Sadly, it’s not hard to find world leaders far less deserving of recognition than former U.N. Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) head Mary Robinson. Yet that in no way means that she should be among the 16 people rewarded by President Barack Obama with the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

There are solid reasons as to why nearly every major Jewish organization is speaking out against this announcement. What did Mrs. Robinson do that offends so many Jews and others in the pro-Israel community?

• For starters, she presided over the anti-Semitic/anti-Zionist flavor that permeated the 2001 U.N. World Conference on Racism, the high profile so-called Durban Conference, named for its locale in South Africa. Under the leadership of then Secretary of State Colin Powell, the United States and many other civilized nations boycotted the event – after giving months of notice over their concerns.

• During an interview to the British Broadcasting Corporation following, despite attempts to pass a “Zionism=Racism” statement in the Durban text, Mrs. Robinson described the event’s outcome as “remarkably good, including on the issues of the Middle East.”

• In 2002, under her leadership the UNHRC tried to condone Palestinian suicide bombings and terrorism as a legitimate means to establish Palestinian statehood. As the German ambassador said in explaining his vote against the measure, “The text contains formulations that might be interpreted as an endorsement of violence [and] no condemnation whatsoever of terrorism.”

Let’s be clear: I’m not interested in standing in the way of those who wish to criticize the human rights policies of Israel, the U.S. or any other nation. (I’ve been known to do that when I felt it was justified.) However, the pathological obsession with the Jewish state’s alleged negative behavior often comes from serial human rights abusers who are given a big juicy pass over their own well-documented atrocious behavior.

Likewise, no one doubts that Mr. Obama is interested in shining the spotlight on those who promote human rights. However, doing so by honoring an individual who presided over a xenophobic debacle does not advance such a noble cause.