Dear Friend of FLAME:

All those who cherish liberty condemn anti-Semitism, and we endeavor to expose this form of racism anywhere it rears its evil head.  But sometimes anti-Semitism is so near us, so obvious, so blatant and so accepted . . . that we don't call it out.

Such is the case of the United Nations, peacefully doing its anti-Semitic business in New York City.  Over the decades since Israel's founding, the UN has systematically sought to delegitimize and destroy the Jewish state for no other justification than its hatred of Jews.

For starters, let's be clear on two issues related to the United Nations. First: Its votes are dominated by several blocs---primarily the Arab-Muslim states and the so-called developing nations, which includes most African and many Latin American countries. These countries comprise a majority and can be counted on in most cases to oppose Western (and Israeli) initiatives and to support those condemning the West and/or Israel.

The second issue is that these countries support the notion that Israel is a colonial invader of the Middle East and oppose the notion that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination and that the Jewish state has a right to exist in its ancient and continuous homeland of Palestine.

These fundamental realities of the UN would be enough to convict it of anti-Semitism.  But the list of offenses goes on: 

• In 1976 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring Zionism to be racism (it was years later, miraculously, rescinded)
• The UN completely ignored Sudan's genocide in Darfur, but in 2006-2007 condemned Israel 22 times.  This hypocritical double standard is de rigueur at the UN
• The UN issues no resolutions regarding Turkey's occupation of Cypress or China's occupation of Tibet, but has issues dozens of resolutions condemning Israel's alleged occupation of the ancient Hebrew lands Judea and Samaria (the West Bank)
• The UN passes no resolutions protesting the fact that Palestinians are denied citizenship in Lebanon---or murdered by Assad in Syria---but passes numerous resolutions condemning Israel, where some 1.7 million Palestinians prosper with full rights of citizenship.

These are just a tiny few proof points of the UN's anti-Semitism.

This week's FLAME Hotline offers others that are even more damning. Its author, Anne Bayefsky, former member of the Canadian delegation to the UN and current director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, exposes the recent attempt by Germany and other nations to entice Israel back into participation in one more Israel-bashing session of the infamous, misnomered UN Human Rights Council.

Please review Bayefsky's outspoken piece and pass it along to your friends, colleagues and fellow congregants. Help us inform U.S. citizens about the outrageously biased United Nations and the debilitating danger it poses to Israel.

Thanks for your support of FLAME and of Israel!

Best regards,

Jim Sinkinson
Vice President, Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME)

P.S.

We at FLAME usually focus, as we should, on the challenges Israel faces in the world---the unfair treatment the Jewish state receives at the hands of the U.N., continuing rocket attacks by Arab terrorists from Gaza, and the existential threat that confronts Israel from Iran. But what we must not forget is the amazing success story that Israel represents for Jews and for civilization itself. To clarify, celebrate and publicize the good news about Israel, FLAME is now publishing a hasbarah message---"Israel: A 65-Year Miracle: One of the proudest accomplishments in world history"---in media reaching 10 million readers. I hope you'll review this powerful position paper and pass it on to all your contacts who will benefit from this message. If you agree that FLAME's bold---but costly---brand of public relations on Israel's behalf is critical, I urge you to support our publication of such outspoken messages. Please consider giving donation now, as you're able---with $500, $250, $100, or even $18. (Remember, your donation to FLAME is tax deductible.) To donate online, just go to http://www.factsandlogic.org/make_a_donation.html. Now more than ever we need your support to ensure that Israel gets the support it needs---from the U.S. Congress, from President Obama, and from the American people.

Anti-Semitism is at the root of the UN's double standards

By Anne Bayefsky, FoxNews.com, October 30, 2013

This week Israel caved in to European and American pressure to further subject itself to egregious discrimination at the United Nations. The move was in response to a twisted appeal to Israel to preserve the fiction of a U.N. human rights system committed to equality.

On October 29, 2013, Israel ended 18-months of non-participation with U.N. human rights mechanisms that are dedicated to its demonization and defeat.

The surrender spawned victory laps by the U.N., the State Department and bigots in foreign ministries across Europe.

