The US is withdrawing from the United Nations human rights council, the Trump administration announced on Tuesday, calling it a “cesspool of political bias” that targets Israel in particular while ignoring atrocities in other countries.
The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said she had traveled to the council’s headquarters in Geneva a year ago to call for reforms, to no avail.
“Regrettably it is now clear that our call for reform was not heeded,” Haley told reporters at the state department. “Human rights abusers continue to serve on, and be elected to, the council.”
Sensible even – we should do the same.
Yes, this is the one where Saudi Arabia ran the women’s section or summat.
Why is the US taking part in any of it? They have threatened to withdraw from UNESCO before. In fact they probably cut off funding.
They are not picking a sensible fight. Who cares if the UN attacks Israel or not? It is not America’s fight. But the UN attacks the West all the time. That is a problem. So the US should withdraw for that reason. So should Britain.
The thing about the UN to remember is that they have a specific welfare agency for the Palestinians. The UN runs hospitals and schools and the like for them which means the Palestinians are the best educated Arab population in the Middle East.
Or rather it means that the West gives them about a billion and a half dollars a year so that the UN can run schools which teach them that it is their sacred duty to blow up our airliners – and the geniuses who run the FCO and the State Department lecture us deplorables about what a good idea this is.
UNexit is just as urgently needed as Brexit.
The UN are concentrated evil. Mostly CM but with a large helping of general wickedness and dictat.
Yes, this is the one where Saudi Arabia ran the women’s section or summat.
Absolutely vintage Progressivism.
I agree with SMFS – we need to do the same. But they have Trump, we have May.
The Don ought to pull the US and its funding out of the UN. Same goes for the U.K. and all developed nations. Trump can tell Xi that China will get the respect it craves once it picks up the bill for 44,000 staff and a nice shiny HQ.
And we’ve got Skippy Turnball, Canada has its infant PM, France has the toy boy and Germany has Frau Frosty. They’re all gutless when it comes to defending western values and standing up to tinpot dictators and sheiks.
SMFS,
On the basis that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, I’m all for looking out for Israel.
Only slightly OT because Venezuela is one of the countries the UNHRC refuses to criticise.
I’ve just been listening to this podcast:
It only lasts 10 minutes but here’s a few factoids:
The median wage is the minimum wage.
Buying the cheapest calorific food the minimum daily wage buys 900 calories where as it used to be “several thousand. The US minimum wage buys > 100,000.
If they decide they want protein they can buy 2 eggs a day.
And if the want a treat they can save their wage for 1.5 months and buy a Big Mac.
There’s not much really makes my blood boil but those who supported, encouraged and refuse to condemn what’s going on are high up that list.
Nikki Haley seems to me to be pretty dim. But she’s dead right on this one.
“Who cares if the UN attacks Israel or not? It is not America’s fight. But the UN attacks the West all the time. That is a problem.”
Israel is part of the West. That’s its worst offence. Worse than being Jewish.
The median wage is the minimum wage.
Buying the cheapest calorific food the minimum daily wage buys 900 calories where as it used to be “several thousand. The US minimum wage buys > 100,000.
If they decide they want protein they can buy 2 eggs a day.
And if the want a treat they can save their wage for 1.5 months and buy a Big Mac.
This sounds like everything a Guardianista would want (for other people, of course). Their perfect society.
“economic mismanagement” – Venuzuela is the prime case where it needs to be beaten into people’s skulls that “the economy” is switchable with “the weather”. If you went around talking about “managing the weather” people would quickly see you for the numknuts you were.
BoJo bypassed May and supported Trump’s decision:
http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/06/19/britain-vows-action-if-anti-israel-bias-at-un-human-rights-council-continues/
Trump winning again?
http://www.breitbart.com/economics/2018/06/20/germanys-automakers-throw-white-flag-trade-offer-scrap-10-tariff/
Did someone refer to “Years of economic mismanagement”?
When we’re talking about wholesale adoption of socialism, complete with all the greatest hits (figurative and literal) of every Warsaw Pact dictatorship and thugocracy, the term “economic mismanagement” doesn’t seem quite up to the job. Eschew euphemism!
“Who cares if the UN attacks Israel or not? It is not America’s fight.”
It’s the fight of everyone who stands for freedom.
(As opposed to everyone who stands for “Freedom for Me! Me! Me! – I don’t care about anyone else.” Niemoller’s lament, of course.)
