Conclusion: The Second Six Million

4.2.12 WC: 191694 Conclusion: The Second Six Million The sad reality is that the inversion of the human rights agenda, especially at the U.N., has needlessly cost many innocent lives. Since the time the world promised “never again” at the end of World War II and built a structure and jurisprudence designed to fulfill that important promise, another six million innocent victims of preventable genocides have been slaughtered while the world once again stood silent. Since the Holocaust, the international community has turned a blind eye as genocides across the globe claimed millions of innocent lives. Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur are just the beginning of the story. The UN has also failed to help desperate civilians in Burundi, the former Yugoslavia, Syria, and other countries. While ignoring the gruesome killings by the member states in its midst, the United Nations has focused its time and attention on a single country—Israel. The numbers are staggering. In the last eight years, Israel has garnered more than six times as many UN condemnatory resolutions than any other country in the world.’ The General Assembly has called only ten special emergency sessions in its history, but six of them have been devoted to the Middle East’s only liberal democracy.'°’ Of course Israel has its shortcomings, but it deserves to be subjected to the same scrutiny as every other state, no more and no less. The UN’s obsession with Israel is not necessarily the only cause of its inaction on genocide, but it is certainly a contributing factor. Like all institutions, the United Nations has limited resources. When it dedicates so many of those resources to criticizing Israel it decreases its ability to respond effectively to genocide. It is important to realize that the sheer amount of time the UN spends chastising Israel in one-sided and repetitive resolutions is also time vor spent on genocide. As the NGO UN Watch notes, “Diplomats at foreign ministries or UN missions have a limited amount of time to devote to any particular UN session. Because every proposed UN resolution is subjected to intensive review by various levels and branches of government, a direct result of the anti-Israel texts is a crippling of the UN’s ability to tackle the world’s ills.”!°* What could have been if, during the Cambodian genocide, the General Assembly passed a single resolution on the atrocities instead wasting time debating whether Zionism was racism? How would the situation in Darfur have changed if, during its 2006-2007 sessions, the General Assembly once condemned the genocide in Sudan instead of passing 22 resolutions condemning Israel? One might easily dismiss the UN’s obsession with Israel, if the body’s failure to stop suffering was not so serious and not so real. The UN could have intervened more quickly and vigorously and saved millions of lives in Cambodia, Darfur, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Syria and numerous other places. It is a broken institution. Until it ends its obsession with Israel, the UN cannot be fixed. It will remain the key perpetrator—through its actions and inactions—of the tragic inversion of human rights over the past 40 years. 16 Bye on the UN, http://www.eyeontheun.org/browse-un.asp?ya=1 &sa=1 &ua=1 &s=0&tp=1 &tpn=Resolution. 107 American Jewish Committee, A Diminished Body: An Overview of the UN and Israel 5, http://www.ajc.org/atf/cf/%7B42D75369-D582-4380-8395- D25925B85EAF%7D/DIMINISHEWORLDBODYOVERVIEWUNISRAEL 2006.PDF. 108 UN Watch, UN, Israel & Anti-Semitism, http://www.unwatch.org/site/c.bdKKISNqEmG/b. 1359197/k.6748/UN_Israel__AntiSemitism.htm. 342 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017429