Iran Becomes Member of Durban II Inner Drafting Circle

EYEontheUN reports that Iran has become a member of the "Group of Friends of the Chair", an informal group of states charged with taking the first steps towards producing a Durban II manifesto. Anne Bayefsky, Editor of EYEontheUN says: "the travesty of Durban II as a vehicle for getting serious about combating racism is more obvious than ever, as a regime whose President is a Holocaust-denier acquires an important role in shaping the result."

Durban II - known formally as the UN Durban Review Conference - will be held next April in Geneva. It is charged with implementing the notorious 2001 Durban Declaration which found Israel guilty of racism and gave no other country even a passing mention.

The role of his "friends" is described by Armenian Chairman Zohrab Mnatsakanian as "engaging in brainstorming and consolidating inputs." Other members of the behind-the-scenes group are Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Egypt. Bayefsky adds, "one shudders to imagine the brainstorming among such human rights paragons."

The "friends of the Chair" have already met twice in July 2008 and intend to meet again shortly.

By creating this informal group, UN states have deliberately created a forum which excludes NGOs for the first time from the Durban II process.

The first contribution of the "Group of Friends" will be filed at the next stage of the process, the 'Intersessional Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group' session to be held in Geneva September 1-5, 2008.

"The authority figures surrounding Durban II remind us once again that this forum is an instrument serving those states bent on defeating human rights not protecting them," said Bayefsky.

Samir Kuntar, a typical arab stain on humanity

A small word of advice for Samir Kuntar. Ask your comrades in the PLO and Hizbullah what was the ultimate fate of various killers of Israelis and Jews years after they thought their actions were forgotten.

For example, what happened to the killers of Israel's athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and their masterminds?

The last of them died in unnatural circumstances 24 years after that horrific massacre.

So learn from the past and draw your conclusions, Samir Kuntar. It would be in your best interests to learn to sleep with one eye open, you filthy nazi Arab rat, for even though you may learn how to do sleep, it will not save you as everyone knows you will not live long enough to tell the story to your grandchildren of how you bashed in the brains of a 4 year old Jewish child with your rifle butt in front of the child's father. Via JPost:

Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese Druse, was sentenced to four life sentences in 1979 for the deaths of Danny Haran, 28, his two daughters and a policeman in Nahariya.

A member of the Palestine Liberation Front, Kuntar and four others sailed 10 kilometers under the cover of night from south Lebanon to Nahariya in a 55-horse-power rubber boat. The mission, led by Kuntar and titled the Nasser Operation, brought the terrorists to the Nahariya coast around midnight on April 22, 1979.

The group murdered police officer Eliahu Shahar after he stumbled upon the gang. The men then entered an apartment building at Rehov Jabotinski 61 and broke into the Haran family's apartment, taking them hostage.

Kuntar's gang took Danny and four-year-old Einat Haran hostage as police reinforcements arrived on the scene.

Haran's wife, Smadar, hid with her two-year-old daughter Yael in a crawl space above the couple's bedroom. Smadar tried to muffle the girl's cries, and accidentally smothered her.

As officers arrived at the building, the terrorists pulled Danny and Einat out of the apartment building and down to the beach, where a shootout with police and soldiers ensued.

Kuntar shot Danny Haran at close-range and threw his body into the sea to make sure he died. He then bashed 4 year old Einat's head on rocks and with butt of his rifle, killing her instantly.

Two terrorists were killed by police during the shootout, while Kuntar and Ahmed al-Abrass were captured.

Abrass was released in May 1985 during the Ahmed Jibril prisoner exchange, while Kuntar remained in prison.

In a 2003 article in The Washington Post, Smadar Haran recalled her final moments with Danny.

"I will never forget the joy and the hatred in [the terrorists'] voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades," Haran wrote. "As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. 'This is just like what happened to my mother,' I thought."

Kuntar has openly expressed pride about the killings over the years.

He hails from the Lebanese mountain village of Aabey and has been in Israeli prison longer than any other Lebanese.

Many say Hizbullah kidnapped IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser in 2006 to use them as bargaining tools to force Kuntar's release.

Kuntar got married while in prison and he receives conjugal visits from his wife.

His release has been brought up before in negotiations with Hizbullah head Hassan Nasrallah. In 2006, he was offered as part of a failed deal to free Goldwasser and Regev.

Two years earlier, Hizbullah demanded Kuntar's release a part of the Elhannan Tannenbaum prisoner deal that sent 435 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners back home.