The best contribution the US could make to the UN Human Rights Council is wait until it’s in plenary session, sail an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer up the East River, and put Tomahawks into the building until they’re all dead.
+1
Interesting pub question. “Pro Israel or anti Israel”? Very strongly pro Israel usually in my mix.
BiCR
So not the Nimilz class option to guarantee full air superiority.
NiV – “It’s the fight of everyone who stands for freedom. (As opposed to everyone who stands for “Freedom for Me! Me! Me! – I don’t care about anyone else.” Niemoller’s lament, of course.)”
Is it? Israel is a country that kept its Palestinian population under martial law for decades after independence.
This is not a fight between the West and the Nazis or the West and the Soviet Union. At least not any more. It is a dispute between a fairly liberal mostly democratic Israel and a bunch of other countries that are not as pleasant but are not the Nazis.
There is no particular moral case for taking sides here. The Arabs are mostly disgusting. Israel is nicer but it is based on ethnic cleansing and they don’t much like us. So it hardly matters either way.
Except in the long run I expect that the Muslim world is still going to be there and the West will be a lot weaker. We can play at foreign policy now because we are so strong. Weak people can’t afford that.
SMFS
Ethnic cleansing? Ignoring that some 20% of the Israeli population are freely voting arabs (correct me if I have the percentage wrong, dodgy memory, and I haven’t re-checked), would Israel behave more appropriately if their neighbours were slightly more supportive?
In those kind of situations, I’m very happy to take sides. Judaism doesn’t demand that we all convert. And I regard the term Judeo-Christian, when referring to western culture and its values, as more than simply a sound bite.
Israel to “cede” the West Bank? FWIW, I can see the merit in this argument – maybe it’s possible, but not in the way politics would like – though happy to hear / understand the counter?
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/06/benjamin-netanyahu-arab-countries-know-that-iran-wants-to-conquer-them-all/
Full link here, if Speccy’s JS gets in the way:
https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Transcript-of-Shawcross-Netanyahu-Dialogue.pdf
This is one of the Speccy quotes I am referring to:
PF – “Ethnic cleansing? Ignoring that some 20% of the Israeli population are freely voting arabs (correct me if I have the percentage wrong, dodgy memory, and I haven’t re-checked), would Israel behave more appropriately if their neighbours were slightly more supportive?”
Probably not. They need the conflict or someone might ask them to implement UN resolutions and allow back all the refugees they drove out in 1948. There is no martial law on those Palestinians now. They are much freer to start their own political parties than they used to be – although they still must be “Zionist” by law. And they seem content enough.
“And I regard the term Judeo-Christian, when referring to western culture and its values, as more than simply a sound bite.”
I regard it as more than a sound-bite too. Especially as Western culture is Christian. Judeo-Christian is a made up term.
‘… I think these factors are creating the possibility of changing the equation. People used to say if we have peace with the Palestinians, we will have peace with the rest of the Arab world. It might be that it’s the other way around.’
Sure. It has always been Likud’s policy – going back to the days when it didn’t exist pre-1948 – that the Arabs will be offered nothing and eventually they will give up. BN clearly thinks that if Saudi Arabia et al abandon the Palestinians they will accept nothing because they have no other choice. He may be right.
Netanyahu has often seemed equivocal about the famous but always elusive “two state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian neighbourhood.
No he hasn’t. Actually. He has always been perfectly clear.
‘I haven’t changed my view and it can be summed up in a very simple way, the Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves and none of the powers to threaten us.
And yet the Palestinians might want more than to take out their own garbage.
In the end the Palestinians are one of the least appealling near-nations to defend. It would not distress me greatly if an earthquake swallowed them all up. But that does not make Israel our friend. And in 250 years the Palestinians will still be there. Netanyahu may hope they will all disappear but I don’t think Britain should.
“Judeo-Christian is a made up term.”
Yes, a pragmatic 20th century embellishment that is intellectually superfluous since Christianity is inherently Judean.
“Especially as Western culture is Christian.”
Well, yes it is; but not exclusively. It is also very much Roman and Greek. And, probably lost to history, a catalyst to the modern world might have been in European pagan / tribal traditions.
For whatever reason, the profound, world-civilisation-changing thought revolution began and flourished in north-west Europe. Mostly England (and Scotland during the period when they were desperately trying to be English).
PJF – “Yes, a pragmatic 20th century embellishment that is intellectually superfluous since Christianity is inherently Judean.”
