The terror enabling UN

The Cape Times gleefully points out:
UN expert warns bulldozer maker of complicity with Israeli rights abuses
Sapa.

Geneva: A UN-appointed expert said yesterday that he has warned Caterpillar Inc that Israel`s use of bulldozers to destroy West Bank orchards could make the company an accomplice in the violation of basic human rights of the Palestinians.

Jean Ziegler, the United Nations` special expert on the right to food, said he had sent a letter to Caterpillar chief executive James Owen expressing concern `about the actions of the Israeli occupation forces in Rafah and in other locations in Gaza and the West Bank.`

Ziegler said his letter was the first under a new resolution passed this year by the 53-nation UN Human Rights Commission extending responsibility for protecting rights beyond governments to `non-state actors`.

He wrote to Owen under the letterhead of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the overall UN watchdog, and sent his letter on his own as he was entitled to do, a spokesman said.

The Israelis are `using armoured bulldozers supplied by your company to destroy agricultural farms, greenhouses, ancient olive groves and agricultural fields planted with crops,` the May 28 letter said.

Ziegler, a Swiss university professor who has previously criticised Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, told The Associated Press that he had yet to receive a response from the company.

No comment was immediately available from Caterpillar headquarters in Peoria, Illinois.

`Allowing the delivery of your D-9 and D-10 Caterpillar bulldozers to the Israeli army through the government of the United States in the certain knowledge that they are being used for such actions might involve complicity or acceptance on the part of your company to actual and potential violations of human rights, including the right to food,` Ziegler said in the letter.

The Israelis have also used the bulldozers to destroy `numerous Palestinian homes and sometimes human lives, including that of the American peace activist Rachel Corrie,` he said.

For the UN, "human rights" excludes the right of Israelis to live and to defend themselves against terrorism.

This is not the first time in history that people are being urged to not do business with the Jews. Wish we had some sort of precedent to guage the intent and likely results of such policies.

Message to Professor Ziegler. The Palestinians are using ambulances supplied by your organization company to transport weapons and bombs to destroy Jewish lives. What are you going to do about that?

You can contact the Special Rapporteur, Jean Ziegler
or the rest of the team directly on email or by post at the following address:

specialrapporteur@righttofood.org

Research Unit on the Right to Food
Institut Universitaire d’Etudes du Dévelopment
Case Postale 136
CH-1211 Genève 21
Suisse/Switzerland

Contact Caterpillar and thank them for continuing to do business with Israel.

Comments

[ArbPoster]

The UN makes me sick