By Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist ——Bio and Archives--October 21, 2023
World News | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us
Israel unilaterally withdrew all its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 as a unilateral good faith gesture of peace. Hamas was elected by the Palestinian Gazan population to govern the Gaza Strip in 2006. There has been no election there ever since. After Hamas vanquished its rival Fatah in 2007 for total control of Gaza--executing, imprisoning, and expelling its fellow Palestinians in the process--Hamas turned Gaza into a base for launching successive terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
Hamas has built tunnels under Gazan civilians’ homes and civilian facilities to store weapons and station some of its terrorist forces. Hamas has also stored rockets and other weapons in schools, hospitals, and mosques. And it uses its own people as human shields. All of this culminated in the brutal invasion of Israel and the killing fields that Hamas terrorists left behind on October 7th, which the terrorists planned, prepared for, and launched from the territory it fully controls--Gaza.
In short, instead of serving the needs of the people it has ruled exclusively for 16 years and promoting Gazan civilians’ welfare and economic self-sufficiency, Hamas has exploited its control of Gaza to prosecute its genocidal war against the Jews in Israel.
Nevertheless, despite the clear evidence to the contrary and basic common sense, the United Nations still insists that Gaza is part of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel!
At the daily UN press briefing on October 16th, the spokesperson for Secretary General Antonio Guterres reaffirmed this UN position, which he declared “has not changed, given a body of international law framework.” He added that “I will leave it at that.” Not satisfied with this answer, I followed up by asking the spokesperson to “explain how it happened that if Gaza is occupied, as you say, still by Israel, that Hamas has been able to launch these terrorist attacks” from Gaza. The spokesperson responded, “I'm not able to explain or explain the actions of Hamas.”
I did not ask the spokesperson to explain the actions of Hamas. I asked him to explain how Hamas could have been free to launch its terrorist attacks against Israel from Gaza--especially at the scale of the October 7th invasion and massacres – if Gaza was still occupied by Israel, as the UN continues to claim.
The bottom line is that the Secretary General’s spokesperson claims that Israel is still occupying Gaza because the UN says so. It is reminiscent of what Humpty Dumpty said in Alice in Wonderland: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has served for decades as a propaganda agency for the Palestinians and is doing so again during the current crisis. In her October 16th press briefing, UNRWA’s Director of Communications Juliette Touma demanded an immediate end to Israel’s siege of Gaza. But when I asked Ms. Touma whether anybody from UNRWA had discussed with their Hamas contacts Israel’s proposal to end its siege as soon as Hamas releases all the hostages, she demurred. Ms. Touma also failed to answer my question asking when, before Hamas’s October 7th invasion, UNRWA had last thoroughly inspected its schools and other facilities for rockets and other weapons hidden by Hamas in or under those UNRWA locations. After all, Hamas has previously hidden rockets in UNRWA schools. Ms. Toumas' evasion of my question is no surprise, considering the fact that UNRWA schools have been used to indoctrinate Palestinian children with Hamas’s propaganda that calls for the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel.
The UN Security Council held an evening meeting on October 16th to consider a proposed resolution drafted by Russia that called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, precluding Israel from continuing its counterattacks against Hamas in Gaza. Russia’s resolution, which did not hold Hamas to account for its terrorist rampage in Israel, failed to pass.
Support Canada Free Press
Vassily A. Nebenzia, Russia’s UN ambassador, described with a straight face his country’s proposed resolution as “purely humanitarian text” that condemns all violence. This hypocritical rhetoric came from the very same dictatorship that invaded Ukraine and committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity by intentionally targeting Ukraine’s civilian population and infrastructure with repeated missile and drone attacks.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield exposed Russia’s duplicity in her remarks to the Security Council following the vote:
“Russia’s resolution, put forward without any consultations, makes no mention of Hamas--none. By failing to condemn Hamas, Russia is giving cover to a terrorist group that brutalizes innocent civilians. It is outrageous, it is hypocritical, and it is indefensible.”
