...A typical example of how key UN human rights bodies are being subverted is the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)...

...Last Thursday, the CERD suspended its normal work to address "the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon."

Not only is this topic entirely outside CERD's mandate, but it was framed in a lopsided manner, so that the humanitarian suffering of Israeli civilians would be entirely ignored.

Since July 12, when Hizbullah ignited the crisis by crossing the international border to murder and kidnap Israeli soldiers, the Iran-sponsored terrorist organization has fired more than 3,000 rockets into Israel. A million Israelis are either displaced or living in and out of bomb shelters, dozens have been killed, while a further 2,000 have been injured or required hospital treatment. Yet one would not know any of this from the CERD's presentation of the issue...

...The special CERD session was the initiative of a few panel members led by Mahmoud Aboul-Nasr, a former Egyptian diplomat and Arab League official.

Aboul-Nasr is notorious for his 1998 support of convicted Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, which was roundly criticized at the time by his colleague (now CERD Chairman) Regis de Gouttes. Aboul-Nasr had stated before the panel that the Holocaust was "not sacrosanct" and that it was justified to question the number of Jews killed.

To his credit, Chairman de Gouttes began Thursday's debate by listing the other UN entities already dealing with the crisis, and by warning his colleagues that "the trust and legitimacy of the Committee is at stake."

In response, Aboul-Nasr objected to being "lectured on our competence and what we can't do," and demanded that the members "condemn Israel in the strongest terms."

Some of his colleagues were all too happy to oblige.

Brazilian expert Jos Augusto Lindgren Alves accused Israel of "blatant racism," which, he added, was "at the root of its disproportionality" in Lebanon. He asked if Israel "would react the same way to exterminate an entire population if Hizbullah launched the same attacks from a non-Arab country." Jos Francisco Cali Tzay of Guatemala suggested that Israel's actions were close to "mass genocide." The South African, Patricia January-Bardhill, said that Israel's response reflected "institutionalized racism." Pakistani member Agha Shahi justified Hizbullah's attacks on Israel as an exercise of "the right of resistance against occupation."

Aboul-Nasr similarly asserted that Hizbullah is not a terrorist group but "a resistance movement," like the French resistance in World War II. Never mind that the UN in 2000 certified Israel's complete withdrawal from southern Lebanon to the international border, or that, in the words of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, "Hizbullah's provocative attack on July 12 was the trigger of this particular crisis."

A FEW lonely voices disagreed with the decision to tackle the Israel-Lebanon issue and the utter disregard of Hizbullah's role in provoking the crisis and attacking Israeli civilians, but they had little impact.

The Danish and American experts both argued that the issue was beyond the panel's mandate, but to no avail. The American expert - Ralph F. Boyd, Jr., former Civil Rights Division chief at the US Department of Justice - also strongly criticized his colleagues for giving Hizbullah, and its Syrian and Iranian sponsors, a free pass. As Boyd spoke, Aboul-Nasr, in a shocking display of disrespect, kept laughing in response...