THE WEDNESDAY WATCH

ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY FROM UN WATCH IN GENEVA

Wednesday, 15 October 2003
Issue 111

NEWS:

The UN's Division for Palestinian Rights, a branch of its Department of
Political Affairs, recently released an announcement for its annual
"International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" to be held on
November 29. The date marks the anniversary of the General Assembly's 1947
Partition Plan that was accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs.

ANALYSIS:

Every year since 1977, the Division for Palestinian Rights has organized a
meeting on November 29 in New York, Geneva and other UN locations, to give a
platform to speakers from the PLO, the League of Arab States, the
Organization of the Islamic Conference, the UN Committee on the Exercise of
the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the UN Special Committee
to Investigate Israeli Practices in the Occupied Territories, and others.
They accuse Israel of the most heinous of crimes: genocide, apartheid,
ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and terrorism. This Day of Solidarity with
the Palestinians promotes hate, not peace. It all happens under UN auspices
and is paid for by the UN. Only the Palestinians have a UN Day of
Solidarity. Only Israel suffers such discrimination at the UN.

Most of this discrimination takes the form of one-sided resolutions that are
initiated by Arab countries and passed with the support of other members of
the Non-Aligned Movement. Perhaps more egregious, though less well known,
are examples of bias by the UN Secretariat, whose employees are required by
the UN Charter to have "the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and
integrity." The requirement however for the Division for Palestinian Rights
appears to be the ability to describe the last ten years of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict without mentioning suicide bombings.

Announcing this year's event, the Division for Palestinian Rights provided a
succinct history from the signing of the Oslo Accords. The period from
September 1993 to the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum of September 1999 is
characterized as "a long stalemate" that "brought the implementation of
agreements to a halt." Only from the see-no-evil perspective of the UN
could one conclude that the Camp David summit, "despite its inconclusive
ending, reaffirmed the parties' commitment to reaching an agreement on all
permanent status issues." What happened next according to the UN history?
"[T]he visit by the then Israeli opposition leader to the holy site of
Al-Haram al-Sharif in East Jerusalem provoked a major outbreak of violence,"
which has "persisted, preventing the two sides from breaking out of the
deadlock." Israel is subsequently condemned for "military offensives," the
"separation wall," settlements, the isolation of Arafat, and the threat to
remove him. Suicide bombings did not find their way into this list of
explanations for the "tense and highly volatile" situation. Hamas and
Islamic Jihad are only mentioned indirectly, and then to credit them for the
"relative calm brought about by a ceasefire declaration by Palestinian
organizations."

The UN will only have a useful role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
after it rids itself of biased officials and special committees that promote
only Palestinian rights and condemn Israeli actions, never contemplating the
reverse.

Also Watched This Week:

* Giving credit where credit is due: Last week the UN High Representative
for the Least Developed Countries reported to the General Assembly that "the
number of people with access to micro-credit schemes has risen from 7.6
million in 1997 to 26.8 million in 2001 - 21 million of them are women,
enabling them to control assets, make economic decisions and assume control
of their lives." According to the official, "Micro-credit is foreign aid
that works."

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