Search

UN Racism Expert Confronts Ahmadinejad's Anti-Semitism

Will the UN allow itself to be exploited by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Nazi Holocaust, and his incitement to genocide against Israel, which is home to more than half of the world’s surviving Jewish people?  One day before Ayatollah Khomeini's heir is set to address the General Assembly plenary, the evidence is mixed.

On the one hand, the Security Council and Secretary-General Kofi Annan strongly condemned Ahmadinejad’s remarks last year.  In his recent trip to Tehran, Mr. Annan -- who played a key role in the UN's adoption of an annual day in memory of the Holocaust -- made a point of contesting Iran's Holocaust denial, and his spokesman in New York implicitly denounced Ahmadinejad as “a bigot.”

Today, another high UN official is showing courage.  In a report to be delivered this morning before the Human Rights Council, Doudou Diene, its expert on racism, discusses his official demand for Iran to explain what he courageously identifies as Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitism.

The following is from Diene’s annual report:

The questioning of the right to exist of the State of Israel, in contravention of United Nations resolutions, constitutes a manifestation of anti-Semitism. The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran has recently provided an illustration of this in denying that the Holocaust took place and in advocating the removal of the State of Israel to Europe. This position undermines the position of the international community on the existence of two States, Israeli and Palestinian. The Special Rapporteur, informed of allegedly anti-Semitic remarks by the Iranian President, Ahmedinejad, formally brought the matter to the attention of the Iranian authorities in the context of a procedure for allegations of racism and discrimination.   (E/CN.4/2006/16, par. 35, at 14)

Dr. Diene provides more details in an additional document:

On 12 December 2005, the Special Rapporteur sent an allegation letter to the Government concerning information he received concerning a statement on the State of Israel made by Mr. Ahmadinejad, President of Iran. According to the information received, on 26 October 2005, President Ahmadinejad has stated in a public speech that the State of Israel should be “wiped off the map”. Reportedly, President Ahmadinejad also stated in the same speech that Israel is a “disgraceful blot” and that “anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury”.  (E/CN.4/2006/16/Add.1, par. 41, at 13)

Diene actually made Iran reply.  Tehran’s substantive response comes in a Note Verbale, dated 17 March 2006, which will be circulated at the Council today as UN document:

The President’s remarks came up in the form of a 'research question' and deserve an academic answer, rather than creating a politically charged environment and fuss emotions which runs counter to the freedom of expression.  (E/CN.4/2006/G/10.)

Unlike the Jewish religion and Jews, which Iran claims to deeply respect, “Zionism is an ideology based on hegemonic desires and political ambitions, articulated by colonial powers and artificially injected in the Middle East for their purposes.”  Indeed, Iran replies, “Systematic oppression against the Palestinian People by Israel during last half a century cannot be forgotten and is known to fair and justice-oriented peoples of the world. “

And Iran's proof for the diabolical character of Zionism?  “Various documents in the United Nations and its Human Rights Machinery, including Special Mechanisms, unambiguously attest to the atrocities perpetuated in the occupied territories by the Zionist Regime.”

For those who prefer to believe that the UN's outrageously disproportionate condemnations of Israel—quantitatively, where Israel at the old Commission on Human Rights was subjected to the same amount of condemnations as the whole world combined, or qualitatively, where the new Council's anti-Israel resolutions include not a single word about the actions of Hamas, Hezbollah or other attackers—are benign, here is the proof that they are not:  moral justification for incitement to genocide.

But Iran's reply did not suffice with enumerating all the evils of Israel that justify elimination of the Jewish state.  No, Iran, it seems, is actually the victim, and argues it is the real party in need of the racism expert's protection: 

It has become a daily practice of American and Israeli officials to speak out for “regime change” in Iran and stigmatizing Iran as “axis of evil” and threatening Iran to a full scale raid against its infrastructure. It is a legitimate question that why these pronouncements do not motivate the Special Rapporteur’s sensitivity. Do these remarks not advocate “hostility or violence” which is prohibited under Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights? 

Diene has promised to offer his own observations in an upcoming report.  We salute his work thus far, and urge him to continue his courageous confrontation of Tehran's genocidal anti-Semitism.

Human Rights Official Craig Mokhiber Uses Holocaust Event to Compare Israel to Iran, Sudan to U.S.

Regrettably, however, the example set by Annan and Diene was not followed last week by Craig Mokhiber, the New York representative of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, at a UN seminar last week on the Holocaust and genocide.  Not only did Mokhiber hold back from specifically condemning Ahmadinejad’s incitement to genocide and Holocaust denial—despite questions from the moderator and then from a member of the audience—but he finished the event by implicitly equating Iran and Sudan with Israel and the United States.