I don’t think it was pragmatic. I think it was craven. And of course Christianity and Judaism don’t have a lot in common. Yes, they are in the same family, more or less, although Jews tend not to think so, but Judaism and Islam are close. Christianity is an outlier.
“Well, yes it is; but not exclusively. It is also very much Roman and Greek. And, probably lost to history, a catalyst to the modern world might have been in European pagan / tribal traditions.”
I will give you that. So when the Catholic Church adopted Graeco-Roman philosophy wholesale, they embraced that pagan past and incorporated it into what we now call Christianity. Distancing Christianity from Judaism and later on Islam. The question is how much of Judaism survived in Christianity. I would say very little. Once Jesus said that observing the strict letter of the law did not matter compared to embracing the underlying meaning, the Christians were on a completely different path.
“For whatever reason, the profound, world-civilisation-changing thought revolution began and flourished in north-west Europe. Mostly England (and Scotland during the period when they were desperately trying to be English).”
A process to which Judaism contributed virtually nothing since Constantine. Well Spinoza perhaps. But Jews were not to make another significant contribution to Western civilisation until the great flourishing of the Austro-Hungarian Empire just before WW1.
SMFS: ” Israel is a country that kept its Palestinian population under martial law for decades after independence.”
And why? For shits n’ giggles? No. Because they had to.
”And of course Christianity and Judaism don’t have a lot in common.”
In the same way America and England don’t have a lot in common.
JuliaM – “And why? For shits n’ giggles? No. Because they had to.”
Sure. That is kind of the point when you come to someone else’s country, drive 80% of the population out and take their land. People tend to resent that sort of thing.
PJF – “In the same way America and England don’t have a lot in common.”
The US and England share a common law system. Indeed Blackstone is probably more influential in the US. Jewish law. Does it have anything in common with Canon or any other form of Western law? No. Jewish law is entirely about the letter of the law. Which probably shouldn’t even be called law in the Western sense. Western law is interested in things like mens rea.
SMFS: “ethnic cleansing “. I presume you are referring to the Jewish communities of Iraq and Syria whose residence dating back pre Christ was abruptly terminated in 1948 when the only home they had to go to was Israel. (Much like the Greeks of Alexandria who went “home” after two and a half millennia).
@Bloke in Costa Rica, June 20, 2018 at 10:26 pm
+1
Cheaper [and imho better] alternative: pay a few palestinians to fly “fertiliser loaded” cargo planes into UN HQ at its AGM.
Someone would smell a rat, Pcar, when all the terrorism sponsoring nations sent their apologies when ordinarily, their representatives are the last do miss out on a junket.
“This is not a fight between the West and the Nazis”
Actually, yes it is. The Palestinian nationalists were originally Nazis, and several of the Middle East regimes (Assad in particular) are the last direct descendants of Nazism.
When the British (under League of Nations authority) let Jewish immigrants into mandate Palestine, the local Arab equivalent of the British National Front rioted. The British, operating an old ‘Empire’ theory that the way to quell rebellion was to put the rebels in charge of restoring order, appointed the leader of the rioters, one Haj Amin al-Husseini, as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He escalated the violence and trouble until the British eventually kicked him out, and he fled to Nazi Germany, hooked up with Hitler, and ran a government in exile from Berlin.
He’s the chap on the left here:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-official-record-what-the-mufti-said-to-hitler/
Their origins were with people of an identical viewpoint as for Nazism, their formal alliances were with Nazism, they supported the Germans in the second world war (as did the Muslims in the first world war – losing it was what led to the breakup of the Islamic empire and the formation of mandate Palestine along with all the other Arab nations in the first place) and their policies today are virtually identical to Hitler’s 1920 25-point manifesto, just exchange ‘Germany’ for ‘Palestine’. They were and are Nazis; considered as a political doctrine.
Not that ‘Nazi’ should be used as a magic word for evil, and justification for opposing them on its own. The Palestinian nationalists have earned such a reputation for themselves, with their own history. The significant difference is they were never anything like as powerful as Germany, so it didn’t take a world war to defeat them.
@DocBud
Good point. One could lie and tell them the building was Goldman Sachs, Davos & Bilderberg secret HQ. They’d be even more keen to succeed.
.
@NiV
Interesting. Thanks.
@NiV
You?
“But Hitler liked Islam, there was quite a close fit between fascism and Islamo fascism, plus they both like exterminating the Jews”
https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/bbc-hitches-up-to-the-islamaphobia-locomotive.271069/post-8634532