Even though we used this space last week to point out the double-speaking duplicity of the United Nations for allowing Iran to ridicule Jews and Judaism and to continue to call for the annihilation of the Jewish state, we are compelled to once again write about that organization. Some of the developments and pronouncements emanating from the UN and its agencies are so egregious, so preposterous, so shocking that they must not be ignored.  

UN Watch, the Geneva-based NGO, reported this week that Syria has announced it will seek a seat on the UN’s 47-member Human Rights Council. The election for the vacant seat will be conducted next year. But the word “election” in relation to membership on the council is as appropriate as it is in relation to elections in Iran. That is, not at all.

As Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, points out, once Syria becomes the nominee of the UN’s 53-nation Asian group, “Syria’s candidacy would be virtually assured,” for the group will only nominate as many candidates as it has vacancies to fill.

Setting aside for the moment even superficial scrutiny into the record of the UN Human Rights Council, the mere idea of Syria being considered as a member of a body whose mission is to protect and defend human rights can cause one to experience vertigo and nausea. It is simply absurd, an affront to conscience and a complete overturning of the plain meaning of words and language. 

President Bashar Assad’s forces and various henchmen are believed to have murdered as many as 14,000 fellow countrymen since February. Countless thousands more have been tortured and brutalized.

Yet, the possibility of Syrian membership on the council seems not to bother too many other countries. The United States and Europe attempted last week to pre-empt the possibility of Syria’s ascension to the council, but their attempt was stymied by such international human rights stalwarts as China, Cuba and Egypt. As UN Watch further reported, Russia and India argued that it was premature to decide the matter before Syria had formally submitted its candidacy, adding that Syria after all, might be a good candidate for the council, since it had been unanimously elected last year to two human rights committees of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

We are no longer surprised by the dark, low crevices of immorality and hypocrisy that the UN and its agencies occupy. Once demonization and delegitimization of Israel became the international body’s recurring obsession, the perversion of the UN was inevitable.

We abhor what the UN and its agencies have become.

We lament what they could have been.