The UN's “Holocaust and the United Nations” outreach program organized a round table discussion under the theme, "Remembrance and Beyond: The United Nations and the Response to Genocide” on September 14, 2006, at UN Headquarters in New York.  Following screening of a film and opening remarks, the first question from the audience came from Edward Mortimer, Secretary-General Annan's able Director of Communications, who got right to the heart of what everyone was thinking.  What was to be done about this particular head of state, set to address the General Assembly on Tuesday, who publicly questions the reality of the Holocaust—all in contravention of last year's historic General Assembly resolution on the Holocaust?  (See RealPlayer video webcast here, at minute 1:36:00)

Dr. David Hamburg, Chair of the Secretary-General’s Advisory Committee on Genocide Prevention, was the only panelist willing to answer, but he was solid.  The matter is very serious, he said.  The president of Iran has repeatedly and explicitly called for genocide against Israel.  Since Hitler, said Dr. Hamburg, it was hard to think of someone who so repeatedly and explicitly called for genocide.  Ahmadinejad is determined to get nuclear weapons.  Here is a man calling for genocide—repeatedly and explicitly against one group—with nuclear weapons.  Ordinarily we don’t discuss these two issues in the same basket.  But now we have the possibility for instant genocide.  Even if Israel has its own nuclear weapons, this would be of little use if the president of Iran believe in martyrdom.  Given this conjunction -- the explicit call for genocide and nuclear weapons, this matter has to be seriously discussed.  We need high level diplomacy that is much stronger than what has been done.  The European Union and Japan and democracies world-wide should be in the lead.  Action would likely be blocked in the Security Council.  Education of public opinion in the world is key, concluded Dr. Hamburg.

Neither Craig Mokhiber nor any of the other panelists were willing to address the issue.

To be sure, when asked about Holocaust denial in general, Mr. Mokhiber absolutely condemned it.  But when asked specifically about what to do about the world's leading Holocaust denier, he kept dodging.

A young woman in the audience addressed a question directly to Mr. Mokhiber:  "What specific steps is the UN taking to isolate the president of Iran when he comes next week?"  (Webcast, minute 1:58:00.)

Mokhiber's reply?  “Um, I don’t know why this is a specific question for me since I come from the human rights office."

Suddenly, the same man whose opening remarks passionately argued that the UN had to "break down the brick walls" that prevented the Security Council from hearing what the human rights machinery had to say -- and who spoke about a collective obligation "to open our eyes and confront" genocide -- this same man went blank, now arguing that, as a human rights official, he "can't comment on current heads of state and their policies with regard to peace and security."  So much for his claims to the compelling relevance of the UN's human rights voices on the great issues of the day.  On the matter of a world leader whose raison d'etre, whether in denying one or advocating another, is genocide -- what Mr. Mokhiber himself described as the "the crime of all crimes" -- suddenly the human rights representative was seeking not to "break down walls," but to hide behind one.

Instead, Mokhiber sufficed with strictly general and abstract comments about the accountability of heads of state, and with boasts of Madame Arbour's previous work in prosecuting Slobodan Milosevic.  Mokhiber could not find a single word of specific censure for Ahmadinejad's outrages -- and this at a UN seminar on the Holocaust, held on the eve of the appearance at the UN of the world's greatest Holocaust denier.

Would it really have been that difficult for Mokhiber to say, at the very least, that he shared the indignation already expressed by the Security Council, by Secretary-General Annan, or, from that same evening, by Dr. Hamburg, Mr. Annan's adviser?  Or that he shared the concerns expressed that evening in the question by Mr. Mortimer, Mr. Annan's Director of Communications?

Mokhiber chose silence.

Indeed, he was apparently so confounded by the prospect of specifcally condemning Ahmadinejad's blatant anti-Semitism that he ended his reply to the young woman by saying, “I probably don’t understand that question at all.”

But even silence proved not enough for Mokhiber, who seemed displeased with the seminar's discussion of Ahmadinejad.

At the end, as the last speaker, he found his chance to strike back against what he called "partisan or parochial arguments" about human rights violations concerning "my people" or "those people."  The international human rights movement, Mokhiber lectured the audience, citing Camus to boot, was above all that.  (Webcast, minute 2:22:00.)

Then Mokhiber began to expound, sharing with the world his deep human rights sensibility.  “If you think that a state is a good guy, you’re making a mistake.  With all due respect, there are 192 states in the UN system that have serious human rights problems.  And if you’re taking the position of one state as against another, or one state as against a certain group of peoples and trying to make arguments about what’s important . . .  . we’re missing the point altogether.”  In other words, all countries are the same -- those who incite genocide are the same as the objects of that incitement.  Those who practice genocide are the same as those who are the leading voices in seeking to prevent it.

In case his audience missed it, Mokhiber now showed his ability to get very specific if and when he so desired.  Individuals should be protected from crimes carried out by all states, Mokhiber said, but as specific examples cited only four:  "the government of Sudan or the government of Iran, or the government of Israel or the government of the United States.”

Get it?  Iran is the same as Israel, Sudan the same as the United States.  The New York representative of High Commissioner of Human Rights Louise Arbour not only refuses to condemn President Ahmadinejad, but insists that the world's leading anti-Semite is no different than the objects of his hatred.

That Mokhiber would express such an outrage is perhaps not all that surprising given that he has for many years apparently harboured the belief that, indeed, it is Israel which is guilty of "very clearly racist violence" -- violence that, in his opinion, is "random", "perpetrated against the elderly, the infirm," indeed against "anyone who happens to be a non-Jewish member of that society."  Mokhiber put all of this in print in his 1988 contribution to a radical publication, "PALESTINE PAPERS--EVERYDAY HORRORS," after he traveled to the West Bank to show solidarity with Yasser Arafat's first Intifada.

What is shocking, however, is that a person who refuses to say that the inciters of genocide are any different than their would-be victims should ever have been appointed to speak in the name of the UN's highest office for human rights.