While the U.N. Human Rights Council did allow Rachel Frenkel to plead her case in Geneva on Tuesday (thanks to Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch) for two minutes (which is the norm), it is hard to conclude that this extremely hypocritical and slanted organization has altered its hostile and unbalanced policy toward Israel. Israelis can sit and wait for the U.N. to issue a condemnation of the kidnapping, like the one it frantically issued when Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated or in response to the events surrounding the Turkish flotilla, but it is entirely unclear that it will arrive. The organization is quick to chastise Israel, but when three Israeli teens are abducted on their way home -- we can apparently only dream of a condemnation. We should keep in mind that a few years ago, this organization, comprising 47 member countries, elected Libya -- when Moammar Gadhafi was still in power -- to be its president. It recently added Saudi Arabia, Cuba, China and Russia to its ranks. At the meeting on Tuesday, which was one of three anti-Israeli meetings the organization routinely holds every year, representatives from Syria, Cuba, Iran and China also spoke about the situation in the region. They condemned the "Israeli occupation" of Judea and Samaria, but mostly slammed the Israel Defense Forces' actions against the Palestinian population. Representatives from Morocco, Algeria, Brazil, the Maldives and Turkey also spared no criticism of us. Ranya, a Palestinian representative, spoke for two minutes as well and touched on the kidnapping without condemning it. However, she did reprimand Israel for its response to the abduction. It was yet another opportunity for the Palestinians to condemn the incident from a humanitarian perspective. I asked Ranya after the meeting if she identified with the pain of the three Israeli mothers. "Is there enough room here for 5,000 Palestinian mothers-" she asked. She was only willing to say that she shared the pain of all suffering mothers in the world, but not the specific pain of the mothers who were there yesterday. At a social gathering In Paris on Friday, I met with many European journalists. Many of them were completely unaware of the incident. Others knew a little. Those who wanted to report about it were rebuffed by their editors because it would hurt ratings during the World Cup. There is no doubt that the mothers are undertaking a saintly endeavor. They are filled with faith in the state, the IDF and God, mainly in God. It is the source of their strength. The world is kindly requested, if it can't help, then at least not to interfere. If it does decide to help -- all the better. If not for Israel's sake then at least for the mothers. For the sake of the universal values they so love to talk about in Geneva for hours on end.
