A day for reckoning

Editorial

Speaking of friends, British Columbia Conservative Member of Parliament Stockwell Day tried and failed in a committee hearing recently to urge the Canadian government to press for Israel's equal treatment at the United Nations.

In addition to the outlandish and unbalanced rash of outrage that the UN spits out annually against Israel, there is also systemic, structural discrimination against Israel at the world body itself.

Bulletin readers know by now that, each year, the members of the UN General Assembly waste days "debating" and passing, by rote, anti-Israel denunciations, while ignoring the most pressing tragedies in the world. Of 10 emergency sessions called in the history of the General Assembly, six have been about Israel. Not one has been about Rwandan genocide, the human catastrophe in the former Yugoslavia or two decades of humanitarian disaster in Sudan. More than one-quarter of resolutions passed in the last 40 years condemning human rights abuses have been aimed at Israel, which is, to put it mildly, a massively distorted proportion of blame.

But many people do not know that Israel is kept at a special, remote distance from the inner workings of the United Nations itself. Until 2000, Israel was denied entry into a regional caucus, where real power is exercised. The Asian Regional Group - the caucus that Israel should geographically fall under - wouldn't accept Israel because the Arab states refused to entertain its presence. Israel was finally admitted to the Western Europe and Others Group.

The despicable incidents at the Conference Against Racism, in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, occurred under the auspices of the UN and the constant harassment of Israel by UN members and agencies continues unabated.

Day said his efforts were merely an attempt to have Israel treated fairly.

"Israel as a democratic state deserves more respect," he said in a statement. "All I am asking is that our government affirm support at the UN for Israel to have the same rights of participation as other countries."

Radical.

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