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A UNilateral Blunder

By Tali Shapiro at Jan 19, 2009

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I admit, I'm no expert when it comes to the UN, so I'm hoping some of you at ZNet can fill in my knowledge gaps. Nevertheless, it seems to me that in the case of Gaza, the UN fucked up royally. Let's review what I saw (then maybe you can tell me what I missed):

When the attack on Gaza started, by the second day, the bodies were already piling up. When I started hearing numbers, seeing images, I asked myself, where's the UN?! The answer to this, actually came from the Israeli mainstream media:

By the second day "the objectives" of the onslaught were still none-existent. The general rhetoric was "we have to hurry up [and do as much damage as possible], before the UN reconvenes."

"Reconvenes?" I naively ask my mom, sitting next to me, "Where did they go?"

My mom reminded me that it's Christmas. So they're all having a lovely Christmas vacation and won't reconvene until Monday, the following week. Now, I respect the whole Idea of holidays and vacations and family quality time, but people were in immediate danger, dying in alarming (to say the least) numbers. Doesn't this qualify as an emergency? Doesn't this qualify immediate sanctions? Something? Anything?!

As the massacres raged through the devastated streets of Gaza, the UN was occupying itself with what I can only excuse as "procedure". Meetings, votes, consultations, writing up reports, I'm sure all these things need to be done, in order to get to a quick and efficient solution but all this took 2 weeks. For the Gazans this would mean another 1000 lives.

After the Security Council passed a resolution calling for unimpeded provision throughout Gaza of food, fuel and medical treatment, as well as intensified international arrangements to prevent arms and ammunition smuggling, Israeli blatantly ignored the UN and continued the onslaught with a monstrous vengeance, amplifying an average of 50 deaths a day to a 100. No sanctions from the UN.

My final disdain for the UN emerged yesterday, when the world leaders came to visit Prime  Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. I understand the need for diplomacy, but this was practically a love fest (as shown to the left). This winter of love was summed up by Sarkozy, practically quoting Olmert's lofty statement (which- from Olmert- sounds like the promise of a long continuation of the occupation):

"Israel should state immediately and clearly that if rocket fire will stop, the Israeli army will leave Gaza. There is no other solution to achieve peace..."


Sarkozy also voiced, quite clearly, the disturbing consensus in the Gaza summit at Sharm el-Sheikh:

"We have pledged to help Israel and Egypt with all the technical, military, naval and diplomatic ways to help end the smuggling of weapons into Gaza."


Needless to say, leaders of the Palestinian people (yes, Hamas), weren't present, when decisions about their future were being made, unilaterally.

 

Update (20/01/09): Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations visited Gaza. I got the following off of Al-Jazeera:

"...while offering to do "all [he] can as secretary-general of the UN to help in this time of need", Ban is not expected to meet Hamas officials during this visit.

Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said because much of the international community, including the US and the European Union, regard Hamas as a "terrorist organisation", it would be political difficult for the UN chief to hold direct talks with Hamas officials."

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By Calleja, Eva at Jan 20, 2009 05:09 AM

That is a sickening photo!

The more I learn the more disgusted I get and the more I realise we are heading for absolute dissaster.  Now it has been the people of Gaza, tomorrow, under any excuse, it can be any of us.  If we can´t be moved by this great unjustice what can ever make us react?

Meanwhile us, honest people of the West, just worried whether we can go on holiday next year, or if we can afford to change our 5 year old car..., anyway, we will get what we deserve, but, do our children deserve it?

 

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Re: The UN

By Archibald, Mike at Jan 20, 2009 13:27 PM
Keep in mind that the UN is only as powerful as the nation's let it be. In the above blog, reference is made to the 'security council' and your mother is incorrect. It is the security council which has the mandate to address 'international security', and the security council by Charter mandate MUST be available to meet at any time (whether it does or not or what is accomplished is another story entirely). However, look at the five permanent nations on the council. Every one of them the most imperialist aggressors in the world. Moreover, virtually every single one of them called Hamas a 'terrorist organization' as soon as they were elected (for some reason it was OK for them to 'run', it just wasn't ok for them to WIN). Meanwhile most of those countries, in particular the US, have recently ratcheted up arms 'sales' (I say sales but usually they are 'gifts'), in the case of the US, coincidentally there was a MASSIVE increase in military armaments just before December (but its called 'just a coincidence'). There is no doubt there are problems with the UN. Most obvious is how do you deal with a superpower that refuses to listen to international law? If you recall the Rwandan genocide it was the United States UN representative Madeline Albright who refused to categorize the atrocity as 'genocide' (as soon as something is called genocide the UN MUST respond militarily). But this is not new. The US rules the world and increasingly scorns UN laws as well as international laws. Under Bush the UN representative was a guy whose whole career was spent bashing them. Without co-operation, the UN can do little. However, developing nations are attempting to change that. They see no 'right' for select nations to be permanent members. In the Israeli-palestinian conflict, there has been almost unanimous international opinion-EXCEPT for the US, and since the US runs the world, nothing gets done. At some point the US is simply going to implode, adhere to international law, or the rest of the world will have to go to war with it. At that point the UN will become much more effective. Although there are TONS of problems with it, the options are far worse (NATO or the US anyone?).

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Re: Re: The UN

By Shapiro, Tali at Jan 20, 2009 13:51 PM
Hey Mike, thanks for the information. The US part is pretty obvious, I guess. Israel also has a very disdainful way of referring to the UN and it's policies- I guess it learned from the best. I have a few questions: If you are accurate (I trust you are), can you tell me why it took the UN/Security Council a whole week to respond? Also, do you really predict a world war on the US? Do you think that would be the right solution? Do you know of any other solutions to strengthen the UN and better it?

