Routine Business at the United Nations

[Excerpted]

... it was a cold New York day. Inside, where ... members of the UN's
Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural matters) gathered,
the room was bathed in a comfy buzz of well-being, engendered when
like-minded people gather together.

The topic last week in Conference Room 1 of the UN was human rights in
Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — a part of the
world where human rights are fulfilled by simply waking up alive and
where democratic republics are anything but.

The UN Special Rapporteur found no improvement in Burundi. Children
were still being recruited as soldiers; mass rape had increased and
now was aimed at young boys as well as girls. The latter was "a new
phenomenon", said Rapporteur Ms Keita-Bocoum.

In neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, where three million
people have died in the past five years of fighting, another UN
Special Rapporteur described it as the "worst human rights situation
in the world". She footnoted a special concern for the unlucky
children named as "sorcerers", who were maimed or killed for their
witchcraft.

It was business as usual. Before the early break for Ramadan, Burkina
Faso, the Congo and Zimbabwe co-sponsored human rights resolutions.
Sudan introduced one. The atmosphere remained clubby and cordial as
the Ambassador of Israel came to the microphone to present a
resolution on behalf of Israeli children.

Ambassadors don't normally present resolutions at committee level, but
since Israel had not presented one since 1978 ...it was a bit of a
first. The Israeli resolution was a mirror copy of one sponsored by
Egypt and passed (88-4, 58 abstentions) in the General Assembly three
weeks earlier, underlining the need to protect the rights of
Palestinian children.

That resolution was a bit of a first, too: no other group of children
had been singled out for protection by the UN — not the child
soldiers in Burundi, not the raped and mutilated girls and boys of the
Congo, nor children in any other of the world's impoverished or
warring nations. By tacit agreement, children have always been
considered universally at the UN.

The delegates were polite as Ambassador Dan Gillerman spoke. He asked
for security for Israeli, Palestinian and all children of the world.
He spoke of a "false reality" that pretends one side has a monopoly on
victim status. He wished, he said, to prevent the blatant exercise of
a double-standard in the UN.

He mentioned the deliberate bombing of discos, pizza parlors and
school buses, almost exclusively used by children. When he finished,
the session chairman did not ask the names of co-sponsors for the
Israeli resolution. Because there were none.

A discussion followed. The Syrian delegate strenuously opposed
assistance of Israeli children and said the resolution was
procedurally wrong. The Palestinian Authority's lady complained that
the Israelis had "copied" their resolution.

The situation of Palestinian children was "unique" she said —
which it may well be, since most children of the world are not used as
human shields for terrorist camps or encouraged to be suicide bombers
so their pictures can be put up in grocery stores as "martyrs".

It is as if British children in the Second World War had not been
evacuated to the countryside but rather placed around the War Office
and anti-aircraft embankments. Afterwards, the PA lady conference[d]
earnestly for 20 minutes with a French delegate over procedurally
thwarting the Israeli resolution so it would not come to a vote.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1103/amiel_2003_11_18.php3