Professional Documents
Culture Documents
● Arab slave trade continues. U.N. condemns Israel. World thirsty for
Oil.
About the same time, the world's richest and most influential child
welfare organization, the United Nations International Children's
Emergency Fund (UNICEF), ended its long silence on the
enslavement of Sudanese woman and children. Instead of
condemning the slavers, UNICEF-whose mandate requires it to work
in partnership with the government of Sudan-echoed Khartoum by
calling our liberation of slaves "absolutely intolerable," and by
accusing us of violating the Slavery Convention. Others, with
agendas of their own, perhaps working with the Sudanese regime or
trying to salvage their own tarnished reputations, have spread
rumors of fraud about these activities.
Then in late October, the U.N. Economic and Social Council voted by
a tally of 26 to 14 (with 12 abstentions) to withdraw our consultative
status, thus effectively excluding CSI from the U.N. system. Yet if
anything is "absolutely intolerable," it is that the international
community has allowed slavery and other crimes against humanity to
be institutionalized by a member state of the United Nations.
All of this campaigning has had some effect, making the "out of
sight, out of mind" attitude less tenable. In February 1999, soon
after Dan Rather of CBS News highlighted the plight of Sudanese
slaves and CSI's role in freeing them, UNICEF broke its silence and
admitted: "Slavery in Sudan exists." Even as it said this, however,
UNICEF appeased the Khartoum regime by condemning the
redemption of slaves as "absolutely intolerable."
And the U.S. government? It too is reluctant. In 1999, for the first
time in six years, Washington declined to serve as the main sponsor
of the Commission on Human Rights' Sudan resolution, leaving this
responsibility to the lukewarm European Union; and the Clinton
administration assented to the commission's "slavery-free"
resolution. Why the change? Because in return, the Sudanese were
prepared not to press hard for a condemnation of the United States
for the rocket attack on Khartoum's Ash-Shifa pharmaceutical factory
in August 1998. However, with an eye on the abolitionist movement
at home, the State Department tried to maintain the moral high
ground by condemning the (U.S.-supported) Sudan resolution as
"deeply flawed" for failing to "confront fully the practice of slavery."
This did not convince; just four days later, the Clinton administration
announced a weakening of sanctions on Sudan (by allowing the sale
of agricultural goods and pharmaceuticals).
● Since Israel is the only nation in the world that is denied the right to
hold a seat on the U.N. Security Council on a rotating basis, the
Jewish State is uniquely reliant upon the influence -- and, if
necessary, the veto -- of the United States to prevent its security
and vital equities from being compromised by that body.
- Emanuel A. Winston
Middle East Analyst & Commentator
● Efforts to delegitimize Israel have also been part of the record of the
specialized agencies, especially UNESCO, the UN's Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization. In the 1970s, the Arabs in
UNESCO raised questions about archaeological excavations in
Jerusalem. Director-General A.M. M'Bow sent a specialist, Belgian
Professor Raymond Le Maire, to investigate. Le Maire found the
digs were carried out in accord with established international
standards. Muslim holy places were protected, and archaeological
relics from all periods of antiquity were preserved.
...In April 1983 the PLO claimed that Israel had undertaken a
campaign of genocide against the Palestinian Arabs. Complaints
submitted at the same time by Arab states accused Israel of
responsibility for "mass poisoning" based on an outbreak of
headaches, dizziness, and nausea, particularly among Arab school
girls on the West Bank. Although the International Committee of the
Red Cross and the United States Centers for Disease Control both
confirmed the findings of Israeli doctors that there was no mass
poisoning, the Security Council demanded an inquiry and the
Assembly of the World Health Organization condemned Israel in
connection with the "mass poisonings." In a totally unprecedented
move, it called for direct WHO control over health programs in the
Israel held territories.
● [the UN's PLO observer] "can almost always get the majority to
support ... [his] accusations, justified or not."
"It is the tool of those who would make Israel the archetypal human
rights violator in the world today. It is a breeding ground for anti-
Semitism. It is a sanctuary for moral relativists. In short, it is a
scandal."
Is Israel legally compelled to exit from all the land it has controlled
since the conclusion of a war that was launched to destroy it? The
language of 242 was hammered out with great precision to take
account of Israel's vulnerable pre-1967 borders and to avert future
aggression. Britain's UN ambassador in 1967, Lord Caradon, an
author of the Resolution, argued that: "It would have been wrong to
demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because
those positions were undesirable and artificial."
● "The former British Ambassador to the UN, Lord Caradon [the chief-
author of 242], tabled a polished draft resolution in the Security
Council and steadfastly resisted all suggestions for change...
Kuznetsov of the USSR asked Caradon to specify 'all' before the word
' territories' and to drop the word 'recognized.' When Caradon
refused, the USSR tabled its own draft resolution [calling for a
withdrawal to the 1967 Lines] but it was not a viable alternative to
the UK text...Members [of the UN Security Council] voted and
adopted the [UK drafted] resolution unanimously..."
● U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 - A set of guidelines for Peace &
Security