The United Nations and Human Rights Abuse

Wafa Sultan

When I emigrated to the United States of America from Syria, another Arab country that today is undergoing a turbulent political earthquake, never did I imagine that one day I would stand outside the United Nations to oppose its perverted conference, to defend against its malicious attempt to single out Israel -- a country that I was taught to hate.

But here I am today, proud to stand for light in the midst of darkness. This darkness brought about by the multiple Muslim countries and their international enablers, who have dishonored the initial objective of the United Nations, only to vilify, and eventually to destroy Israel - the one and the only free democratic country in the entire Middle East. For the last 1,400 years, since its inception, Islamic ideology has attempted to deprive the Jews of their three most cherished possessions -- their Bible, their Lives, and their Land of Israel.

During my school years, I heard my teachers, family members, neighbors, and the media all bombarding us daily, throughout the Arab world. We, as small kids and young adults, were indoctrinated to share the anti-Semitic vitriol -- to despise and denigrate Jews.

God condemned the Jews because they falsified the Torah. How did I know it? That is what I was taught.
Since Jews forged the Bible, they were despised and depicted as pigs and apes. How did I know it? That is what I was taught.
Jews killed our prophets and were the enemies of Allah. How did I know it? That is what I was taught.
Therefore, the Jews represent an existential danger to all humanity, so their annihilation, as individuals and as a people, was and would be a legitimate service to God and mankind. How did I know it? That is what I was taught.

Yes, killing Jews was always presented to me and my classmates as a religious obligation. We absorbed this evil propaganda with our food and water, and with our school books, each and every day.

As a trained psychiatrist, I assert that seeds of hatred planted in the mind of a child, lead to immense hatred as the child grows into adulthood. Tragically, this hatred generates dangerous actions and even death.

And so, Durban III is the end-product of exactly this lasting hatred. Let's be honest; Durban III harbors deep anti-Semitic sentiments -- the same sentiments with which my mind was poisoned; sentiments that are still taught to hundreds of millions of Arab kids throughout the Middle East.

I believe that any nation that grants equal opportunity to every citizen, regardless of race, religion, political affiliation, or gender, thereby, establishes its moral legitimacy.

According to this principle, Israel stands alone in the Middle East region, as a nation with moral legitimacy: it grants all citizens equal rights for men and women alike, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech and of the press. Not a single Arab or Muslim country in the surrounding region does the same. Nor do any of those Arab and Muslim nations allow their citizens personal freedom, or the right to maintain and express opposing points of view.

These essential qualities of life provide oxygen for the human soul; they are the kind of basic nourishment that is desperately missing in all of Israel's Muslim neighbors.

Yet, the so-called humanitarian aid organizations at the United Nations direct all their energy to act against anything and everything Israel does.

Let me ask: as every human being deserves to live in dignity, why has an enormous unbalanced portion of global aid gone mostly to Palestinians, while millions of underprivileged people all over the world suffer genuine, life-threatening deprivation?

Here is why: The United Nations time and again focuses its power on the perpetual manufacturing of false anti-Israel accusations. Painting Palestinians as perennial underdogs provides the perfect cover for their subversive effort.

Without doubt, this trend encourages hatred and violence against the Jewish people in Israel and everywhere else. And that is exactly its point.

Hence, as a woman of an Arab and Islamic background, with that perspective, I join you all today to highlight the hypocrisy of the UN. I challenge the U.N. for neglecting its fundamental mission. They do it under pressure from totalitarian Muslim regimes who put their full faith and credit of their oil wealth behind this anti-Israel campaign.

I am here to demand that the United Nations return to its objectives, to apply international law, justice and fairness equally, to all nations regardless of their size, economic conditions, or global influence.

While the United Nations obsessively attacks Israel, it merely reveals its own abysmal human rights record -- neglecting Muslim women's rights; ignoring freedoms of faith and conscience; turning a blind eye to the fate of Muslim apostates sentenced to death; failing to address the brutal treatment of Christians and other citizens of Islamic nations, and for ignoring the rights of non-Muslim foreigners living or working in Muslim countries.

A Palestinian women's organization reported that Muslim men perpetrate some 40 honor killings annually in the West Bank alone, not including the vast majority of honor killing and abuse of women that go unreported -- as Islamic society maintains secrecy in upholding the popular belief that those "cursed with a sin, [should] hide it."

Where is the UN Human Rights Commission's outcry over the Muslim world's honor killing epidemic? Has the UN adopted the same Islamic philosophy, hiding a societal sin to protect Muslim honor?

Where is the UN condemnation of Sharia law that forgives abusive and murderous men whose wives are assumed sinful? What has the UN done to stop and forbid this appalling trend?

Mr. Ban Ki-moon, please note that we, enlightened and liberated Muslims take notice. And we are enraged. Just as with Israel, the UN marginalizes enlightened and liberated Muslims, and treats them as pariahs. Elite government leaders, willfully blind Western media, arrogant Middle East studies academics and foolish UN representatives follow suit. All these presumably progressive, freethinking leaders have given their full support to Islamic totalitarian countries and rally behind their dehumanizing objectives at the UN.

I receive countless letters from Arab readers throughout the Middle East, expressing their desperate desire to live as free people with the same human rights we enjoy in the West -- and especially, freedom from Sharia!

One young Arab woman, a student, wrote to me only last month:

"They deprive us of any right to think, and ... remind us each time, how we will burn in hell. They terrorize us, and they do the same with the children. I would like that to stop. I try very hard to change things. I created a little group against sexism. And I hope to be able to defend Arab women one day."

Tell me Mr. Ban Ki-moon, who will defend this young student and her small group fighting Arab sexism and the atrocities committed against Arab women?

Concerning Islamic and Arab violence, the UN remains tragically blind and silent. The UN repeats its denunciation of Israel, the only Middle East nation that grants all citizens the basic human rights this young Arab woman wishes to have for her people.

Here is important information to expose the charade of Durban III conference: According to recent face-to-face surveys by prominent international pollsters, more Palestinians in East Jerusalem would prefer to be citizens of Israel than citizens of a new Palestinian state -- and 40% would probably or definitely move to avoid Palestinian rule. This alone demonstrates the hypocrisy of the UN and its Durban III forum.

To add salt to wound, the UN has degenerated into the puppet of Arab and Islamic forces operating freely in its own hallways and offices. It has evolved into a tool of the Organization of Islamic conference – the 56 Islamic nations seeking through the UN to impose international blasphemy laws supposedly labeled "defamation of religion."

We understand this would criminalize anyone criticizing Islam. To be specific, the UN aims to suppress free speech globally -- and especially the freedom to oppose many harsh tenets of Islam's Sharia law. Without a doubt, this plan to criminalize a genuine and necessary discourse on Islam is seditious and most dangerous.

But in spite of its attempt to silence voices of dissent, let us be frank: From Islamic point of view, the so called Arab-Palestinian-Israeli conflict is merely an Islamic Jihad, specifically targeting Jewish infidels, cultivated by sacred texts, which date to the time of Mohammed.

Even if the alleged Arab-Palestinian crisis were "solved," jihadists would continue to fulfill their Islamic duty to subdue the entire world under Islam and Sharia.

So now, I am here to stand with all of those who are in the fight to preserve our freedom. I call on all nations and people to boycott the United Nation's Durban III conference against racial discrimination.

Those who love liberty and life will strengthen their ties and warm relations with Israel, and stand with her. Israel will continue to shine its light among all nations.

Originally presented in slightly different as an address to the conference entitled, The Perils of Global Intolerance, in New York City, September 22, 2011.