Source: Global ResearchMaidhc Ó Cathail
The Pro-Israel NGO behind War on Libya is targeting Syria
Who Will Watch the Watchdog?
On December 2, the Geneva-based UN Watch welcomed that day’s “strong condemnation” of Syria by a UN Human Rights Council emergency session, and its establishment of a special rapporteur to monitor the situation therefollowing what it called“a global campaign to create the post by a coalition of prominent democracy dissidents and human rights groups” led by UN Watch itself. The non-governmental organization, whose self-appointed mandate
is “to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick
of its own Charter,” expressed regret, however, that the UNHRC
resolution “paid
special deference” to Syria’s “territorial integrity” and “political
independence,” decrying the provision as “a clear jab at NATO’s
intervention in Libya, and a pre-emptive strike against the principle of
the international community’s responsibility to protect civilians under
assault.”
On the same day, UN Watch delivered a speech to the Human Rights Council
plenary session in which it denounced the UN Security Council’s
“shocking silence on Syria’s atrocities,” calling on it to take “urgent
action to protect the civilian population before thousands more are
beaten, tortured and killed.”It also urged UNESCO to reverse its recent decision to elect Syria to two human rights committees. Submitting that day’s UNHRC resolution to UNESCO’s Executive Board, the NGO demanded
that they “expel the Assad government from those panels
immediately.”The statement went on to berate the UNHRC for its “longtime
policy, and that of the old Commission, of turning a blind eye to
Syria’s gross and systematic violations.” Also “wrong and harmful,” in
UN Watch’s view, was the UN body’s “policy of supporting Syria’s cynical
and transparent ploy each year to condemn Israel for alleged violations
of human rights, which should not be repeated this March.”
For those familiar with the NGO’s unmistakable governmental ties,
it will come as no surprise that UN Watch could downplay Israel’s
extensively documented human rights abuses as “alleged” while at the
same time confidently asserting that “the facts are clear” regarding
Syria’s “gross and systematic violations of human rights.”As Ian
Williams, a former president of theUnited Nations Correspondents Association, wrote in a 2007 Guardian opinion piece,
“UN Watch is an organization whose main purpose is to attack the United
Nations in general, and its human rights council in particular, for
alleged bias against Israel.”