When the Permanent Observer for the Observer State of Palestine, Riyad H. Mansour, spoke to the Security Council, he urged the Security Council not to send the signal that Palestinian lives do not matter. He should have directed his plea to the Hamas terrorists who use Palestinians in Gaza as human shields and began this war in the first place, prompting Israel to defend itself. At least 1300 Jews were the innocent victims of Hamas’s genocidal war against the Jewish people in Israel, but Mansour said nothing in his remarks condemning Hamas’s savagery. Evidently, Jewish lives do not matter to the Palestinians’ UN representative.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Menashe Erdan, spared no words in denouncing Hamas as a terrorist organization motivated by its genocidal ideology to exterminate the Jewish State of Israel. “Israel must obliterate Hamas first,” he said, “we must do so for self-preservation.” He added that Israel is on a rescue mission to “save our hostages, to save our future and the people of Gaza from their savage tyrants.”
Two days after Russia’s proposed Security Council resolution was defeated, and one day after the lethal explosion at a hospital in Gaza City that killed an estimated 500 Palestinians, the Security Council met again. Hamas had immediately blamed the Israelis for the explosion, fueling rage throughout the Arab world. However, compelling video and audio evidence presented by Israel points to an errant rocket fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as the cause of the tragedy. Despite this incontrovertible evidence, and no credible evidence presented by Hamas supporting its assertion that Israel was responsible for the explosion, the United Nations says that the jury is still out on what happened and that the incident is still “under investigation.” Giving any credence to claims by the terrorist organization that has denied responsibility for the atrocities against civilians it committed in Israel is obscene.
Brazil, which is serving as president of the Security Council this month, presented a proposed resolution which called for humanitarian “pauses,” avoiding use of the word “ceasefire.” Russia proposed amendments that explicitly called for a “ceasefire” (which would mean that Israel could not fully respond to Hamas’s horrific attack and destroy the Palestinian terrorists’ capability to carry out their savage attacks ever again). Russia’s proposed amendments were rejected.
The Security Council then proceeded to vote on Brazil’s proposed resolution, which also failed to pass. This draft resolution, to its credit, did contain a condemnation of the Hamas-led October 7th attack and a demand for the release of the hostages. However, the United States vetoed Brazil’s draft resolution because it made no mention of Israel’s inherent right of self-defense. The United States also considered the draft resolution to be premature while direct diplomatic efforts in the region to address the humanitarian crisis are still underway.
“Yes, resolutions are important. And yes, this Council must speak out,” Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said in explaining the U.S.'s negative vote. “But the actions we take must be informed by the facts on the ground and support direct diplomacy efforts that can save lives. The Council needs to get this right.” She added that “the United States is disappointed this resolution made no mention of Israel’s right of self-defense. Like every nation in the world, Israel has the inherent right of self-defense, as reflected in Article 51 of the UN Charter. Following previous terrorist attacks by groups such as al-Qaida and ISIS, this Council reaffirmed that right. This text should have done the same.”
The United Nations is complicit in continuing to perpetuate and provide a global platform for the Palestinians’ false victimhood narrative. For example, as discussed above, the UN is still amplifying the lie that Gaza has remained under Israeli occupation even during the years following Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas’s conversion of Gaza into its own terrorist preserve.
The UN gives diplomatic cover to Hamas by refusing to designate it as a terrorist organization.
"The U.N. Security Council votes to impose sanctions and designations on groups like al Qaeda, the Taliban or ISIS. But no such sanctions or designations exist for Iran’s axis of terror groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah," Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said, as reported by Fox News.
The UN is also trying to pressure Israel to exercise “maximum restraint” in defending its people against the Palestinian genocidal monsters who want to exterminate the Jewish nation. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has just called for a “humanitarian ceasefire,” which would immediately halt Israel’s exercise of its right of self-defense.
Fortunately, Israel will not be cowed by the opinions of the so-called “international community,” which too often gives the benefit of the doubt to the Palestinian terrorists who lie every time they open their mouths and murder more civilians.
View Comments
Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.