Joseph A. Klein is the author of The UN and Anti-Semitism
A United Nations General Assembly meeting on Wednesday, organized by Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon, was devoted to the global scourge of anti-Semitism, a refreshing event held at a venue usually consumed by animus against the Jewish state of Israel. The most moving speech was delivered by Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was shot at a San Diego synagogue by a Jew hating gunman on April 27, 2019, the last day of Passover. A parishioner, Lori Gilbert-Kaye, was killed.
- Friday, June 28, 2019
Three cases of human rights abuses reared their ugly head again this week. The United Nations' role has been called into question, including the responses of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to the criticisms.
The first human rights case involves Myanmar. The Free Rohingya Coalition criticized Secretary General Guterres and former UN Resident Coordinator in Myanmar Renata Lok-Dessallien for failing to safeguard thousands of Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority, in Myanmar.
The Elders describe themselves as “a group of independent leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007, who use their collective experience and influence for peace, justice and human rights worldwide.” Its chair is Mary Robinson, who served previously as president of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Jason Greenblatt, President Trump’s special envoy for international negotiations, schooled the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday regarding the obvious cause of Palestinian suffering in Gaza. He said that the Security Council needs “to admit that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are the primary barrier to the dreams of those residents of Gaza who want to live in peace, raise their families and find meaningful work.” Mr. Greenblatt condemned both terrorist organizations for continuing “to target Israeli hospitals and schools” and using Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields. He asked, “When will the Security Council say this out loud? When will we clearly reject this terrorism?”
The United Nations Human Rights Council once again proved that President Trump was right in pulling the United States out of that dysfunctional organization. It has turned into a forum for some of the world’s worst human rights abusing governments to praise each other’s human rights record as well as their own, while bashing Israel at every opportunity.
It has been a year since President Trump pulled the United States out of the Obama administration's disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The other parties to the JCPOA - China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom – have remained in the deal. However, the Iranian regime is getting impatient with the Europeans for allegedly not fulfilling their supposed economic commitments, while the Trump administration has imposed escalating sanctions that are crippling Iran’s economy.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) co-sponsored a forum at UN headquarters in New York on May 3rd honoring World Press Freedom Day. For the occasion, UNESCO re-tweeted the words “Against disinformation. Against manipulation. Against polarization.” Too bad UNESCO does not practice what it preaches, particularly when it comes to dealing with the truth regarding Israel and the Palestinians.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres attended the sixth annual forum, held in Beijing, to honor China’s ambitious multinational infrastructure program known as the Belt and Road Initiative. As described by the World Bank, the Belt and Road Initiative “aims to strengthen infrastructure, trade, and investment links between China and some 65 other countries that account collectively for over 30 percent of global GDP, 62 percent of population, and 75 percent of known energy reserves.” The links, involving networks of ports, rails and roads, include countries in Central, South and Southeast Asia, the Gulf Countries, and North Africa. China is also extending its initiative to Europe, where it has made significant investments in ports.
Vice President Mike Pence came out swinging in his remarks Wednesday at a special session of the United Nations Security Council on the crisis in Venezuela. He described in vivid terms the misery and suffering that the Maduro regime has inflicted on the people of Venezuela, causing more than three million Venezuelans to leave the country out of sheer desperation, and the threat the Maduro regime’s repressive policies have posed to the peace and security of the wider region.
While congressional Democrats are dealing with the rising tide of anti-Semitism in their own ranks, President Trump struck a blow for Israel’s security by declaring in a tweet his intention to “fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!”
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Friday new U.S. visa restrictions on those individuals directly responsible for any International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation of U.S. personnel in connection with U.S. and allied military and intelligence activities in Afghanistan. The ICC prosecutor had previously requested approval from the ICC’s judges to launch a formal investigation into what the prosecutor called the “situation in Afghanistan.” That request is still pending.
Secretary Pompeo warned all those working for the ICC that “if you’re responsible for the proposed ICC investigation of U.S. personnel in connection with the situation in Afghanistan, you should not assume that you will still have or will get a visa, or that you will be permitted to enter the United States.”
The Palestinians have weaponized the International Criminal Court (ICC). Leveraging the decision of the United Nations General Assembly to bestow Palestine with the title “Non-Member Observer State,” the Palestinian leaders decided to join the ICC, which accepted its application with open arms. Then, on May 15, 2018, the Palestinians exercised their “right as a State Party to the Rome Statute to refer the Situation of Palestine for immediate investigation” to the ICC prosecutor, who had previously opened an informal “preliminary examination” on her own initiative.
The Palestinian leadership continues to avoid direct negotiations with Israel, preferring to use the United Nations as a tool to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state. Their latest gambit was an attempt to initiate a Palestinian-sponsored official visit by the UN Security Council to the Palestinian Authority's stomping ground. Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, knew that the Palestinians were looking to exploit the Security Council’s presence for propaganda purposes. He objected to Equatorial Guinea's ambassador to the UN, Anatolio Ndong Mba, who is currently president of the UN Security Council. Israel would be willing to host individual visits by UN ambassadors, he told Ambassador Mba, but not as part of a Palestinian initiative aimed at exploiting the Security Council visit for more propaganda fusillades aimed against Israel.
The United Nations Security Council met on Saturday to discuss the crisis in Venezuela, after overcoming a procedural vote demanded by Russia. The Putin regime claimed that the economic, political and humanitarian crisis wrought by the catastrophic actions of the Maduro regime was not a proper agenda item for the Security Council to consider.
Venezuela, an oil-rich country that was once amongst the most prosperous countries in the Latin American region, is now in a state of economic and political chaos. Venezuela’s socialist leaders – first, Hugo Chávez and then his successor, Nicolas Maduro - have turned the country into an economic basket case because of their gross mismanagement, corruption and destructive economic policies.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday took over as chairman of the United Nations’ Group of 77 and China, a coalition of 134 developing nations which often votes in unison. He could only do so because of the UN’s complicity in treating Palestine as if it were an actual state.
The United Nations Security Council held a special session on Wednesday, requested by the United States and Israel, to discuss Hezbollah's underground attack tunnels that penetrated the Blue Line, the border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel. The tunnels were recently discovered by the Israeli Defense Force. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) independently verified the presence of the tunnels, two of which it said had crossed the Blue Line into Israel.
The United Nations General Assembly affirmed what is called the “Global Compact on Refugees” on Monday. There were 181 UN member states voting in favor of approving the compact, with the United States and Hungary voting against and the Dominican Republic, Eritrea and Libya abstaining.
In his remarks observing the seventieth anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres declared that “the Genocide Convention is preventive at its core, and punishes specific acts that are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such.
Beginning in 1977, the United Nations has observed the "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" every year on November 29th. This is the date in 1947 when the UN General Assembly approved its partition resolution envisaging the establishment of two states – an independent state of Palestine and an independent Jewish state of Israel.