OPINION:
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley issued a strong statement of support for America’s withdrawal from the Human Rights Council at a Heritage Foundation press event, telling the listening audience — and, by extension, the global powers-who-be — that human rights, God-given rights, are not tools for trade, fodder for political bargaining and bantering.
“[A human right] is not a political chit to be traded,” Haley said.
Boom. That’s it, in a nutshell.
And that’s why America’s June departure from the U.N.’s so-called “human rights” body makes so much sense. The HRC is little more than a shield for U.N. players to pretend like they’re doing the right thing, when all along, they’re really not.
How else to explain the ongoing HRC bias against Israel and simultaneous embrace of the Democratic Republic of the Congo?
“In October,” Haley said, “the Democratic Republic of the Congo was elected to a seat on the council. The Congo is the setting for atrocities that shock the most hardened international aid workers. They were discovering mass graves in the Congo even as the General Assembly approved its bid for the Human Rights Council.”
Even as the same HRC was busy turning blind eyes to political atrocities and human rights abuses in Iran and Venezuela.
Even as the same HRC was busy rejecting calls to eliminate a rule, Agenda Item 7, requiring the body to deliberate about Israel’s supposed human rights abuses at regular sessions and meetings — as if.
“No other country — not Iran, not Syria, not North Korea — has an agenda item devoted solely to it. Agenda Item 7 is not directed at anything Israel does,” Haley said. “It is directed at the very existence of Israel. It is a blazing red siren signaling the Human Rights Council’s political corruption and moral bankruptcy.”
Exactly. And liberals and Islam-apologists and haters of Israel and the West can cry all they want. But the fact is: The HRC has been a farce of a protector of human rights for some time.
America’s withdrawal was, and still is, proper.
The HRC, as Haley put, is quite possibly the “greatest failure” of the United Nations. It certainly has become an anathema to those who hold dear the concept of rights coming from God, not government.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.