A planned session of the UN Human Rights Council is likely to be boycotted by Israel as a protest against the group's perceived stance on the Jewish state.
Despite the United States urging Israel to attend the session in Geneva on Tuesday, Israel is expected to refuse. It is not a member of the UNHRC and last March broke with the organisation after it arranged to probe the impact of the West Bank settlements on the Palestinians. The mission was described at the time by Israel as "another blatant expression of the singling out of Israel in the UNHRC and of the uncandid approach that characterises the Council's dealing with Israel".
The suggestion that the UNHRC is disproportionately critical of Israel is one that is broadly shared by the Americans, who said this week that there was "a structural bias" against the country in the ranks of the UN body.
But next week's meeting is due to cover a Universal Periodic Review of the human rights situation in Israel, a mechanism that has been in place for all countries since 2007 and one that the US believes is crucial.
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, the US representative to the UNHRC, said : "It is a tool that treats all countries equally and is universally applicable.
"We have encouraged the Israelis to come to the council and to tell their story and to present their own narrative of their own human rights situation."
It is unclear what the ramifications will be if the Israelis do boycott the UPR, but it is likely that the review will go ahead even without representatives of the country present.
In other words, the Zion-loathers are perfectly content to try Israel in absentia. In fact, they'd probably prefer it.
As for the dim Ms. Donahoe's assertion re the body's equality and universality: Is she freaking insane?
More than 3,000 Palestinian teenagers on Thursday graduated from the ruling Hamas militant group's first high school military training program in the Gaza Strip, displaying mock weapons, crawling commando-style on the ground and taking up fighting positions for thousands of cheering supporters.
Hamas officials said the Futuwwa, or "Youth," program is aimed at fostering a new generation of leaders in the struggle against Israel.
"We teach the youth to honour the national flag and anthem, to strengthen their affinity with the homeland and Jerusalem, the spirit of resistance and the principles of steadfastness," said Abu Hozifa, a 29-year-old national security officer who teaches in the program. "We also prepare them in terms of faith and physical fitness to serve as resistance fighters if they want to be in the future."
The program is a weekly elective that is offered in all Gaza high schools. Officials said 3,600 participated in the first session, which began in September.
During the one-hour session each week, students were taught to climb down buildings on ropes, jump through obstacle courses and crawl under barbed wire. The oldest students are trained to use light weapons, while younger ones train with wooden rifles. Each participant is assigned to a security officer who oversees their training.
The first graduates, called the "Liberation Vanguards," were dressed in black T-shirts and hats, and some painted their faces black.
"My officer taught me the values of courage, sacrifice and love of jihad, as well as some battle tactics," said Radwan Wasfi, 15, whose black-painted face dripped with sweat after going through a drill. "I feel that I can free my energy in a good way. I can do for real what I do in video games."
Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, who attended the ceremony held at a soccer stadium, said he had ordered his education minister to establish a full-time military college to open next September.
"This is the generation that will bring victory to its people and will liberate their land," he told the audience...
LONDON – British police say they've arrested five people linked to a video of self-proclaimed Muslim vigilantes threatening revelers on the streets of east London.
One of the videos shows a group shouting anti-gay slurs at a man in dark eye makeup. Other videos show a group accosting a drink-toting man, shooing a non-Muslim couple away from a mosque and harassing a young woman in a miniskirt.
At one point, the videographer identifies the group as "vigilantes implementing Islam" but its exact makeup remains unclear...
The group's "exact makeup"? Exactly five jihadis, no?
Anyone else find it, what?--funny? strange? weirdly inappropriate?--that this year's Stratford Festival (the Ontario one) has programmed The Merchant of Venice, that most antisemitic of plays, along with Fiddler on the Roof, that most Jewiest/schmaltziest of Broadway musicals? Is the latter intended to neutralize the former?
FYI, I'm thinking of writing a musical version of Merchant that will have a fiddle-playing Shylock and Bock/Harnick-esque songs. Title: The Taming of the Jew, of course.
Last week, Iran confirmed the fatwa against nuclear weapons issued by the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
On January 15, Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the announcement, suggesting that the edict should end the debate over whether Tehran was pursuing nuclear arms.
Although it is a religious decree, it was issued by Khamenei, who enjoys the country's highest jurisprudent authority. He also has the final say in all Iran's affairs. Therefore, the decree is binding for Iran's government and people.
Khamenei has expressed his opposition to the development of nuclear weapons several times. Iran's government and officials have also reached a consensus and common viewpoint. Iran plans to make use of nuclear energy peacefully instead of developing nuclear weapons...
Further to the fatuous fatwa, here's my big bang theory:
Our whole planet Earth it faced a hot, intense threat But then a crafty Ayatollah snarled That that claim was all wet. The Shiite spinners spun, The wily Russians joined the fun, Neanderthals who hated Jews Developed bombs; thought they'd bamboozled us! Lies, deceit, hysteria, The Shias wanna bury ya, It's all startin' with their big bang!...
Not only should they not have given this conspiracy-mongering, sharia-adoring blackguard the time of day, but they should have retorted: "Oh yeah? If the Jews control the media, then why do they get such bad press?"
What's the difference, at this point, what sparked Benghazi? The difference, 'splains Krauthammer, is self-evident. It's the difference "between truth and falsehood."'
How do you suppose the young Hillary, an attorney connected to the Watergate probe, might have reacted had, say, H.R. Haldeman told the Watergate Committee re a two-bit break-in, "What's the difference, at this point, who was behind it?"
What goes around comes around, as they say. Alas, the consequences are likely to be a lot different depending on whether you're a Nixon or an Obama.
"What difference, at this point, does it make?" queried a querulous Mrs. Clinton when asked whether a crappy YouTube trailer of a non-existent film or something else--like, say, the jihad--was behind the Benghazi debacle. To which VDH responds:
Two thoughts arise, aside from her own health issues (no doubt brought on by an admirable but grueling regimen of travel in often inhospitable places) that make such testimony understandably taxing and need to be taken into consideration. But that said, comparing big tragedies to smaller ones: Did it matter, for example, whether Hezbollah pre-planned the Marine barracks bombing or the Khobar Towers attacks, or the American deaths were just the results of angry youths who spontaneously coalesced to commit violence? Do such circumstances matter to the families of the deceased, to national-security officials responsible to prevent further occurrences, to a public that demands honesty and transparency from its officials?
Secretary Clinton did not mean to show indifference, but her rhetorical question was one of the low points in her long career, one that might pass without too much fanfare at the moment but will reverberate a lot in the future...
With all due respect, I beg to differ with VDH. I think her query was every bit as callous and indifferent to suffering as that long-ago reaction of a French queen to a statement re her citizenry having no bread to eat.
Update:"What difference does it make?" Plenty. Especially to the poor sap who got hauled into jail, police state style, because Obama and his minions blamed Benghazi on an "offensive" bio of Islam's founder..
