Reading of the cited text show [sic] no evidence of advocacy whatsoever for the Al-Assad regime winning a seat.. it merely accurately predicts the failure of the US department’s attempts.

Really?  Well, let’s read his 2001 Washington Report article together.

Did Williams merely offer a prediction, with “no evidence of advocacy whatsoever for the Al-Assad regime”?

The opposite is true. Consider:

• Williams blatantly crossed the line from news reporting to shilling for Assad when he praised the State Department for “wisely” having “resisted any urgings to launch a campaign against the Syrian candidacy.”  Those who do news — just see any U.N. dispatch from Reuters or AP — do not, ever, interject judgments like “wisely” when reporting government positions, let alone on a dictator’s U.N. candidacy.

• Williams also crossed that line into hackery when he attacked opposition to Syria’s bid — a morally obvious, just and noble opposition by any human rights standard — and portrayed it as entirely negative.  In Williams’ rendering, raising Syria’s crimes against peace and human rights was nothing but “a campaign to discredit Syria.” In Orwellian fashion, to oppose Assad was to act illegitimately.
• Williams’ piece focused entirely on Israel. He refused to address the merits of Syria’s bid — if anything, he argued that the regime was a good neighbor that did not run afoul of U.N. resolutions — and he omitted to mention the documentation by major human rights groups of Syria’s systematic repression. For Williams, the notion that Syria was a state sponsor of terrorism would “carry little weight in the international community.” Why? Because, he argued, Israel is a criminal. This was his logic.

Finally, Williams tries now to recast his 2001 piece as something that “merely accurately predict[ed] the failure of the US department’s attempts.”  Yet in fact his original article made no mention of any such attempts. On the contrary, he wrote that the State Department had so far not made any attempts at all — “wisely.”

The post U.N. reporter Ian Williams denies endorsing Syrian bid for Security Council seat appeared first on UN Watch.

A key factor was that the world body mandated to hold such criminal regimes to account — the United Nations — turned a blind eye to Syrian murder, massacre and terror.

Prior to last year’s Arab Spring, during the decades that Mideast dictators were strong, neither the U.N.’s General Assembly or its Human Rights Council ever passed a single resolution on Hama — or on any other barbaric Syrian human rights violation.

Worst of all, in October 2001, the U.N. voted overwhelmingly to elect Syria to the Security Council, no doubt acting, as required by the U.N. Charter, out of due regard specially paid to Syria’s contribution “to the maintenance of international peace and security” and “to the other purposes of the Organization.”

One of the figures on the international stage shilling loudest for Bashar al-Assad’s election to the U.N. Security Council was Ian Williams of The Guardian, a long-time contributor to the Washington Report, a publication known for consistently opposing action for victims of Libya, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle East dictatorships.

Writing a few months before the U.N. vote, Williams’s role in the well-circulated Washington report was to bolster Bashar al-Assad’s chances of victory by pressuring U.S. State Department officials to drop any idea of opposing Syria’s bid — which is exactly what American diplomats did last year, successfully, to keep Assad off the Human Rights Council.

Using the same methods as the Assads themselves, Williams reframed the discussion away from Syria’s despicable record by pointing at the Israeli bogeyman. It worked: Syria was elected by a huge majority of 160 out of 177 votes.

The massive vote to the prestigious position empowered the Assad regime. According to the BBC, Syria interpreted its election as a sign of international support. “The wide support for Syria constitutes a referendum and a clear message that these allegations [of Syrian support for terrorism] are void and false,” boasted Damascus. “I’m proud for this great success,” said the Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Mikhail Wehbe. “Syria will pray to preserve the peace and security in the world.”

Now is the time to ask: If the lobbying of Ian Williams — who makes sure to portray himself objectively as the former head of the UN Correspondents Association and not as a pro-Assad contributor to a pro-regime publication, or as a regular on Iran’s Press TV propaganda channel — had been rejected, and if instead the Syrian regime’s brutality had been exposed and Assad stripped of international legitimacy, would he still be in power and murdering his own citizens today?

____________________

Washington Report
August/September 2001 (Vol. XX; No. 6), Pg. 22

“United Nations Report: Despite Israel’s Anti-Damascus Campaign, Syria Headed for Security Council Seat”

By Ian Williams
When Israeli politicians get a bee in their bonnet, the buzzing usually can be heard loudly around the domes of Capitol Hill. The credibility of this Israeli administration, however, must leave something to be desired—or perhaps the Knesset’s angry froth has subsided in the face of reality. For, regardless of Israel’s campaign to discredit Syria, Damascus is pretty much assured of a place in the Security Council next year.

The Council’s temporary seats are allocated according to regional groups. Because the Arab states straddle Asia and Africa they have a complex rotation system which ensures that candidate states usually are elected unopposed. To block the election, Israel and the U.S. would have had to find another Asian Arab state prepared to contest the seat. Amazingly enough, none of them is rushing to fulfill Israeli whims.

