of human shields should be regarded as a war crime, is given a pass.


The U.N. scored a public relations coup in getting South African jurist Richard Goldstone, who is Jewish, to chair the panel. He must answer to his own conscience, but his participation does point up some of the bald contrasts in the world. While there are any number of Jews and even Israelis who side with the Palestinians, or whose longing for international respectability causes them to lean over backwards in criticizing Israel, there are no Palestinians who openly sympathize with Israel. Where do you find Palestinian moderates? In the graveyards.


Just as the U.N. Human Rights Council is besmirching itself in this way, the Obama administration elects to lend it the prestige of American membership. Shame appears to be in season.

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