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International
UN: Tool of RoPmA Dire Revenge™
2003-11-17
A trapped bluebottle circled the conference room, flying lazily towards the tall windows through which New York’s East River could be seen. It flew over the chair where the representative for the International Organisation for Migration sat fiddling with his UN, Japanese-made, ergonomically designed earpiece, passed over the African Union and Commonwealth Secretariat and settled somewhere by the Holy See’s seat.
There’s a bug! A bug!
Outside, it was a cold New York day. Inside, where these members of the UN’s Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural matters) gathered, the room was bathed in a comfy buzz of wellbeing, engendered when like-minded people gather together. The topic last week in Conference Room 1 of the UN was human rights in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo - a part of the world where human rights are fulfilled by simply waking up alive and where democratic republics are anything but. The UN Special Rapporteur found no improvement in Burundi. Children were still being recruited as soliders; mass rape had increased and now was aimed at young boys as well as girls. The latter was "a new phenomenon", said Rapporteur Ms Keita-Bocoum. In neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, where three million people have died in the past five years of fighting, another UN Special Rapporteur described it as the "worst human rights situation in the world". She footnoted a special concern for the unlucky children named as "sorcerers", who were maimed or killed for their witchcraft. It was business as usual. Before the early break for Ramadan, Burkina Faso, the Congo and Zimbabwe co-sponsored human rights resolutions. Sudan introduced one. The atmosphere remained clubby and cordial as the Ambassador of Israel came to the microphone to present a resolution on behalf of Israeli children.
"Treat us like you would treat anyone else in such a bind!"
Ambassadors don’t normally present resolutions at committee level, but since Israel had not presented one since 1978 (and that was withdrawn after the Syrians tied its future to negotiations with the PLO), it was a bit of a first. The Israeli resolution was a mirror copy of one sponsored by Egypt and passed (88-4, 58 abstentions) in the General Assembly three weeks earlier, underlining the need to protect the rights of Palestinian children. That resolution was a bit of a first, too: no other group of children had been singled out for protection by the UN - not the child soldiers in Burundi, not the raped and mutilated girls and boys of the Congo, nor children in any other of the world’s impoverished or warring nations. By tacit agreement, children have always been considered universally at the UN.
They're also considered in the abstract, not as human beings. The Masses™ do have it tough: no faces, no real lives, just concepts floating like little disembodied spirits around the chandelier of a conference room...
The delegates were polite as Ambassador Dan Gillerman spoke. He asked for security for Israeli, Palestinian and all children of the world. He spoke of a "false reality" that pretends one side has a monopoly on victim status. He wished, he said, to prevent the blatant exercise of a double-standard in the UN. He mentioned the deliberate bombing of discos, pizza parlours and school buses, almost exclusively used by children. When he finished, the session chairman did not ask the names of co-sponsors for the Israeli resolution. Because there were none.
Naturally...
A discussion followed. The Syrian delegate strenuously opposed assistance of Israeli children and said the resolution was procedurally wrong. The Palestinian Authority’s lady complained that the Israelis had "copied" their resolution. The situation of Palestinian children was "unique" she said — which it may well be, since most children of the world are not used as human shields for terrorist camps or encouraged to be suicide bombers so their pictures can be put up in grocery stores as "martyrs".
"And everyone knows Jews are spawn of Iblis."
It is as if British children in the Second World War had not been evacuated to the countryside but rather placed around the War Office and anti-aircraft embankments. Afterwards, the PA lady conferenced earnestly for 20 minutes with a French delegate over procedurally thwarting the Israeli resolution so it would not come to a vote. The bluebottle returned to the most heated part of the committee room.
Now, what was it that draws flies? I forget...
The session ended with a report by the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, John Dugard, on "human rights in the Palestinian territories since 1967". Mr Dugard, who had been a courageous campaigner against apartheid, missed out when jobs were given away in the new South Africa and lost election to the International Criminal Court. Without apartheid to fight, he has demonised Israel to fill the gap. This transference of all ills to Israel’s doorstep is a psychiatric condition common in, though not confined to, members of the UN.
That's because they deal in concepts...
Down the hall, in Conference Room 2, the Second Committee (Economics and Finance) was discussing "the permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people over their natural resources", or how to stop thuggish Israel looting them. The Fourth Committee (special Political and Decolonisation committee) regularly considers the atrocities of Israelis in their role as imperialist running dogs. Unesco, Unicef and UNRWA spend much of their time visiting Israel and condemning it. The General Assembly, unable to pass a single resolution condemning Palestinian terrorism, routinely condemns Israel and calls emergency sessions especially for the purpose.
"Heil Haman!"
The reality of the Middle East is that the very right of the Jews to not be considered trash existence of Israel is considered a nakba — a catastrophe. This being so, the Israeli Ambassador could present a resolution recommending all people be encouraged to breathe — and it would be unacceptable to that part of the world. Does the UN matter? Only insofar as the record matters. Certain things must be done not because they will make a difference but to set the record straight. This week, Third Committee delegates will consider deleting anti-Semitism from the new UNHCR resolution on racial and religious intolerance, thus giving new life to old canards.
Consider the bell curve. While half of everything is below average, by definition, empirically 80 percent of everything fits into the middle of the curve, with ten percent being at the very low end and ten percent being at the very high end. When applied to the UN, that means that 90 percent of everything ranges from middlin' to downright evil...
The UN is not furnished luxuriously, but it is a congenial place. Sitting in one of its lounges, sipping an iced chai latte, one could see the irony of the situation. If the Arab world has any legitimate case against Israel, it is not the occupied territories, which are in Israeli hands only because of wars the Arabs launched. It is what they see as the initial injustice behind the Jewish state’s founding. The world’s response to the Nazi holocaust and centuries of European persecution of Jews — including Tsarist-inspired pogroms and, indeed, French anti-Semitism, whose Dreyfus Affair inspired Theodor Herzl’s Zionism — was to give away a slice of Arab Muslim land to the Jews. While one fully appreciates the Jews’ historical and religious connection to the land of Zion, it must be said that insofar as the Arab case has any persuasive merit, it is on this initial point. But the Arabs have had a great revenge. They have taken over the very body that was responsible for this — the United Nations — with the hope that the organisation that created the injustice may well be the instrument of its undoing. And that, as the bluebottle on the wall could tell you, is a story that has not unfolded yet.
And, yes. I've recalled what it is that draws flies.
Posted by:Atrus

