Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist

Palestinians Shift Blame for Their Own Vaccine Problems to Israel, With UN’s Support

The spokesperson for United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres was asked on February 24th to comment regarding Saturday Night Live’s anti-Semitic “joke.” Israel’s claim to have vaccinated half of its population meant only its “Jewish half,” the SNL cast member snarked. The spokesperson replied, “It's not for me to get into.” The Secretary General likes to talk abstractly about the evils of anti-Semitism. But when asked about a specific example of an anti-Semitic comment that was broadcast widely on television, his spokesperson refused to denounce it. Instead, he criticized Israel. The spokesperson said that “we have called from here for Israel to do greater cooperation with the Palestinian Authorities in line with its obligations to ensure that the vaccine gets to the population… the Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

UN-Brokered Libyan Interim Government Agreement Likely to Fail

Ten years have passed since the uprising that toppled Libya’s dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi. Ever since, the country has been riven by civil war, with foreign countries entering the fray and providing military support to their preferred factions. Economic and political instability have become the norm for this failed state. The United Nations has tried numerous times to bring the warring factions together to achieve a political solution to the conflict. Its efforts have not produced the desired result to date. Now the United Nations is holding out hope for a newly formed interim government created by UN-brokered negotiations among a 74-member Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF). Participants included Libyan political leaders and representatives from Libya’s plethora of tribes and regional factions.

Biden Reengages With Dysfunctional UN Human Rights Council

In another colossal foreign policy blunder, the Biden administration announced Monday that it is reengaging unconditionally with the United Nations’ misnamed Human Rights Council, which makes excuses for some of the worst human rights abusing countries in the world. This move follows the Biden administration’s decisions to reengage with the China-centric World Health Organization and to rejoin the job-killing Paris Agreement on climate change. To quote Forest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted, “The @UN Human Rights Council is flawed and needs reform, but walking away won’t fix it. The best way to improve the Council, so it can achieve its potential, is through robust and principled U.S. leadership. Under @POTUS Biden, we are reengaging and ready to lead.”

Biden’s Embrace of Globalists’ Coronavirus and Climate Change Agenda

The World Health Organization (WHO), under the leadership of its China-centric Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Tedros for short), has not reformed its ways since the Trump administration took steps to withdraw the United States from the globalist organization. Nevertheless, Joe Biden signed an executive order on Day One of his presidency, which fully re-engages the United States with the World Health Organization. In doing so, the sleepy “woke” 46th president of the United States is rewarding an incompetent global governance body that helped the Chinese regime cover up the severity of the coronavirus it unleashed upon the world.

Secretary General Guterres Seeks Second Term

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has announced his intention to seek a second five-year term, which would commence on January 1, 2022. Incumbent secretary generals usually are the odds-on favorites to win re-election, unless they have badly offended one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Secretary General Guterres has been very careful not to step on any important toes.

The UN’s Inglorious 75th Anniversary Year

The United Nations was planning a grand celebration of its 75th anniversary to kick off the annual high-level UN General Assembly Week last September. Instead, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN had to settle for a mostly virtual event. There really wasn’t much to celebrate anyway. The UN system overall continued its pattern during 2020 of a bloated bureaucracy attempting to establish its relevancy with meaningless resolutions, pronouncements and expensive programs.

Biden Likely to Support Vile Anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334

On December 23, 2016, the Obama administration broke with the longstanding practice of both Democratic and Republican administrations to protect Israel from one-sided United Nations resolutions. The Obama administration abstained, rather than veto, UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which declared that the establishment of settlements by Israel has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.” The resolution demanded that “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” When it came to the resolution’s call to prevent “acts of terror” and “to refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric,” the resolution referred elliptically to “both parties.” Resolution 2334 remains in effect to this day. However, despite what the resolution’s supporters continuously assert, it is not legally binding under the UN Charter because it was not passed under the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter. The resolution is not self-enforcing and would require a further resolution to impose sanctions or other punitive measures, which the Trump administration would surely have vetoed.

Biden Picks His UN Ambassador From Same Old Foreign Policy Establishment

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a career diplomat, is the presumptive President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Ms. Greenfield has a lengthy record of foreign service experience. Her long in-depth involvement in African affairs will help her in her new job as U.S. ambassador to the UN, where African issues constitute a significant part of the Security Council’s agenda. However, Greenfield will also bring with her a bureaucratic foreign policy establishment mindset.

Globalist Joe Biden Expected to Bow a Knee to the United Nations

A Joe Biden presidency will mark the return to an America that leads from behind. Vowing to have the United States rejoin the deeply flawed Paris Climate Agreement on his first day in office, for example, Biden is signaling his deference to the globalist ideology carried out under the auspices of the United Nations.

UN Condemns Cartoons Offensive to Muslims

A statement released on October 28th by the office of the High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) claimed that the republication in France of satirical caricatures depicting Prophet Muhammed was responsible for provoking “acts of violence against innocent civilians who were attacked for their sheer religion, belief or ethnicity.” The UNAOC statement went on to say that “insulting religions and sacred religious symbols provokes hatred and violent extremism leading to polarization and fragmentation of the society.” This statement, which UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has endorsed, was issued 12 days after a jihadist beheaded a French teacher, Samuel Paty, who had shown his students the Muhammed caricatures.

