An amazing article on the UN’s anti-Semitic history, in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Another “incursion” into Gaza is on the way. Watch for the world to scream in horror, even while there have been no such protests over the daily terrorist attacks on Israel that originate in Gaza.
Cheney address AIPAC and says that the Bush Administration won’t work with Hamas. And yet, they’re pressuring Israel to, via the State Dept. Sorry, but Bush Adminstration speak with forked tongue. Whatever happened to not working with a palestinian leadership “tainted by terror”?
Wafa Sultan’s video transcript. Read it, and cheer for the woman who tells the mullahs exactly what they are.
Yes, more unilateral withdrawals would be a very, very bad idea. The terrorists have proven that they will use the lack of Israeli forces to stop them as a means to move their hostilities forward. Ashkelon is taking rocket hits. Well, at least when the power goes out, the pals lose power, too. I say don’t put it back on. Let ’em build their own power plant.
That Inquirer article is amazing, all right. Amazingly bad. If the Inquirer had assigned an investigative reporter or two to do an exposé of the UN, I’d cheer. This is just a hatchet-job on the op-ed page, which means that it isn’t even endorsed by the Inquirer’s editorial board.
My jaw dropped when I read that “People of the Jewish faith have never been comfortable with the U.N.” Never mind the sweeping generalization, which I find offensive. (Substitute “The Jews” for the first five words of the sentence and the problem is clearer, but to me the sanitized version is no better.) Even as a generalization, it’s questionable. I’d argue that it took a while for widespread discomfort with the UN to develop in the Jewish community. As the columnist states earlier, “We were duped.”
The UN was not “[f]ounded with its famed Universal Declaration of Human Rights a year after the Holocaust was exposed.” The UN was officially founded on October 24, 1945. The General Assembly of the UN adopted and proclaimed the UDHR on December 10, 1948 (with Saudi Arabia and the Soviet bloc abstaining). Incidentally, and contrary to the column’s thesis that people of the Jewish faith have never been comfortable with the UN, one of the principal architects of UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (he authored its first draft) was a Zionist Jew, René Cassin, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969. (Hence the objection that one often hears from certain quarters that “human rights” are a Jewish/Zionist conspiracy.)
In a transparent effort to balance his criticisms, the columnist writes that “The U.N. does some good work with its children’s fund and tardy-but-fairly-effective disaster relief.” As the short-lived Diplomad blog documented, UN disaster relief is often far from effectual. See, e.g., this post, one of many relating to the tsunami relief efforts.
If you follow the UNICEF link in that Diplomad post, you’ll find a critique of the politicization of UNICEF over the last decade or so. But it goes way back; another flaw of the Inquirer column is that it mentions UNICEF favorably without noting that the agency pursues an anti-Israel agenda.
Far be it from me to defend the State department, but… given Olmert’s actions (releasing funds to the Palis as America make a show of asking for the return of monies already given) and general weasely-mealymouthedness, it’s a bit much to expect foreign actors from standing up to Hamas when Israel is showing little backbone – rhetorical or functional.
We Israelis are being treated to another chorus of “I will be pragmatic and talk to the Palis” as part of the general pre-election rigamarole… it’s clear what conclusion overseas spooks reach if Israeli media and culture have not yet weaned themselves of the sense that negotiation is inevitable…
…so why should any 3rd parties be “more holy than the pope” (as the local expression goes)?