UN To Commemorate Its Convention on Genocide as Atrocities Abound Around the World

A week of celebrations at the United Nations focused on decades-old declarations against genocide and in favor of international human rights has some critics of the world’s governing body decrying the hypocrisy of an organization that wades into some conflicts eagerly but ignores others occurring under its nose.As the United Nations plans to commemorate its commitment to fighting against genocide, the lack of action on behalf of the world’s governing body toward atrocities emerges in sharp relief.On Friday, the United Nations will host a high-level event at its headquarters at New York City, called, “A Living Force in World Society: The Legacy of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” The organization is commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Genocide Convention, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December of 1948, which affirms genocide as a crime under international law.The question emerges of what, exactly, the United Nations will celebrate, as its commitment to fighting atrocities at Israel and other parts of the world appears to be faltering. “Genocide is still a threat in the world today,” the invitation for the Friday event says. “The need to invest in prevention as envisaged by the Convention drafters 75 years ago remains as relevant as ever.”“Hypocrisy” abounds in this observance, the executive director of the human rights watchdog group, UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, tells the Sun. The world’s governing organization and its human rights council, he says, is “worse than silent” on the atrocities against Israel. Indeed, they are “empowering” and “incentivizing” Hamas and will therefore “pay lip service to how much they care about genocide.” The Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, is calling for a cease-fire at Gaza, which Israel says would leave it vulnerable to Hamas’s plans for more aggression against the Jewish state. Meanwhile, UN Watch has identified more than 150 staff of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East who have taken to social media to celebrate Hamas’s massacre on October 7. An UNRWA teacher was reported this week to have held captive and starved an Israeli hostage at Gaza. “Does it bother you?” CNN asked the director of UNRWA’s affairs, Tom White, on Tuesday. He refused to answer the question and pointed toward the bags of flour that his organization has sent to families at Gaza. “Why is UNRWA refusing to recognize that incitement to hatred, violence and genocide against Jews is a widespread reality among its employees?” Mr. Neuer’s group, UN Watch, asked the President of the Human Rights Council, Václav Bálek, at a recent event at Geneva on the role of social media in amplifying hate speech.The term “genocide” was coined in 1944 by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who campaigned at the United Nations for the successful adoption of the Genocide Convention by the General Assembly in 1948. The United Nations held an event at Turtle Bay on Wednesday in his honor. “If Rafael Lemkin were alive today,” says Mr. Neuer, “he would see what has become of the United Nations when it comes to incitement to genocide when their own staff are doing this.”The United Nations appears to be caving to “enormous pressure” from the more than a quarter of its 193 member states which are Muslim. “You have 56 ambassadors, 56 countries, that are pressuring you to condemn Israel,” he says, invoking the perspective of the Secretary General. “There’s only one Jewish state, so it’s 56 to one.”Meanwhile, European nations, including Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Spain, and Belgium, espouse unfriendly attitudes towards Israel, and so do non-governmental organizations that influence UN policy, such as Amnesty International, which has demanded an end to “Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians.” “The UN has repeatedly amplified the anti-Israel narrative of condemning Israel for defending itself against a brutal terrorist organization,” Mr. Neuer says. “To be commemorating the Genocide Convention at a time when they are empowering a genocidal terrorist group, highlights the failed moral judgment of the UN.” The United Nations has also failed to mitigate the systematic killing of Darfuri people in Western Sudan in recent weeks. “The international community has been very silent when it comes to atrocities in Darfur,” a legal advisor at the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, Mutasim Ali, tells the Sun. The people have now “lost faith.”The State Department on Wednesday assessed that there are “crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing” in the region, but Mr. Ali argues that “they need to support this with actions. We are done with empty statements.” The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights did not immediately respond to the Sun’s request for comment.“We believe that there is a serious risk of genocide in Darfur,” Mr. Ali says, noting that the region was plagued two decades ago by a genocide that became known as the first of the 21st century. “And that’s why we say it is time to stop it before it is too late.” The observance on Friday, he says, offers “an opportunity for the world to hear their stories and to do something about it.”The United Nations will also commemorate on Sunday the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrined the freedom and rights of all human beings in international law. Mr. Guterres’s message on the observance calls on member states “to strengthen their commitment to the timeless values of the Universal Declaration” and urges “people around the world to promote and respect human rights, every day, for everyone, everywhere.”“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” asserts the opening sentence of declaration. Eleanor Roosevelt played an instrumental role in drafting the document, which was accepted at the same time as the Genocide Convention. Celebrated today, “it’s a reminder,” says Mr. Neuer, “of how the UN has fallen.”

UN To Commemorate Its Convention on Genocide as Atrocities Abound Around the World

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