Leading the campaign to bring the Jewish state to its knees was no other than Germany. The diplomatic blackmail reached its apex in a letter of October 25, 2013 sent from German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Germany threatened that it "would be hard-pressed to help" Israel respond to the "severe diplomatic damage" which would allegedly have occurred if Israel failed to attend one more Israel-bashing session engineered by the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The formal procedure of Tuesday's inquisition by the U.N.'s top human rights body was called a "universal periodic review" or "UPR." The cyclical UPR process is applied to each state once every four years. Hence, the façade of "universality."

However, the Council's regular sessions occur three times a year and only Israel is specifically on the agenda every single time. In fact, the Israeli human rights record was last considered by the Council a mere five weeks ago, on September 23, 2013.

Germany's willingness to play front man in the anti-Israel campaign ensconced at the UN is also disturbing because anti-Semitism is clearly at the root of the UN's double-standards.

The negative diplomatic fallout from the supposed failure by Israel to submit to the "same" practice as every other state, therefore, could readily have been countered. That is, if Germany (with the support of the Obama administration) had not preferred to use the contrived international reaction as a tool of intimidation.

Germany's professed concern with Israel's participatory interests is especially duplicitous in light of its outrageous decision to block Israel from membership on the U.N. Security Council.

Candidacies for election to one of the ten rotating seats on the Security Council are announced many years in advance – Israel making its candidacy for the year 2019 known years ago.

Germany's recent announcement that it would compete directly against Israel for the few slots reserved for Western governments effectively destroys Israel's chances of election – which would have been a first in U.N. history.

Similarly, Germany's self-righteousness doesn't prevent it from attending meetings at the U.N. in Geneva that specifically bar representatives of the Jewish state.

At every session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, 192 countries divide into five regional groups, meeting out of the public eye to share information, negotiate and assign jobs and resources. 192 of 193 UN members, because Israel is excluded. Even non-UN members such as the Palestinian Authority are allowed to attend regional group meetings.

The regional group to which Israel most naturally belongs is the geographically disparate Western European and Others Group (WEOG). But WEOG – which includes Germany and the United States – refuses Israel equal admission.

Germany's willingness to play front man in the anti-Israel campaign ensconced at the UN is also disturbing because anti-Semitism is clearly at the root of the U.N.'s double-standards.

There is no human rights explanation for the Human Rights Council's conduct towards Israel. It denounces Israel alone in over a third of all its country-resolutions, and has never once condemned the likes of China, Russia or Saudi Arabia.

It has one permanent agenda item on Israel and one for all other192 countries. It churns out successive "anti-racism" conferences that finger Israel as the world's only racist state.

It appoints Richard Falk as its "expert" on Israel for six years running. The man once posted on his website a caricature of a blood-covered dog devouring human bones, urinating on lady justice, and wearing a skullcap emblazoned with a Jewish star.

Now, Western governments could refuse to legitimize the body that sponsors this constant barrage of inequality directed at Israel both before and after October 29. They could at least have ended the exclusion of Israel from WEOG. Instead, they demanded that Israel legitimize the "universality" fraud for a day.

As it played out, countries lined up to denounce "Judaization" (the foul presence of a Jew on Arab-claimed land), make wild accusations about torture and systematic cruelty to children, and repeat the old Zionism-is-racism canard of a Jewish state with a racist constitution.

The irony is that the UPR's greatest champions are the world's most brutal regimes. The system is a triumph of moral relativism, where despots and democrats are treated as if they were genuinely alike.

During the recent farcical UPR of Canada, China complained about violence against women, North Korea about free speech and torture, Iran about discrimination, Russia about arbitrary detention, and Sudan about racial violence.

Only a week ago, the Saudi UPR included two Saudi women shrouded entirely in black allowing only slits for their eyes. One said: "I would like to underline that the system in Saudi Arabia doesn't make a distinction between men and women." The other defended the law allowing girls to be married off upon puberty.

If Israel had insisted on genuine equal treatment, it would have done the real victims of human rights a favor. Absent American support, Israel's Prime Minister succumbed to the mob.

When will we learn that humiliation isn't cost-free?

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