To the compendium of great oratorical rejoinders — a list that includes “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” and “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy” — we can now add this: “In truth, the dictators who run this council couldn’t care less about Palestinians, or about any human rights.”

That was Hillel Neuer, executive director of the American Jewish Committee-affiliated UN Watch, in his brief but powerful remarks to the United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva on March 23. The council had just heard from moral exemplars from places like Sudan, Iran, and Syria, who lined up to accuse Israel of colonialism, apartheid, and terrorism. When it was Neuer’s turn, he invoked the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt and others who established the UN’s human rights agenda and asked, “What has become of their noble dream?”

Neuer accused the council of doing exactly nothing in response to “compelling reports from around the world of torture, persecution, and violence against women.” He also described the Arab-on-Arab violence that has claimed 130 Palestinian lives in recent months. Again the UN is silent, and why? “Because, in truth, the dictators who run this council couldn’t care less about Palestinians, or about any human rights. They seek to demonize Israeli democracy, to delegitimize the Jewish state, to scapegoat the Jewish people. They also seek something else: to distort and pervert the very language and idea of human rights.”

It’s an amazing speech, and it earned an amazing response. The president of the council, Luis Alfonso de Alba, declared that for the first time in the session, “I will not express thanks for that statement.” (He had no problem thanking the Sudanese after they dismissed claims of atrocities against women in Darfur as “exaggerated.”) He added that he would “not tolerate any similar statements in the council.”

Mr. de Alba’s reaction would be amusing if it weren’t for the shameful record of the council, which again last week declined to exert any pressure on the murderous Arab regime running Sudan. Video clips of Neuer’s speech and de Alba’s reaction make for great cathartic viewing. Would only that the rest of the world would watch and get the message.