The UN Human Rights Council, where Rwanda has pledged to defend its friend Israel, is a human rights abusers council as much as not. Its 47 members include Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, the Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and the United States of America, to name a few. The General Assembly elects its members to three-year terms through direct and secret ballot. Votes are putatively based on “the candidate States’ contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights, as well as their voluntary pledges and commitments in this regard.” They are in fact the result of politicking, vote trading, and slates in the five geographical groups represented: Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia Pacific, Western Europe and Other [Western] States, and Eastern Europe. The African nations simply rotate off and on, so that none are ever singled out as unfit to serve.
The Council has nevertheless managed to make Israel cry persecution and call on Rwanda to come to the rescue. In March of this year alone, it passed five resolutions censuring Israel—with the United States and Togo joining to vote against all five. According to AIPAC, “the UN Human Rights Council has passed 67 resolutions condemning the Jewish state since its inception in 2006, more than it has levied against all other countries combined.”
Who could be better suited to the task of standing up to such injustice than Rwanda, Israel’s perpetual partner in persecution? Upon Kagame’s arrival this week, Netanyahu repeated the “never again” pledge at the root of the Israel/Rwanda pact and the US/NATO ideology of humanitarian military “intervention”:
“We have pledged, I think, both our peoples, one simple pledge. Never again. Never again. We who witnessed the greatest holocaust in history, you who witnessed perhaps one of the most recent ones. Never again. That’s another great bond between us.”
Kagame, in turn, welcomed Israel’s expansion on the African continent:
“Ever since the Prime Minister’s historic visit to East Africa last year, Israel has continued to follow through on its commitment and objective of scaling up engagement across Africa. This is a very positive trend which can only be welcomed and merits our support. We are looking forward to reinforcing our collaboration with Israel on common challenges of mutual interest.”
Current collaborations include Israel’s security forces training Rwanda’s. By the second day of his visit, Kagame was claiming that he needs Israel’s help to defeat jihadists in Rwanda—a nation that is more than 95 percent Christian—because al-Shabaab might spread south from Somalia, Boko Haram east from Nigeria. “We need these capacities,” he said, “to prevent that from happening and to deal with it when it happens.”
In fact, Kagame needs a fierce, all-pervasive military police force to control his own people, the majority of whom are Hutus who have been demonized, impoverished, and/or imprisoned by his de facto Tutsi dictatorship, much like Palestinians in their own homeland.