Israel: U.N.'s favorite punching bag - by Hal Lindsey At long last, somebody from the U.S. Senate has taken notice of the new U.N. Human Rights Council and concluded it is no different than the inept and corrupt organization that it was designed to replace. The U.N. Human Rights Council has spent the full period of its existence investigating Israeli "violations" of human rights, to the exclusion of all other nations. Of all the nations in the world, Israel is the only one to earn the special status of being permanently placed on the UNHRC's monthly agenda. First, the UNHRC examines Israel, and then, if there is any time left, they go to new business. To date, there's been no time left. Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota has had enough: "You've got countries like North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe where you have state-sponsored brutality, and what we have is deafening silence," he told Haaretz. Last month, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved legislation advanced by Coleman aimed at cutting off funding to the UNHRC. The UNHRC is getting a bit of attention among the Washington establishment, as well. Assistant Secretary of State Kristen Silverberg called the council's first year a serious disappointment. She reproached member states for abandoning their responsibility to defend suffering peoples in countries like Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe and Cuba and instead devoted their energies to attacking Israel. The argument that Israel displaced hundreds of thousands of Arabs collapses when one shines the light of history on it. When Israel won its war of independence, Jews were forced to flee by the hundreds of thousands from their homes in Arab countries. According to an estimate by the House Foreign Affairs Middle East and South Asian Subcommittee, as many as 850,000 Jews fled Arab states following Israel's rebirth in 1948, their wealth, land and property confiscated. Israel absorbed its refugees, who are now integrated into Israeli society. The Arab states interned their refugees in concentration camps, where they formed Islamic terror societies. Yet the UNHRC makes no judgment on why the "refugees" are still in camps 60 years later. Instead, it blames Israel for the misery of the camps they live in, as if it were Israel who concentrated them there. Since Israel's restoration, the U.N. General Assembly has adopted 681 resolutions against the Jewish state regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, 101 of which condemned Israel for the plight of the Palestinian refugees. Just what is it about Israel that invokes such universal hatred that countries like those mentioned above get a pass for serial mass murder while the UNHRC focus all its attention on tiny Israel? While we're on the subject, why is tiny little Jerusalem, barely a suburb compared with the world's major cities, the most-watched and most important city on the face of the earth? Of all the nations of the earth, why Israel? Israel was founded on the ashes of the Holocaust, settled by survivors of Hitler's madness who had nothing left but their lives and the clothes on their backs. It's foundational rallying cry was "Never again" – a reference to the Holocaust – and it is one of the only genuine Western-style democracies in the Middle East; an oasis of freedom surrounded by a sea of malignant dictatorships. Yet even Western democracies hesitate to fellowship too closely with Israel lest they offend their Arab neighbors – the same neighbors who built the concentration camps, spawned the terrorist movement and have provided it with material and support for years. That is who the West fears alienating. Then there is Jerusalem. It is the most-watched and most analyzed strategic city on the face of the earth. It is the pivot point upon which Middle East peace, or Middle East war, is balanced. Why? The reason is because 2,500 years ago and more, the Hebrew prophets predicted this would be the case in one generation, somewhere in some future time. The prophets predicted the restoration of Israel, the unrelenting conflict with her neighbors, the global conflict that will erupt over the issue of ownership of Jerusalem, and they said that the entire scenario would play out in one generation of time. We are eyewitnesses to those events – in this generation. Israel is the key.