Hollow UN Rhetoric on Israel

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

The international community and world body consistently fail to hold Israel accountable for Nuremberg-level high crimes.

Its criticism of the country rings hollow, especially by its pro-Western imperial tool Secretary-General Antonio Guterres - a disgrace to the office he holds.

Since Monday's Gaza massacre, he spoke twice publicly, saying nothing about what happened.

Through his spokesman, he issued a weak-kneed comment, saying he was "profoundly alarmed and concerned by the sharp escalation of violence and the number of Palestinians killed and injured in the Gaza protests," calling for restraint on both sides -perhaps pretending they're equally matched against each other.

He failed to denounce Israel's cold-blooded mass murder and wounding of peaceful Palestinian protesters, a high crime demanding accountability - not forthcoming.

In May 15 remarks to the Security Council UN Special, Coordinator for the Middle East (No-Peace) Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov disgracefully said the following:

"Israel has a responsibility to calibrate its use of force, to not use lethal force...Hamas, which controls Gaza, must not use the protests as cover to attempt to place bombs at the fence and create provocations."

Violence was entirely one way, Israel unleashing it against unarmed, unprotected, defenseless Palestinian protesters - wanting lawless, suffocating blockade ended, their fundamental right.

During a Friday special UN Human Rights Council session on deplorable conditions in Occupied Palestine, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein called for an international investigation into the mass killing and injuring of Gazans by Israeli snipers.

Calling Israeli actions "a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention," he said Gazans are "caged in a toxic slum from birth to death," adding:

"Nobody has been made safer by the horrific events of the past week. End the occupation, and the violence and insecurity will largely disappear."

Numerous earlier investigations achieved nothing. Horrendous Israeli abuses against Palestinians continue daily.

Last March, Guterres disgracefully withdrew a scathingly honest report by Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley on Israel as an apartheid state - a high crime against humanity under international law.

Israel's status is indisputable. Removing the report from UN archives was a despicable act of trying to suppress reality - ordered by Guterres in deference to Israel and Washington, contemptuous of Palestinian rights. 

The authors presented clear evidence proving their accusation "beyond a reasonable doubt." Yet nothing is done to hold Israel accountable for decades of high crimes - supported by Washington, ignored by the world community and UN, except for occasional rhetorical criticism doing nothing to change things.

Hussein, his predecessors, Guterres and other UN officials failed to denounce massacres of Syrian civilians by US-led coalition warplanes.

They said nothing about US aggression in the country for regime change, pretending what's going is a civil conflict.

Last summer, Hussein disgracefully accused Venezuelan security forces of street violence - orchestrated by Washington, not them, part of a diabolical CIA plot to replace Bolivarian social democracy with fascist tyranny.

He falsely claimed "widespread and systematic use of excessive force and arbitrary detentions against demonstrators in Venezuela," along with "patterns of other human rights violations, including violent house raids, torture and ill-treatment of those detained in connection with the protests."

His comments were outrageous, siding with Washington's imperial agenda instead of denouncing it.

His call for "an investigation (into Gaza's massacre) that is international, independent and impartial, in the hope the truth regarding these matters will lead to justice" was a hollow gesture.

Earlier probes into Israeli high crimes achieved nothing - no accountability, no change in its ruthlessness.

What's needed are less investigations, less hollow rhetoric, lots of action - for the first time ever holding Israeli officials accountable for their high crimes - punishing them to the full letter of the law.

A Final Comment

In response to the UN Human Rights Council intending to investigate Israeli high crimes against Gazans, Ziofascist US UN envoy Nikki Haley said the following:

"(T)he UN's so-called Human Rights Council has decided to launch an investigation into a democratic country's legitimate defense of its own border against terrorist attacks. It is another shameful day for human rights."

What's "shameful" is calling rogue state Israel "democratic," its mass murder self-defense, labeling viciously persecuted Gazans "terrorist(s)," and hoping anything by a UN body regarding Israeli savagery against Palestinians will accomplish anything positive.

Not a chance!!

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