|
The UN: A Neutral Broker?
by Ben Shapiro, Harvard Law School
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (R) shakes hands with Lebanese Hezbollah Leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah during their meeting at a Hezbollah office in Beirut.
REUTERS/Str Old
|
On August 13, Israel’s cabinet signed on to the United Nations ceasefire designed to end the latest round of Lebanese-Israeli violence. The ceasefire was a mistake of drastic proportions—the UN cannot be trusted to ensure the security of the state of Israel. For decades the UN has provided aid and comfort to terrorists along Israel’s northern border. The UN has consistently refused to condemn Islamist terrorism while it condemns virtually any action Israel takes in self-defense.
In the Hezbollah-Israel war, the UN went as far as supporting the terrorist organization Hezbollah. As Lori Lowenthal Marcus reported in The Weekly Standard, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) routinely posted Israeli troop movements on its fully public website during the latest conflict. “New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old. Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces.”
When an Israeli airstrike hit a UN post in southern Lebanon, Kofi Annan—without waiting for any investigation—immediately condemned Israel for its “apparently deliberate targeting” of the “clearly marked UN outposts at Khiyam.” Of course, Israel did not deliberately target the outpost and objected strenuously to Annan’s Olympic-caliber jump to conclusions. And Kofi Annan was the man responsible for issuing an evacuation order to the UN observers. When Hezbollah attacked UN outposts, by contrast, Annan said nothing.
Even if Israel had deliberately targeted the outpost, it would have been justified in doing so because UN forces actively colluded with Hezbollah. Hezbollah and the UN share facilities in southern Lebanon; pictures depicting Hezbollah and UN flags flying above the same structures abound. As Jed Babbin, author of Inside the Asylum, explains, “Observers told me the UN and Hezbollah personnel share water and telephones, and that the UN presence serves as a shield against Israeli strikes against the terrorists.”
The UN was complicit the last time Lebanese terrorists took Israelis hostage. In October 2000, three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped along Israel’s northern border. The soldiers were patrolling the UN-monitored border when several UN peacekeepers signaled them over.
Suddenly, the Israelis came under fire. Nonetheless, they continued to approach the border. After all, UN observers were signaling them, and this area was covered by UN cameras. There was only one problem: Hezbollah had bribed UN observers to use their equipment. A large explosion blew open the border gate, and Hezbollah terrorists, disguised as UN peacekeepers in UN gear with UN vehicles, stormed across the border, spraying bullets, firing shoulder-fired missiles, and launching tear-gas grenades. After a few minutes, the three Israelis went down, seriously wounded. The terrorists smuggled the Israelis across the border, threw them into two UN vehicles, and sped away. Five hours later, the UN vehicles used by Hezbollah in the attacks were recovered. The vehicles had UN markings, and they contained explosives, weapons, and the blood of the wounded Israeli soldiers.
|
Israel should expect no help from the UN in policing southern Lebanon.
|
Rumors leaked of a UN videotape containing footage of the terrorists using UN equipment. Israel requested the tape; the UN denied its existence. Finally, the UN admitted that it had lied, and that it had the tape. Still, it refused to turn over the unedited tape to Israel—it chose instead to blur out the faces of the Hezbollah terrorists. A UN soldier, interviewed later, confessed that UNIFIL forces could have stopped the kidnapping.
This is the same UN that Israel is now supposed to entrust with its security. It is the same UN Israel is supposed to rely upon to stop Hezbollah aggression.
It is an organization fully dedicated to the downfall of the state of Israel. The UN General Assembly has passed more than 400 resolutions against Israel, condemning Israel over 300 times. The UN Security Council has passed more than 80 resolutions against Israel, condemning Israel over 40 times. This exaggerated focus on condemning Israel is grossly out of proportion, and it illustrates the UN’s policy of ignoring the Arab aggression that has started each war Israel has been forced to fight. In 1975, the UN General Assembly went so far as to condemn Zionism itself—the basis for Israel’s existence—as “a form of racism and racial discrimination.” That resolution remained in force for 16 years before it was overturned. Meanwhile, the UN has not even been able to agree on a legal definition of “terrorism.”
Because the UN is dominated by anti-Semitic nations, it is no wonder that the UN’s actions are so plainly anti-Semitic. The Organization of the Islamic Conference, an Islamist institution composed of Muslim states dedicated explicitly to “[s]upport[ing] the struggle of the Palestinian people and assist[ing] them in recovering their rights and liberating their occupied territories” (meaning all of Israel), composes over one-quarter of UN member states. Combine the OIC with such historically anti-Semitic states as Russia and France and such anti-Western states as China, and there is no doubt that Israel will assuredly come out the loser in any debate involving its own fate.
Israel should expect no help from the UN in policing southern Lebanon. Since the cease-fire, the UN has already condemned Israel for purported “violations,” including cross-border actions designed to prevent Hezbollah’s rearmament and the use of cluster bombs in targeting terrorists. Meanwhile, the UN took terror state and Hezbollah supporter Syria at its word when Bashar Assad pledged to help quash Hezbollah. Such is the twisted world of international politics. Israel and her supporters must recognize the danger posed by trusting the world’s most corrupt institution with the safety of the Middle East’s only democracy.
Ben Shapiro, a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate, is in his third year at Harvard Law School. He is the author of Brainwashed and Porn Generation.
|