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The UN

By Archibald, Mike at Jan 20, 2009 20:32 PM
A week was actually pretty fast work. There is a mention of the 'love fest' between the UN and Israel, and the neglect of Hamas. That is absolutely true, again, virtually all the governments of 'developed nations' stand firm against Hamas and the palestinians. So OF COURSE they are not going to get involved. However, they don't want to sound too much like a lapdog, so ultimately came out with some 'chatter'. Again, the problem goes back to five imperialist nations being able to Veto any resolutions (so policy one is to get rid of that setup -but of course its those nations with the power who have to elect to give up the power, so that's not going to happen anytime soon). Now, say the security council included african nations and south american nations and NO permanent members. You can bet it would act FAR differently. I have no idea about a war, it certainly wouldn't be the US against the world. I'm canadian and Canada and other commonwealth nations would most assuredly be on side. If Russia and China ever got closer links and got tired of the US then who knows what could happen. I certainly don't think war is EVER a solution, unless one is being invaded. I should point out that Israel actually isn't acting much different than any national power. Here in Canada, some readers may remember that in 1992 the police, the federal police, and ultimately the military was called out-all because a ragtag group of natives finally had enough when a golf course was being built over a native cemetary and disputed tribal land. In the mid nineties an unarmed native protestor was shot and killed when other natives were protesting another development on tribal land. And Canada is a BIG country-especially compared to Israel, but that that natives were opposing even a measly 100 acres had Canada's propaganda machine in full mode, and had IT ignoring the UN as well. Obviously those were nowhere near as brutal, but primarily because they didn't NEED to be. Readers should keep in mind that the palestinian bantustan is based on the south african model of apartheid, which was based on the canadian/american/australian 'reservation' model. These natives live in third world conditions in much of Canada, and there is recent evidence of an attempted genocide as late as the fifties. This is of course ignored by Canadian press, but it was these three countries who ensured that the UN definition of 'genocide' didn't include 'cultural genocide'. In other words, these countries could marginalize these populations in remote areas, refuse to grant them access to their own land, and essentially wait for them to commit suicide.

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Re: The UN

By Shapiro, Tali at Jan 21, 2009 03:08 AM
I gotta tell you Mike- I'm completely deflated. Every day I learn that there are no innocents. Is there any source of critical information about the UN?

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Deflation

By Archibald, Mike at Jan 21, 2009 05:24 AM
Remember that famous quote- "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will". Innocence is a relative term, as the above states about Canada, natives are more 'innocent' than the government and those that support it. Yet representatives don't 'represent', so in the world, there are NO countries where people are actually 'responsible' for the actions of their government. Only Switzerland actually has a democracy that lets people make federal decisions through referenda. The only cure for deflation is action, and there are probably numerous organizations wherever you are, I know I've joined some here. I never feel 'deflated', simply because I mostly feel guilt for not doing more for native canadians. I am free to protest, to file court challenges, etc., but I don't. The only 'cure' for guilt is the same as the cure for deflation-action. So lets both look for an organization to join today and start contributing something. As for the UN, one difficulty is that people know so little about the UN. The best place to start is simply at the UN itself. They have UN radio as well as other programs that are more effective than their security council for obvious reasons. There are lots of "UN watch" type of websites, which are 'good to know' but again, some are just designed to 'bash' the UN without giving the full story and context. I can't remember if its in the above comments or the comment that didn't post, but I mentioned Romeo Dallaire's book 'Shake Hands with the Devil", which is about the failure in Rwanda. You can go to the Carnegie Council podcasts and listen to his talk there on the UN. The UN is kind of like every political organization, there is very good work coming from the grassroots, but there are problems at the decision making level. The best bet is to do searches on specific UN missions and organizations-start with wikipedia, then go to the homepage of the organization, then type in any country name with "UN resolutions" after it and go from there. Its been awhile but I remember looking at all the various UN resolutions, and its interesting reading (from the UN website). It especially gets interesting when you take the time to go through the stages each resolution gets, then you find out which specific comments each country accepts or rejects. I can give a more detailed list later, but gotta get to work!

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links

By Archibald, Mike at Jan 21, 2009 12:07 PM
www.UNWatch.org is a VERY 'critical' site, although not usually objective its good to see 'in a nutshell' the problems at the UN. As an example, at their home 'take action' link they have a code designed so that people can automatically 'thank canada' for standing up for human rights. Readers can see my previous comments on Canada's 'position' on human rights. Keep in mind that Canada's UN positions are in DIRECT opposition to the views of canadians according to most polls. Although the site is 'pro Israel', that doesn't mean their criticisms aren't valid. As i said earlier, no country is without flaw when it comes to human rights. www.reliefweb.org is run by the UN but is a good source. www.un.org/pubs/chronicle is their 'newsmagazine' Global Policy Forum is 'critical' of the UN without being a critic-if you know what I mean. www.globalpolicy.org If you want some entertainment, you can always type in 'one world government' and read the loony sites (usually american) about how the UN is seeking to 'take over the world'. Usually pretty funny. www.accuracy.org has some critical comments on UN policy making. This was especially interesting: "The U.S. used hardball diplomacy of the type deployed to gainthe first Gulf War resolution in 1990. The Secretary of State at that time,James Baker, later described in his autobiography how he lined up votes forresolution 678: 'I met personally with all my Security Council counterpartsin an intricate process of cajoling, extracting, threatening, and occasionally buying votes. Such are the politics of diplomacy.'" Nothing says whats wrong with the UN quite like that.

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Re: links

By Shapiro, Tali at Jan 21, 2009 15:50 PM
Thanks for the list Mike! :) I'll be checking that out, for sure.

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