Mexican Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, now a candidate for the post of U.N. high commissioner for human rights in Geneva, is defending his record as president of the U.N. Human Rights Council during 2006-’07.

In a May 19 post, The Telegraph reported that U.N. Watch said de Alba “oversaw the massive erosion of what was already a problematic institution” and “oversaw the singling out of Israel as a permanent agenda item at the Human Rights Council.”

De Alba defended himself in an email to JTA, blaming the council’s record on its members:

While fully respecting the views of all stakeholders with regards to the way in which I conducted the Presidency of the Human Rights Council, I would like to make the following precisions: the decisions adopted by the Council throughout its first year of work (and indeed during its existence) are the result of collective decisions, and therefore the responsibility of all its Members.

He also says:

The Human Rights Council has been able to address urgent situations through the holding of Special Sessions, not only with regards to the situation on the Middle East, but also on Darfur, Myanmar, and, currently the concerns raised by the World food crisis.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, says this is “grossly misleading.” He counts four special sessions on Israel, one on Darfur, one on Myanmar and one on food (for those keeping count). Since the creation of the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2006, Neuer counts 19 condemnatory resolutions on Israel, four on Myanmar and one on North Korea.

That’s none for Sudan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other places where rape victims are punished with lashes (Saudi Arabia), honor killings are unofficially sanctioned (Jordan) and citizens can be killed by their government simply for being born black (Sudan).

You can read de Alba’s full response to JTA here: (more…)

One of the top candidates to be the new U.N. high commissioner for human rights may bring the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva to new lows, warns one pro-Israel watchdog organization.

Mexican Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba — who is the front-runner for the post, according to Human Rights Tribune, rarely missed an opportunity to single out Israel for special opprobrium during his year as president of the Council, according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch. Neuer clashed with de Alba in this session of the Human Rights Council.

This week, Neuer had this to say to JTA about de Alba, who was president of the Human Rights Council from mid-2006 to mid-2007:

“His record was one of weakness, at best, in the face of the takeover by the Islamic group of the Human Rights Council. He oversaw the massive erosion of what was already a problematic institution. Under his watch, the supposedly reformed U.N. Council ended its scrutiny of Belarus, ended its scrutiny of Cuba, and he refused to let Canada vote on its package of reforms. He also oversaw the singling out of Israel as a permanent agenda item at the Human Rights Council.”

The current high commissioner, Louise Arbour, has held the post for four years. She, too, has endured her fair share of criticism from the pro-Israel camp — residents of Sderot stoned her when she visited the town in November 2006, just a few months after she warned during the Israel-Hezbollah war that “those in positions of command and control” could be subject to “personal criminal responsibility” for their actions in the 2006 war. But if Arbour is succeeded by de Alba, the Council will only get worse, Neuer warns.

Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, who can be seen here smiling with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a meeting in Tehran in March, reportedly is another leading candidate for Arbour’s position.

The U.N. high commissioner for human rights is an appointee of the U.N. secretary-general. Spokesman Brenden Varma told JTA on Monday that Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon hopes to make his appointment by the end of June.

Another day, another tongue lashing from Anne Bayefsky. Bayefsky, the director of the Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust at Touro College, has become a Jewish gadfly here in Geneva, as speechifying diplomats wrapped the first week of a two-week “preparatory” session for the 2009 World Conference Against Racism. A common theme here is for Arab, Islamic and African nations to they’re racist, then point their fingers at Israel for racism. So for a fourth straight day, Bayfesky weighed in. “I wasn’t planning to say anything,” she said, after singling out Iran, Syria, Senegal and Algeria for hypocrisy. “But their words strained credulity, so I couldn’t let it go unanswered.” She’s become such an irritant for Arab anti-Israel sentiment that the Egyptian ambassador couldn’t help but express his frustration with her on Thursday. “This has become a daily show,” he said, “and we are sick and tired of it.”

While Israel boycotts the forum because of its distinctly anti-Israel vibe, one quasi-Israeli mills about — “kind of undercover,” as he puts it. Khazriel Ben Yehuda isn’t actually a citizen, but a permanent resident of Israel for 30 years. You wouldn’t guess it from his dapper African-looking garb. Ben Yehuda hails from Israel’s small Black Israelite community. “I don’t really announce I’m from Israel, like a Malian wouldn’t announce ‘I’m from Mali!,’” says Ben Yehuda, who spoke on behalf of the African Hebrew Israelite Development Agency, based in Ghana and in his Israeli hometown of Dimona. Still, he sees the forum like an Israeli would: “When you get down to it, the Arab and Islamic countries tend to dominate.”

Noel Hidalgo/Creative Commons

JTA correspondent Michael J. Jordan visits with the diplomats in Geneva preparing for the 2009 World Conference Against Racism as they seek to widen the definition of anti-Semitism to include Islamophobia – Arabs are Semites, after all – and talk of the importance of focusing on “state racism.” Guess which state?

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