The UN is a major source of funding for highly politicized
NGOs. For example, the website
for the Gaza section of the UN Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights includes the following information:
Assistance was provided to the Palestinian
Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) to support the establishment
of a Women and Group Rights' Unit, …. OHCHR has supported
a similar effort in the West Bank within the organization LAW.
Assistance provided to al-Mezan
Centre for Human Rights, which focused on economic and social
rights, to strengthen its fieldwork unit [sic]. OHCHR, Gaza
is also assisting other non-governmental organizations to conduct
work in the law reform area.
As NGO Monitor has shown, these and other NGOs supported
by the OHCHR are active in the anti-Israel demonization campaigns
and incitement.
“The
UN-NGO Connection: Anti-semitism gets a global handshake”,
Eye on the UN
”…the UN ought not to be in the business of providing
links to websites encouraging anti-semitism or the destruction
of a UN member state.”
NGOs listed on the accompanying
UN “Question of Palestine” NGO database include
B'Tselem,
International
Commission of Jurists, Medecins
Sans Frontieres (Jerusalem), Oxfam
(America, Quebec and United Kingdom), Palestine
Children Relief Fund, Palestinian
NGO Network, Save
the Children, Union
of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC), World Alliance
of YMCAs
and World
Vision International, as well as organs of the Lutheran, Presbyterian,
Quaker, Methodist, and World Council of Churches, among others.
“Speakers
at Caracas Meeting Explore Situation in Occupied Palestinian Territory”,
UN Department of Public Information, December 14, 2005
”UN
Conference Features a Call for the End of the Jewish State”,
Eye on the UN
“Coordinator, Israeli Committee against House Demolitions,
Jerusalem, Jeff Halper, told participants this afternoon at the
United Nations Latin American and Caribbean Meeting on the Question
of Palestine, that given the facts on the ground, a two-State
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was no longer viable.”
As demonstrated by previous
NGO Monitor analyses, ICAHD receives the bulk of its funding
from the EU.
Briefing on NGOs and UN Reform – President
of the UN General Assembly, United Nations Headquarters,
December 16, 2005
The discussions on much needed UN
reform include the role of NGOs. Through the sponsorship of
such UN bodies as ECOSOC and the Human Rights Commission, NGOs
have long enjoyed direct access and influence, although they lack
the accountability of governments. In some cases, this influence
has supported the UN in promoting peace (“NGOs
Urge New UN Council to Bar Abusive Regimes”, UN
Watch, November 22, 2005), but in other cases, NGOs have
been sources of conflict, as in the Human
Rights Commission and the 2001
UN Conference on Racism in Durban. On this basis, on December
16, Jan Eliasson, the President of the General Assembly, convened
a briefing on NGOs and UN reform, with presentations from the
co-chairs overseeing negotiations on Management and Secretariat
Reform, ECOSOC Reform and Development, the nascent Human Rights
Council, and General Assembly Revitalization. To view the briefing
on UN Webcast, click
here>>>>
For a summary of the proceedings, click
here>>>>
Hillel C. Neuer, “The
Struggle against Anti-Israel Bias at the UN Commission on Human
Rights”, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,
January 1, 2006
”The campaign to demonize Israel cripples the functioning
of the UN…. The overt bias against one state undermines
its credibility and integrity….It is to be hoped that many
more UN officials, member states, NGOs, and others will take part
in actively opposing this longstanding inequality.”
Warren Hoge, “Officials
at U.N. Seek Fast Action on Rights Panel”, New York
Times, January 1, 2006
”Having struggled through scandal, United Nations
officials have decided they must act within weeks to produce an
alternative to the Human Rights Commission.” According to
HRW Exec-Dir Kenneth Roth: "If the governments of the world
cannot get together on human rights at the U.N., then it is a
shameful act for the entire organization". The article fails
to note the contribution of HRW and other NGOs to the process
by which the UNHRC has been discredited: Through adoption of radical
political agendas and reports that are based on claims that lack
credibility.