This article, by Anne Bayefsky, originally appeared in The New York Daily News.
The UN has just rolled out a new overhauled website. Presumably, the idea was to make it clearer what the UN does and to make it easier to access the goings-on. Insofar as UN demonization of Israel and UN-driven antisemitism are central pillars of its activities, the new site does an admirable job. In only five easy steps, the user is presented with ten categories for all meeting summaries and press releases of the entire General Assembly since they went online in 1995. One such category is "Palestinian Rights." All the other choices list nothing but generalities.
The UN site is accessed by educational institutions, advocates, parliamentarians, non-governmental organizations and individuals around the world in six languages. Sooner or later, almost every schoolchild in America is bound to log on to www.un.org. The American taxpayer pays 22% of the cost of building and maintaining the UN website (along with all other regular budget costs). And in only five steps your child too can listen to Iranian President Ahmadinejad deny the Holocaust and talk about those Zionists' "ugly faces." (These were his words at the UN Durban II "anti-racism" conference in April, which the UN has chosen to archive and place permanently on its website.)
Here are the directions to the world of UN-driven hatred for the Jewish people:
STEP 1: Go to www.un.org
STEP 2: Click "welcome" and you are greeted with "United Nations - It's your world!" [Well, with a few exceptions]
STEP 3: Here we are at the UN English-language home page, headlined "United Nations: We the peoples.A stronger UN for a better world." [Depending on who you are and where you live, mind you] Now click on "Stories from the UN News Center."
STEP 4: Click on "What, when at the UN."
STEP 5: And here we are at the gateway to everything happening at the UN. Under "At a Glance: Recent Action," you can "browse meeting summaries & press releases" by just choosing "select body and date." What body and date, you ask? A handy drop-down menu makes it very easy to understand the programs and priorities for anyone who isn't quite sure what the UN does. There are ten choices: "All venues, General Assembly President, 1st Committee (Disarmament), 2nd Committee (Economic & Social), 3rd Committee (Social, Humanitarian), 4th Committee (Special Political), 5th Committee (Administrative & Budgetary), 6th Committee (Legal), Palestinian Rights, and Committee on Information."
Of course, one thing that can be said in favor of the latest UN outrage is that it makes the double-standards applied to Israel even more obvious. The UN undoubtedly needed to expand the index because the mammoth number of resolutions, documents, press releases, meetings and conferences devoted to condemning Israel had become so large that the hatemongers needed assistance organizing all their Israel-bashing campaign material.
The amount of UN webspace dedicated only to Palestinian claims - including pre-Israel maps - is huge. There is the "United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine" or UNISPAL, and the anti-Israel non-governmental organization networking scheme called the "NGO network on the Question of Palestine." Added to that is the constant material churned out by the only UN Division focused on a single people - the UN Division on Palestinian Rights. And then there is the UN Human Rights Council, which President Obama has now embraced. It has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all other 191 UN states combined. Along with fellow human rights enthusiasts China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, American representatives will be taking their place as new Council members in just one week time.
Way back in the pre-internet days of 1945, the UN Charter proclaimed the "equality of nations large and small." Modernity for the UN has brought an end to such lofty commitments.
