Kerry: With global anti-Semitism on the rise, Israel’s voice must be heard everywhere
12/03/2013 06:46
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday welcomed Israel’s inclusion into the United Nation’s Western Eastern and Others Group in Geneva, a move that grants it national rights at the UN’s Human Rights Council.
“At a time when the scourge of global anti-Semitism is on the rise, it is more important than ever for Israel to have a strong voice that can be heard everywhere,” Kerry said.
The secretary, who is due to arrive in Israel on Wednesday, issued his statement hours after the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem received a formal invitation to join WEOG.
Kerry welcomed Israel’s restored ties with the UN Human Rights council.
Kerry’s comments came in a statement welcoming Israel into the Western European and Others Group of nations in Geneva Monday- a move that grants it national rights at the Human Rights Council.
Israel cut ties with the UNHRC in March 2012 to protest what it said was anti-Israel bias by that body, which had censured it more than any other country.
Israel is expected to formally re-establish full ties with the Human Rights Council now that it has received the invitation to the Western European and Others Group in Geneva.
All 193 United Nations member states are divided into regional groupings in New York and Geneva, through which elections are held for various UN organizations and bodies.
Arab nations barred Israel from participating in the Asian group, which it geographically falls into.
Israel was accepted instead into the WEOG group in New York, but those same countries did not allow Israel to join their regional group in Geneva.
Israel made acceptance to WEOG in Geneva one of two conditions for ending its boycott of the UNHRC.
“Israeli membership in the WEOG in Geneva is overdue, and we welcome the decision to invite Israel to join beginning January 1, 2014,” Kerry stated.
“This is a particularly welcome development as we work to end anti-Israel bias in the UN system. We will continue to speak out for our close ally, Israel, and we will continue to support efforts to normalize Israel’s treatment across the UN system as a full and equal member of the community of nations,” he added.
Aharon Leshno Yaar, the Foreign Ministry deputy director general for UN and International Organizations, said that “Israel is now a full member of the regional group in the Human Rights Council and that means we can play a bigger role in the human rights activities in Geneva.”
Israel had agreed in October to participate in the UNHRC’s Universal Period Review of its human rights record, but said it was waiting for an invitation from WEOG before it would formally re-establish ties.
Monday’s invitation allows it to return to the UNHRC. Yaar explained that as WEOG members Israel can “elect and be elected to positions in the UNHRC. It means that Israel will be able to participate in related activities such as meetings with senior UN officials. Invitations to such meetings goes through the [regional] groups,” Yaar said.
“The invitation to WEOG was the end of many months of serious diplomatic effort by the foreign ministry and our missions in friendly countries; especially in European countries, in Canada and the US,” Yaar said.
“The UNHRC without Israel is a flawed institution. Now with Israel fully engaged it will have greater credibility. Israel will also enjoy the recognition of being a full member of the community of nations,” Yaar said.
In agreeing to reengage with the UNHRC, Israel accepted a compromise on its second demand, the elimination of “Agenda Item seven”.
This is a standing item, under which Israeli treatment of the Palestinians is debated at every UNHRC session. No other country, but Israel, is automatically scheduled into the UNHRC agenda.
Yaar said that the EU and other friends of Israel have decided “to limit significantly their involvement in discussions under ‘Agenda Item seven’.”
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WarSclerotic 
December 3, 2013 at 5:08 PM
By Frank Gaffney 2 Dec 2013 post a comment
Yesterday was a red letter day–or perhaps it should be called an Islamic green letter one–for U.S. intelligence. For the first time I can recall, the top legislator on a congressional oversight committee actually made clear what motivates our enemies in what used to be called euphemistically the “War on Terror,” and what Team Obama now dubs even more opaquely as the effort to “counter violent extremism.”
This breakthrough came in the course of a joint appearance on CNN’s State of the Union by the chairpersons of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), respectively. The media seized on the ostensibly big news from their remarks: bipartisan agreement that the United States is at greater risk of terrorist attack today than two years ago.
But important, ominous, and accurate as that assessment is, it was not the most important point made by these two respected lawmakers. Instead, it was Sen. Feinstein’s observation in response to a question about what causes the “hatred” that makes our situation more perilous:
There is a real displaced aggression in this very fundamentalist jihadist Islamic community, and that is that the West is responsible for everything that goes wrong and that the only thing that’s going to solve this is Islamic shariah law.
What makes this incontrovertible statement so noteworthy? It is the fact that the intelligence community is not allowed to say it. Under Obama administration guidelines, for intelligence officers–and for that matter, law enforcement, Homeland Security and military personnel–to talk about Islamic jihadism and shariah as the motivation for terrorism can be a career-ending offense.
For example, on May 10, 2012, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, used a press conference to denounce a highly decorated and up-and-coming Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley, for teaching an elective course at the Joint Forces Staff College using approved curriculum. According to Gen. Dempsey, what prompted this extraordinary action was that a student–who it turns out, had not actually been enrolled in Col. Dooley’s class–“was concerned that the course was objectionable and that it was counter to our values …our appreciation for religious freedom and cultural awareness. And the young man who brought it to my attention was absolutely right. It’s totally objectionable.”
At the core of what was so “totally objectionable” is the fact that students were exposed to information that made plain the gravity of the threat of which Sen. Feinstein warned: the supremacist, totalitarian Islamic doctrine of shariah and the jihad or holy war it obliges adherents to perform. Col. Dooley’s promising career was cut short and the files of his institution and that of the rest of the national security community have been purged of all such information deemed by unidentified “experts” engaged for the purpose to be “counter to our values.”
Sen. Feinstein’s forthright declaration is particularly gratifying as I had an opportunity to discuss the danger posed by shariah with her in the course of testimony I provided the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 24, 2013 at the invitation of her colleague, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). In the course of making the case for keeping the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay open, I observed:
We have been obliged to go to war because it was thrust upon us. And, if we are to prevail in this conflict, we must understand the nature of the enemies with whom we are at war. They are shariah-adherent jihadists who believe, in accordance with that doctrine, that it is God’s will that they destroy our way of life and subjugate us to theirs.
At the time, Sen. Feinstein strongly disagreed with my view that shariah’s dictates make it impossible to safely release its adherents from Gitmo or, alternatively, to incarcerate them in this country instead–where they might exploit rights foolishly conferred upon them to secure their freedom and wage jihad here. I hope that the clarity she expressed Sunday about the inexorable nature of the shariah doctrine and the supremacist hatred it impels will cause the senior senator from California to insist that such insights are once again inculcated in those responsible for our security and to reconsider her support for closing Guantanamo Bay.
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. formerly acted as an Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan. He is President of the Center for Security Policy (www.SecureFreedom.org), a columnist for Breitbart.com and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/12/02/Diane-Feinstein-says-the-unsayable
December 3, 2013 at 5:10 PM
What a coincidence BIBI send some people to the states and see what happens.
But then we have to wait if this is not just a cool aid.