Thumbs Up to William Safire

THUMBS UP to syndicated columnist William Safire for his April 23, 2001 column in the New York Times exposing the “diplomatic hypocrisy” of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. He notes that the group of 52 nations decided to give a pass to China, which is “torturing and killing members of the Falun Gong, raping Tibet’s culture and imprisoning foreign nationals.”

But when it comes to the “uprising of the Palestinians as well as Hamas-Hezbollah terrorism, [the commission] found Arabs blameless and called on Israel–which is not permitted to sit on the commission– ‘to desist from all forms of violation of human rights.'”

Safire notes: “The 50 nations siding against Israel called for ‘international protection’ of the warring Palestinians, thereby encouraging Arafat to continue his violence.”

The columnist compares Israel’s response to mortar attacks on its villages to likely action by the United States if attacked from Mexico or Canada, observing, “the U.S. would take military cross-border action to wipe out the mortar positions and end the bombardment.”

While reporters covered the commission’s findings with respect to Israel and the Palestinians, the hypocrisy of the U.N. is the news behind the news that Safire so effectively describes.

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