United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour issued a statement on Sunday in honour of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, which read in part: “This day provides the international community with a sober moment of reflection and remembrance. We must honour the memory of those who fell victims to the most horrendous manifestations of discrimination, hatred and intolerance. In doing so, we reaffirm their dignity as human beings, and our collective failure to extend to them the protection to which they were entitled.

“As we continue to be confronted with expressions and manifestations of anti-Semitism, this day is a call on the world’s conscience and a reminder of the acute necessity to confront intolerance, bigotry, prejudice, ignorance and hatred, early and unequivocally. We can truly honour the victims of the Holocaust by pursuing all efforts to extend the real protection of international human rights law to all those who fall victim to its violations.”

Alas, it saddens us enormously to observe that the high commissioner’s words sound hollow. They seem to be nothing more than an empty, pro-forma concession to the protocolary demands of her office, devoid of gravitas or sincerity.

This conclusion, unfortunately, is inescapable, for Arbour’s actions belie her words. The manifestations of anti-Semitism to which she demonstratively points her conscience are unceasingly aimed at Israel, the “Jew” among the nations and, as all anti-Semites obsess, the state of “the Jews.”

Last week, for the third time in its brief two-year history, the UN Human Rights Council, whose mission she shares and whose work she supports in a broad sense, rebuked Israel for alleged human rights violations in Gaza. Syria, the internationally well-known, even staunch, defender of the human and governmental rights of the Assad family and their Alawite kinsmen, introduced an anti-Israel resolution that passed by a vote of 30 in favour and one opposed, with 15 abstentions and one delegation absent. Arbour lent credence to the false notion that Israel was to blame for the plight of the Gazans. Speaking to the 47-member council in Geneva and referring to the “level of desperation” of the Palestinians in Gaza, she said Israel must lift restrictions on delivery of humanitarian aid. Only Canada opposed the Syrian proposal.

Adding further moral emphasis to its vote at the Human Rights Council, Canada also announced last week that it would not take part in “Durban II,” the UN’s world conference against racism, slated for 2009, that’s being organized by such poster countries for human rights protection as Libya, Iran and Cuba. Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier and Secretary for State and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney rightly noted that the conference had already “degenerated” into a travesty.

The government deserves high praise. Its actions against anti-Semitism – confronting “intolerance, bigotry, prejudice, ignorance and hatred”  – paint a stark portrait in contrast to those of the high commissioner.