#4  B your good. Israel, the fly in the ointment. Arabs have taken their death oath about Israel and with their wealth are pedaling it worldwide.
Posted by: Lucky   2003-11-17 2:30:23 PM  

#3  I disagree. I read this whole article amazed that it would actually be positive towards Israel because it has all the earmarks of typical NPR and BBC propaganda. The bottle fly, the lazy afternoon..etc. In fact, this exact same writing style of anti-US/Israel propaganda is so damn common it makes me wonder if there isn't just one writer who churns this stuff out from 8-5 M-F.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's just good writing..NOT! My suspicions are vindicated at the end.

The purpose of this article is to not to be fair to Israel, but to get us to relax..enjoy the image...say something nice we can all agree on. But somewhere they always slip in something that is just patently false and expect we will be relaxed enough to accept the lie.

Here is the lie:
"While one fully appreciates the Jews’ historical and religious connection to the land of Zion, it must be said that insofar as the Arab case has any persuasive meritit is on this initial point. "

UM.....Excuse me? I don't think so!.

And here the writer can barely contain his glee at what he sees as the future for Israel
"But the Arabs have had a great revenge. They have taken over the very body that was responsible for this - the United Nations - with the hope that the organisation that created the injustice may well be the instrument of its undoing. And that, as the bluebottle on the wall could tell you, is a story that has not unfolded yet. "

This is not a nice thought. This is glee in the "great revenge". The discredited UN gaveth and (isn't it just such sweet irony) that the discredited UN will taketh away.

The premise of this piece of propaganda is to push the lie that the Arab's beef with Israel's existence has "actual merit" and that it's fitting that the UN will be the ones to eventually take it away from them. All the rest of the adjectives and true statements are just BS to get you to be in an agreeable mood when the lie is presented.
Posted by: B   2003-11-17 1:54:59 PM  

#2  ...considers the atrocities of Israelis in their role as imperialist running dogs.

Did the North Korean delegate speak out of turn or something?
Posted by: Raj   2003-11-17 1:25:29 PM  

#1  Another example of why the UN is in-effective. It's been over-run with Arabs wanting to destroy everything non-muslim. Great article Atrus, thanks.
Posted by: Charles   2003-11-17 12:53:59 PM  

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