Previous attempts to derail—as in the case of Libya, for example—were successful because, on the one hand, there were official U.N. sanctions against Tripoli and, on the other hand, Muammar Qaddafi had become a thorn in the side of his Arab neighbors. Neither situation applies to Syria, which now has good relations even with its former archenemy, Iraq.

Israeli accusations about Syria being a “terrorist” state will carry little weight in the international community, coming as they do from a country whose cabinet has just blithely sat down and publicly authorized the assassination of several dozen Palestinian leaders and officials—not to mention a country that itself is in defiance of so many U.N. resolutions! So far, the State Department seems wisely to have resisted any urgings to launch a campaign against the Syrian candidacy that would so surely fail. Arab unity is often almost an oxymoron, but in this case, at least, it should hold the line.

The post The Guardian’s Ian Williams Lobbied for Bashar al-Assad’s Syria to Join UN Security Council appeared first on UN Watch.

A key factor was that the world body mandated to hold such criminal regimes to account — the United Nations — turned a blind eye to Syrian murder, massacre and terror.

Prior to last year’s Arab Spring, during the decades that Mideast dictators were strong, neither the U.N.’s General Assembly or its Human Rights Council ever passed a single resolution on Hama — or on any other barbaric Syrian human rights violation.

Worst of all, in October 2001, the U.N. voted overwhelmingly to elect Syria to the Security Council, no doubt acting, as required by the U.N. Charter, out of due regard specially paid to Syria’s contribution “to the maintenance of international peace and security” and “to the other purposes of the Organization.”

One of the figures on the international stage shilling loudest for Bashar al-Assad’s election to the U.N. Security Council was Ian Williams of The Guardian, a long-time contributor to the Washington Report, a publication known for consistently opposing action for victims of Libya, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle East dictatorships.

Writing a few months before the U.N. vote, Williams’s role in the well-circulated Washington report was to bolster Bashar al-Assad’s chances of victory by pressuring U.S. State Department officials to drop any idea of opposing Syria’s bid — which is exactly what American diplomats did last year, successfully, to keep Assad off the Human Rights Council.

Using the same methods as the Assads themselves, Williams reframed the discussion away from Syria’s despicable record by pointing at the Israeli bogeyman. It worked: Syria was elected by a huge majority of 160 out of 177 votes.

The massive vote to the prestigious position empowered the Assad regime. According to the BBC, Syria interpreted its election as a sign of international support. “The wide support for Syria constitutes a referendum and a clear message that these allegations [of Syrian support for terrorism] are void and false,” boasted Damascus. “I’m proud for this great success,” said the Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Mikhail Wehbe. “Syria will pray to preserve the peace and security in the world.”

Now is the time to ask: If the lobbying of Ian Williams — who makes sure to portray himself objectively as the former head of the UN Correspondents Association and not as a pro-Assad contributor to a pro-regime publication, or as a regular on Iran’s Press TV propaganda channel — had been rejected, and if instead the Syrian regime’s brutality had been exposed and Assad stripped of international legitimacy, would he still be in power and murdering his own citizens today?

____________________

Washington Report
August/September 2001 (Vol. XX; No. 6), Pg. 22

“United Nations Report: Despite Israel’s Anti-Damascus Campaign, Syria Headed for Security Council Seat”

By Ian Williams
When Israeli politicians get a bee in their bonnet, the buzzing usually can be heard loudly around the domes of Capitol Hill. The credibility of this Israeli administration, however, must leave something to be desired—or perhaps the Knesset’s angry froth has subsided in the face of reality. For, regardless of Israel’s campaign to discredit Syria, Damascus is pretty much assured of a place in the Security Council next year.

The Council’s temporary seats are allocated according to regional groups. Because the Arab states straddle Asia and Africa they have a complex rotation system which ensures that candidate states usually are elected unopposed. To block the election, Israel and the U.S. would have had to find another Asian Arab state prepared to contest the seat. Amazingly enough, none of them is rushing to fulfill Israeli whims.

Previous attempts to derail—as in the case of Libya, for example—were successful because, on the one hand, there were official U.N. sanctions against Tripoli and, on the other hand, Muammar Qaddafi had become a thorn in the side of his Arab neighbors. Neither situation applies to Syria, which now has good relations even with its former archenemy, Iraq.

Israeli accusations about Syria being a “terrorist” state will carry little weight in the international community, coming as they do from a country whose cabinet has just blithely sat down and publicly authorized the assassination of several dozen Palestinian leaders and officials—not to mention a country that itself is in defiance of so many U.N. resolutions! So far, the State Department seems wisely to have resisted any urgings to launch a campaign against the Syrian candidacy that would so surely fail. Arab unity is often almost an oxymoron, but in this case, at least, it should hold the line.

The post The Guardian’s Ian Williams Lobbied for Bashar al-Assad’s Syria to Join UN Security Council appeared first on UN Watch.