Why Is the UN Condemning Israel Over 'Women's Rights' but Ignoring Syria

The United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is set to wrap its annual conference this Friday. And according to them, the great threat to womens' rights isn't Syria, nor Iran, nor even the Taliban, but...Israel?

Haaretz explains:

Friday's session will include such professional resolution as concerning "woman and natural disasters," "women hostages," women and girls and AIDS," and "mortality among women.

However, the panel is expected to also an eight-clause resolution, determining that the "Israeli occupation" in territories, including East Jerusalem, is the main obstacle for the advancement of the Palestinian woman.[...]

Responding to the decision to condemn Israel, Israeli envoy to the UN Ron Prosor told Haaretz that the "council's bring levels of absurdity and cynicism to new heights."

"The thousands of Syrian women butchered, tortured, raped and trampled under Assad's iron boot don't even get a passing mention in the panel's decisions," Prosor added.

Along with the Syrian oversight, the resolution also fails to mention honor killings or Hamas' repression of women. Nor is this the first time the United Nations has failed to respond to other issues of brutality while condemning Israel. In 2006, Lawrence Summers, then-President of Harvard University, gave a speech denouncing the anti-Semitism of the U.N. He noted:

The United Nations-sponsored World Conference on Racism -- while failing to mention human rights abuses in China, Rwanda, or anyplace in the Arab world -- spoke of Israel’s policies prior to recent struggles under the Barak government as constituting ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The NGO declaration at the same conference was even more virulent.

Why the double standard exists is not immediately clear, though it may have something to do with the makeup of the United Nations generally. Many openly Antisemitic countries send representatives.