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4.2.12
WC: 191694

Is there no sense of shame in that building? Has the word hypocrisy lost all meaning across the street? Does no one recognize the need for a single, neutral standard of human rights? Have human rights now become the permanent weapon of choice for those who practice human wrongs? For shame. For shame.

As I spoke these harsh words in the shadow on the U.N. building, I wondered what my mentor Arthur Goldberg, who left a lifetime job on the Supreme Court, to go to the U.N., would think of what I was saying. He always defended and supported me, but he loved and admired the U.N. I think he would have approved of the thrust of my talk, if not of every word, as he did when another one of his mentees, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, used powerful words to condemn the actions of the U.N.

If an organization—governmental or non-governmental—is to remain true to a genuine commitment to universal and neutral human rights, it must prioritize the use of its resources. “The worst first” must be its governing criteria. The “worst” has two major components. First and foremost is the nature and scope of the human wrongs: genocide, mass murder, widespread torture and mutilation of dissidents, rape as a policy, slavery, genuine apartheid and other comparable abuses. Second is the inability of victims to secure relief from the judiciary, from human rights groups, from the media and from other domestic sources. Failure to prioritize is a sure sign of bias and lack of neutrality. Today’s U.N. and most “human rights” NGOs fail this test.

My defense of Western democracies, and most particularly Israel, against deliberately exaggerated charges regarding human rights, led to an offer that presented me with an existential challenge to my dual identity as an American and a Jew. In 2010, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, urged me to accept the position of Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. He told me that in order to serve in that capacity, I would have to become an Israeli citizen, though I could also retain my American citizenship. I realized immediately that I could never accept the offer, despite the reality that I would have enjoyed the job immensely. The idea of standing up against the hypocrisy and double standard of the UN appealed to me. But it was clear to me that I am an American, not an Israeli. For me to switch sides—even to a nation that is so close an ally to my own nation—would raise the spectre of dual loyalty that has been directed at Jews since Biblical times, when they lived as minorities in the lands of Egypt and Persia.105

After much discussion and arm twisting, I finally persuaded Netanyahu that if I accepted the position, it might be good for me, but it would not be good for American Jews or for Israel. So I declined, after promising the Prime Minister that I would be available, as an international lawyer and an American, to help defend Israel against unjust charges brought by international bodies such as the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and various UN agencies. I will also continue to criticize Israel’s human rights record when criticism based on a single universal standard is warranted by its actions.

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105 Quote Exodus and Esther

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