Israel and the United Nations' Human Rights Agenda: The Inequality of Nations Large and Small

The Charter of the United Nations proclaims the equality of nations large and small. Nowhere is this principle violated more than in the case of Israel. And nowhere is the inequity more malevolent than in the U.N. human rights system. Reasonable and equitable treatment of a multiplicity of human rights claims throughout the world ought to be one of the hallmarks of United Nations actions. It is not. Instead, for Israel's foes human rights is the rhetorical weapon of choice. And the stage for their campaign is the United Nations. Neither the medium, nor the strategy has changed since the signing of the Oslo Declaration of Principles or the subsequent agreements on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. To well-meaning human rights advocates around the world the United Nations provides a source of hope, a channel for their energies, a vehicle for their causes. Their very presence invests the U.N. human rights fora with an air of legitimacy and an aura of power. The environment is beguiling both to observers and political participants. But looking beyond the hundreds of resolutions, the thousands of pages of paper in six languages, it is possible to expose the malignant nature of the United Nations human rights system.