De Blasio Snubs UN General Assembly President

New York City’s failed leftwing Mayor Bill de Blasio has managed to pick a fight with the current president of the United Nations General Assembly, Volkan Bozkir. Bozkir requested an in-person meeting with the mayor of the UN’s host city to discuss the impact of the coronavirus on conditions in the city where UN personnel and diplomats live and work, as well as to discuss other topics of mutual interest. De Blasio’s office flatly turned down the request without offering any reason for the snub.

China’s Election to the UN Human Rights Council

October 13, 2020 was “a black day for human rights," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, the Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organization. Mr. Neuer was lamenting the fact that the United Nations General Assembly was preparing to vote to elect some of the world’s worst serial human rights abusing regimes to membership on the UN Human Rights Council.

Presidents Trump and Xi Deliver Dueling UN Speeches by Video

The United Nations’ annual General Assembly high level debate week is usually a very big deal on the diplomatic calendar. World leaders assemble in New York with their entourages, deliver their perspectives on the state of the world in long-winded speeches, and conduct numerous conferences and bilateral side meetings on a variety of global issues. Of course, the world leaders are also busy attending a multitude of fancy receptions. This year, however, is very different due to the coronavirus pandemic.

UN Secretary General Speaks to the Press Before 75th UNGA Meeting

The member states of the United Nations plan to adopt a declaration next week marking the 75th anniversary of the United Nations and committing to a reinvigorated multilateralism, according to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. They will also invite the Secretary General “to report on our common agenda for the future,” Mr. Guterres told reporters at a press conference in which reporters participated both in person and virtually. “This will be an important process of reflection and I will report back with analysis and recommendations.”

U.S. Tightens The Noose By Initiating Snapback of UN Sanctions Against Iran

The United Nations Security Council disgracefully rejected the U.S. initiative to extend the UN arms embargo against the Iranian regime beyond its current expiration this October. As the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft said at the time on August 14th, “the United States stands sickened – but not surprised – as the clear majority of Council members gave the green light to Iran to buy and sell all manner of conventional weapons.

China’s Exploitation of Globalism and Intrusive Technologies

China’s one-party communist regime has played the West since China's professed opening of its economy to global trade and investments. It wants to replace the current rules-based international system with one dominated by China’s authoritarian model. To that end, the regime is deftly exploiting multilateral institutions from the World Trade Organization to the World Health Organization to the United Nations itself. Thus, China has managed to get away with retaining a “developing country” status within the World Trade Organization, which gives it unfair preferences. China has the second largest Gross Domestic Product in the world, surpassed only by the United States. It does not deserve any preferential treatment. But China still gets it.

Biden and UN Secretary General Call for New Left Wing Social Contracts

Joe Biden calls his plan to radically transform America’s economy "Build Back Better.” There are four pillars of Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan. Three that have already been rolled out are revitalizing domestic manufacturing and innovation, a $2 trillion environmental and green energy infrastructure initiative, and a $775 billion caregiving initiative. Biden will be rolling out the details of his final "Build Back Better" pillar, advancing racial equity, shortly. Biden has lifted the "Build Back Better” catchphrase from the United Nations he so reveres.

Russia and China Veto Key Means to Deliver Life-Saving Relief to Syrian Civilians

This past week, Russia and China vetoed United Nations Security Council draft resolutions that would have authorized the renewal of a cross-border mechanism enabling the UN and its partners to deliver vital humanitarian aid into Syria via the country’s border with Turkey. The 13 other members of the Security Council voted for the draft resolutions. The draft resolutions were offered as a compromise to address certain concerns raised by Russia, but Russia and China vetoed them anyway in order to protect President Bashar al-Assad’s murderous Syrian regime.

Latest Progressive Anti-Israel Campaign in Congress

With the wind at her back following her recent primary victory, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is taking the lead in challenging Israel’s possible extension of sovereignty over certain areas within the West Bank. She authored a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warning that any move by Israel to extend its sovereignty into such areas would jeopardize continued U.S. military aid to the Jewish state. Senator Bernie Sanders signed AOC’s letter along with 11 other Democrat House members, including AOC’s fellow “Squad” members Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley. Anti-Semitic organizations that back the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel are also in AOC’s corner.

Hypocritical UN Human Rights Council Members Exploit George Floyd Killing

The dysfunctional United Nations Human Rights Council, which the United States exited for good reason two years ago, is exploiting the tragic killing of George Floyd. The Council decided to hold a U.S. bashing fest entitled “Urgent debate on systemic racism and police brutality in the United States.” The debate, which concluded on June 18th, followed on the heels of a harsh anti-American statement issued by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. That statement denounced the United States for alleged “systemic and structural discrimination” which “disproportionately promotes racial disparities against African Americans.” It called for the United States to make what would amount to a public confession of the alleged “existence of structural racial discrimination” in American society.