(UN Watch h/t-Import)
GENEVA, October 16, 2009 — The former commander of British forces in Afghanistan just finished addressing the U.N. special session on the Goldstone Report, speaking on behalf of UN Watch, an independent Geneva human rights group. See speech as delivered below. To interview Col. Richard Kemp in Geneva, call number listed above.
UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer issued the following comment on today's extraordinary meeting of the UN Human Rights Council:
- "Today's meeting has nothing to do with human rights, and there's no emergency, other than Palestinian President Abbas' precarious political predicament. The Arab-sponsored draft resolution is entirely one-sided, condemning Israel while saying nothing about Hamas and its rocket attacks. UN Watch calls on all council members to vote against the imbalanced resolution, and to deny Hamas terrorists the political victory they desperately crave, but which the world will only grant at its peril. We urge council members like Pakistan, China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia to end their strategy of focusing on Israel in order to hide the world's real abuses, especially their own. With this being the council's 6th special session on Israel -- versus only 4 for the whole world combined -- it's tragic that once again politics is trumping human rights."
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UK Commander Challenges Goldstone Report
GENEVA, October 16, 2009 -- Today's emergency UN Human Rights Council debate on the Goldstone Report predictably saw a line-up of the world's worst abusers condemn democratic Israel for human rights violations. In a heated lynch mob atmosphere, Kuwait slammed Israel for “intentional killing, intentional destruction of civilian objects, intentional scorched-earth policy,” saying Israel “embodied the Agatha Christie novel, 'Escaped with Murder'.” Pakistan said the “horrors of Israeli occupation continue to haunt the international community’s conscience.” The Arab League said, “We must condemn Israel and force Israel to accept international legitimacy." Ahmadinejad’s Iran said “the atrocities committed against Palestinians during the aggressions on Gaza should be taken seriously” and followed up by the international community “to put an end to absolute impunity and defiance of the law.”
What the world's assembled representatives did not expect, however, was the speech that followed (see video and text below), organized by UN Watch. We invited as our speaker a man who repeatedly put his life on the line to defend the democratic world from the Murderous Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, and the Taleban. The moment he began his first sentence, the room fell silent. Judge Goldstone, author of the distorted report that prompted today's one-sided condemnation of Israel but not Hamas, had refused to hear Col. Kemp's testimony during his "fact-finding" hearings. But UN Watch made sure today that this hero's voice would be heard -- at the U.N., and around the world
