"United" Nations? Really?

 As appeared on Arutz Sheva/Israel National News and my Times of Israel Blog.

 

The Palestinian Authority’s ability to recently submit a UN resolution and demand a vote for the “Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria within six months” goes against every core principle in the UN Charter. The fact that UN recently gave the PA, an organization with a terrorist history (PLO) and a pay-for-slay government policy, Member status, also goes against the UN’s foundational principles.

Some background. Formed in the aftermath of World War II (1945) by the major Allied powers, the UN now has 193 members. They all must agree and sign onto the foundational agreement known as the Charter of the United Nations. This document established its ideals and purposes.

Those ideals and purposes: “…practice tolerance and live together in peace … maintain international peace and security…to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression… …sovereign equality.... refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state… ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles… A Member which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization…”

How’s United Nations living up to the lofty ideals, which every member country solemnly swore to uphold? Here are just a few examples:

•    UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is a specialized agency established to promote international collaboration in the fields of education, science, culture, and communication. Yet UNESCO consistently ignores archeological and historical proof, and national sovereignty, when it comes to Israel. Because of this, both the U.S. and Israel left the organization in 2017 in protest. (The US has since returned.) According to UN Watch, over the eight years between 2009 and 2017, UNESCO adopted 60 resolutions against Israel. Yet during this same time period, only 6 resolutions on Crimea; 4 on Iraq; 2 on Syria; and none on Iran, Sudan, North Korea, or any other country in the world.

•    According to their website, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a specialized agency of the UN to provide assistance and protection to Palestinian refugees. This agency was created in response to the displacement caused by the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, initially serving around 750,000 Arab refugees. Today, it now supports approximately 5.9 million registered Arabs (now known as Palestinian refugees), descendants of the original 750,000. This ignores and duplicates the mission of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Omitted is their recently exposed treasonous role of teaching and inciting a terroristic curriculum to children over the decades, and even hiring known members of designated terrorist organizations.

Two facts of note: 1. Refugee status only applies to the one displaced, not to future generations, as they are citizens of where they are born. 2. Post-1949, approximately 850,000 Jews were thrown out of Arab countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, etc.), in which Jews lived for many generations - nearly 1,000 years. They were given only days to leave, many with just the clothes on their backs. Interestingly, there are no Jewish refugees today, as they became citizens of countries in which they settled.

Two questions: 1. Why are Palestinian Refugees different than all other refugees in the world? 2. What is the origin of the word “Palestine?”

•    The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has a standing agenda item, Agenda Item 7. It focuses on the "Human Rights Situation in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories." This agenda item is unique in that it singles out Israel for scrutiny. No other country is subject to a similar standing agenda.

•    The UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), plays the UNHRC’s role in promoting women's rights. A key mission is “Ending Violence Against Women” by addressing and preventing all forms of violence against women and girls. Yet, UN Women (and other women’s groups), have been notably silent after the documented barbaric atrocities by Hamas and Gazans on Israeli women on October 7. The UN Women is governed by an Executive Board composed of 41 member states with seats proportionally distributed by geography, not performance. Countries with poor to terrible records of abuse have been, and are, on the Executive Board.

•    UN Security Council or General Assembly. There have been no condemnations against Iran and all their terrorist proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, and others) or the inhuman brutalities they have wrought against innocent civilians over the past year.

You may think the writer is only focused on Israel. In the interest of brevity and space, let’s also ask, what about any condemnation on:

•    5.3 million Syrian refugees (per the UN Refugee Agency), 7.2 million displaced, and over 306,887 civilians killed (per UN estimates). The UN is silent.

•    Kurdish-Turkish Conflict, this ongoing conflict (began in 1978), has led to the displacement of up to 3 million people, primarily Kurds, with significant casualties over the years. The UN is silent.

•    Yazidis has faced severe persecution and displacement, particularly following the 2014 genocide perpetrated by ISIS in Sinjar, Iraq. The UN is silent.

•    More. Sadly much more, all without any UN consequences. The UN is silent.

Compare and contrast. Go on the internet and review the UN Charter. Are the members adhering to the principles they signed? Where and what are the consequences for not following the principles they swore to uphold? Just start with condemning and punishing (expulsion, sanctions, etc.) the obvious true evil culprits and support the victims and members who live up to the ideals of a united nations organization.

The PA’s demands are tantamount to an act of war against Israel. For example, demanding the total Israeli withdrawal from historical Judea-Samaria, engaging in world-wide BDS, accusing barbs of apartheid against Israel (a country whose Arab-Muslim population has actually increased the State of Israel was established) versus that of the PA that has affected ethnic cleansing of Jews and Christians (since the PA took control Beit Leḥem/Bethlehem, for example, now has no Jews and a decimated Christian population).

It is disheartening that the PA is even able to propose and demand such a resolution.
It blatantly demonstrates the UN’s continued lack of adherence to its core mission.
It makes the idealistic organization called the United Nations embarrassing and useless.

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