eNewsletters |
October 10, 2007
Israel Office
SHATIL
Weekly Message
Two months ago, SHATIL, NIF's training and empowerment center, was awarded consultative status with the United Nation's Economic and Social Council. We celebrated this international recognition for the important work that SHATIL undertakes in Israel. The UN decision also marked a victory for the Israeli government, which has been encouraging Israeli organizations to participate in UN activities and has lobbied the UN to ensure that Israeli organizations are treated equitably.
As a self-defined, liberal internationalist, I welcome this association with the United Nations. I have long appreciated the important work of UN agencies like UNICEF, UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and many others that address the basic development and humanitarian needs of the least privileged segments of the world population. On a personal level, I have consulted with the UN on election-related issues, where their work has been impressive, and have interacted with UN representatives in various countries where I have worked. Yet, I remain profoundly disturbed by the UN's continued perversion of human rights principles in an effort to single out Israel as the most serious, and often the only, human rights violator that merits the attention of the world body.
A couple of years ago, as part of a major reform effort at the United Nations, the much-criticized Commission on Human Rights was abolished and a new Human Rights Council was established in its place. Human rights activists hoped that the result would be more than just a change in name. They expected the new Council to draw the world's attention to human rights abuses wherever they occur and to develop effective responses to the most egregious problems.
The performance of the Human Rights Council to date has been more than disappointing. Israel dominates the agenda of the new Council. A majority of the country-directed resolutions focus on Israel and the situation in the Palestinian Territories. Even the shrillest critics of Israeli human rights policies must appreciate what a scandal this record represents: genocide in Darfur and the bloody denial of liberty in Burma receive limited attention, and the rest of the world is essentially ignored. Compromising this UN body negatively impacts those who wish to use the full panoply of UN human rights processes to redress abuses of human rights, whether in Israel, the Palestinian Territories, the United States or other parts of the world.
This sad state of events leaves those who care about human rights with two options. They can denounce or seek to withdraw funding from the Human Rights Council, while investing resources and energies in more credible efforts to promote human rights. They can critique the Human Rights Council's failings with respect to Israel, while otherwise seeking to work with this UN body as part of ensuring that human rights remain a focal point of international attention. But what should be unacceptable is to ignore the harm that the Human Rights Council's preoccupation with Israel is causing to the international human rights movement.
NIF will continue to support organizations that draw attention to Israel's human rights failings. And through SHATIL, we will participate in UN activities where our presence and expertise are welcomed and appreciated. We are not UN-bashers, but we also cannot ignore the organization's continued failings in the human rights domain.
In this week's NIF News, we report on an important newly proposed government initiative to combat trafficking in women and on an NIF-supported program which brought hundreds of students to Sderot to assist disadvantaged residents. SHATIL highlights its efforts calling for the repeal of Israel's anti-democratic Economic Arrangements Law and profiles Faise ElAtamin, a SHATIL trained Bedouin activist.
We also want to call your attention to a wonderful Jerusalem Report article documenting the efforts of the NIF family to improve Israel's punitive welfare-to-work program: Read the story here.
