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October 24, 2005
Kofi, the U.N. And Israel
At Jewish World Review, Johnathan Tobin weighs in on Kofi Annan's recent benevolent change of attitude toward Israel and the issues that render it a mere attempt to mask his and the embattled U.N.'s true feelings toward the Jewish State. The column in its entirety is here.
...The United Nations seemed to be sliding back toward old-style anti-Semitism as the organization reached its zenith at its International Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks. But Secretary General Kofi Annan has been spreading good will toward the Jews right and left these days. In the last year, the United Nations officially condemned anti-Semitism (amazing!) and commemorated the liberation of the Nazi death camps.
But before we prepare to sing the praises of Annan and the rest of the inmates of that peculiar birdcage that sits on the shores of Manhattan's East River, a little perspective is needed. Along with appreciation for the gestures, we need to ask why this is happening, and just how far this new passion for fairness extends.
The answer to the first question is more than obvious. Annan and the United Nations are in deep trouble. The fallout from the oil-for-food scandal has just begun. Billions intended to aid the Iraqi poor during the last years of Saddam Hussein's regime instead fell into the hands of Saddam and his foreign partners in crime while Annan did nothing. Even worse, his son Kojo played a role in this grand larceny. And that's just the tip of the iceberg for an institution in which corruption, inefficiency and hypocrisy are merely business as usual.
The call for reform was so widespread that, in a comic turn, Annan took it up himself this year. His strategy for halting the momentum of the United Nation's critics was smart: Throw the Jews a few bones and hope that the barking of the activists will settle down.
But beyond the atmospherics that are so dearly appreciated by those lonely Israeli diplomats, what is really changing at the United Nations? The answer to that question is far from settled.
That's because no matter how many tea parties Israeli envoys are invited to, U.N. anti-Zionism is grounded in more than just the hard hearts of so many of the delegates and permanent employees there.
It's at the United Nations and its agency offices around the globe where hatred of Israel is not merely an opinion.
There, it is institutionalized in committees and agencies that exist to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state and to provide forums for those who wish to attack it.
INFRASTRUCTURE OF HATE
Chief among these institutions is the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, created in 1949 ostensibly to aid Palestinian refugees. All other refugees around the world since then have depended on the U.N. High Commission for Refugees for help. Only the Palestinians have their own U.N. agency. But unlike every other refugee problem, the Palestinians were not resettled but rather kept in place (through the good offices of their own U.N. agency) so as to better facilitate the ongoing war to destroy Israel.
Over the years, UNRWA morphed from being a group merely dedicated to aiding the siege of Israel to one whose employees in places like Gaza were themselves affiliated with terrorist groups, such as Hamas.
But the problem doesn't begin and end there. The U.N. committee on the "Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People" and its division of Palestinian Affairs and "Special Information Program" on the "Question of Palestine" have been there to fuel hate at every possible U.N. forum.
These organs of anti-Israel propaganda have served to fuel the conflict. And the corruption and waste at these agencies make the oil-for-food skullduggery of the past decade seem like just more of the same.
Yeah, Kofi's scrambling to play the "hail fellow well met" to shore up the damage done over the Oil For Food scandal and the accusations from various quarters of the U.N.'s corruption, antisemitism and inefficiency, but as the author says,
The signals we should send to Congress and the White House are those of increased monetary pressure on the United Nations. Indeed, far from turning down the heat, a congressional focus on cutting funds to terrorist hangouts like UNRWA should be at the top of our agenda.
Posted by Seth at October 24, 2005 01:13 PM
Comments
Kofi Annan is a scoundrel for sure. He leads the most corrupt, anti American (un)-organization in the world. He is more concerned about his fancy suits and ties, the good meals he gets at the fancy Mahattan eateries, than he is with true world peace. He wouldn't know peace if he saw it Seth...How could he? Him, and people like him live in a world where terrorism doesn't exist...freedom fighting is there but not terrorism. Israel doesn't have a chance with the UN.
Posted by: Raven at October 25, 2005 04:50 PM
I'm waiting for the UN to go and join the League Of Nations in the boneyard, where its current leadership seems hell bent to take it.
Then Kofi can take his corrupt ass home to Ghana and be a "statesman" or something.
Posted by: Seth at October 25, 2005 11:37 PM
