Oct. 24, 2009
COMMENTARY: The United Nations of Hypocrisy
By Joseph J. Honick
From as far back as I can recall, I believed in the United Nations as a
final vehicle to intercede where wars might be starting or to mitigate
situations where nations might be doing barbaric things to their people
or others. It did not occur to me, naïve as I may have been, that concerns for
humans would be selective. And that is what has occurred.
Most specifically has been the rapid response to Israel’s reaction to the nonstop rocketing of its residential areas by Hamas. Hard to say whether Israel’s response was excessive since that is hardly defined. What is at stake is the suggestion of intent by the Israeli Defense Forces purposely to target civilians. This is strong stuff, and the UN report of the Goldstone panel says Israel did such heinous things, while the same report minimized whatever it was that Hamas may have committed.
After all, I doubt that the Allies truly intended to target civilians in the historic assault on Dresden, Germany in February 1945, during World War II, or in the use of the A-Bombs in Japan in August 1945 where the sums of civilian deaths were in the hundreds of thousands.
The long history of Islamic states doing bad things either to their people or to others has seldom had much investigating or threats of International Court criminal indictments. The most blatant of course was and remains the slaughter of nearly 300 civilian airline passengers over Lockerbie, Scotland, the admitted involvement of the Libyan dictator Muamar Gadaffi and the appalling release on humanitarian grounds of the only convicted participant so he could spend his allegedly short life in his homeland, terminal prostate cancer being the reason for his release. It is only modest logic that there have been no further reports of his near demise weeks after his release and welcome in Libya as a virtual hero.
The fact is there is not only no threat of International Court indictments of admitted participants in the Lockerbie slaughters, one of them, the Libyan dictator himself has been welcomed back to the family of nations warmly by the President of the United States, George Bush and the then Prime Minister of Britain Tony Blair, not to mention the majority of the UN big boys themselves. Worse, the son of the dictator has made fun of the fact Libya is not about to pay a dime to the families of the victims. Do you read of any cries of concern from the crocodile tear criers of human rights groups or the UN folks anywhere?
Of course not!
But the history of UN sensitive avoidance goes back for years.
Were there any courts convened to review the numerous wars of attrition conducted by the Arabs against Israel?
Nope!
Was there an international court to review the 1973 Yom Kippur attack by Egypt against Israel? Come now, let’s get serious.
When old Jews at prayer in a Paris synagogue were murdered by Arabs, did the world councils of the UN shed any tears? When Israeli Olympic athletes were murdered by Arabs in 1972, when a crippled old man in a wheel chair was tossed over the side of a cruise liner, when a restaurant in Paris was sprayed with machine gun bullets…..oh let’s not continue with the phony non-responses of the world organizations called the “United” Nations.
The reality is that many in the UN have hoped for the final demise of Israel from the day it voted it into its renewal after its original destruction a few thousand years ago. Does anyone recall any threat of an International Court to indict the several nations that promptly attacked the renewed State of Israel in 1948? If there was such a court, it would be useful to find it somewhere in any kind of UN files. It did not exist. Nor were any of the subsequent wars of attrition ever described as “excessive force.”
Yet, this United Nations, a heavily financed operations of many hopeful countries, has turned into a special interest operation that gets upset in very selective ways. Millions are killed in various African countries sans any formal charges from the UN. Women’s right are trashed in Arab nations with little to no expressions of problems from the UN. And the list goes on and on.
So we return to Israel saying ‘no mas’ to rocketry that threatened residential settlements, and the UN of Hypocrisy cries not just “foul”, but mass criminal activity requiring criminal investigations. Worse, they engage someone who happens to be Jewish to give some credibility to its investigation and reports, as if Jews do not ever disagree with each other.
The reality should not be dismissed as some simple situation suggesting one country screwed up and has to be chastised. It is a kind of Rubicon of what is supposed to be the place where the world’s disagreements can be negotiated and some kind of peace or avoidance of war achieved.
The UN of Hypocrisy has failed miserably. Worse, it has associated itself with more than anti-Israeli commentary; it has knowingly joined the chorus of the old time anti-Semites who have found new and more fertile territory.
What this will mean if and when there is some settlement of this major colloquy may well determine the future of this hugely important attempt at international union called the UN. When the League of Nations failed, the world resumed its tragic path toward new wars.
It is imperative that leadership from somewhere emerge to expose this hypocrisy and either make the causes of concern balanced and unbiased or we are headed for a kind of international madness no one wants to suggest.
* * *
Honick is president of Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based GMA International Ltd, the consulting and public relations firm he formed in 1975 to help companies broaden their business abroad especially in China and Japan. He also contributes to a variety of publications on public policy issues.
Editor's note: To view the Goldstone report, click HERE
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COMMENTARY: The United Nations of Hypocrisy
By Joseph J. Honick
From as far back as I can recall, I believed in the United Nations as a
final vehicle to intercede where wars might be starting or to mitigate
situations where nations might be doing barbaric things to their people
or others. It did not occur to me, naïve as I may have been, that concerns for
humans would be selective. And that is what has occurred.
Most specifically has been the rapid response to Israel’s reaction to the nonstop rocketing of its residential areas by Hamas. Hard to say whether Israel’s response was excessive since that is hardly defined. What is at stake is the suggestion of intent by the Israeli Defense Forces purposely to target civilians. This is strong stuff, and the UN report of the Goldstone panel says Israel did such heinous things, while the same report minimized whatever it was that Hamas may have committed.
After all, I doubt that the Allies truly intended to target civilians in the historic assault on Dresden, Germany in February 1945, during World War II, or in the use of the A-Bombs in Japan in August 1945 where the sums of civilian deaths were in the hundreds of thousands.
The long history of Islamic states doing bad things either to their people or to others has seldom had much investigating or threats of International Court criminal indictments. The most blatant of course was and remains the slaughter of nearly 300 civilian airline passengers over Lockerbie, Scotland, the admitted involvement of the Libyan dictator Muamar Gadaffi and the appalling release on humanitarian grounds of the only convicted participant so he could spend his allegedly short life in his homeland, terminal prostate cancer being the reason for his release. It is only modest logic that there have been no further reports of his near demise weeks after his release and welcome in Libya as a virtual hero.
The fact is there is not only no threat of International Court indictments of admitted participants in the Lockerbie slaughters, one of them, the Libyan dictator himself has been welcomed back to the family of nations warmly by the President of the United States, George Bush and the then Prime Minister of Britain Tony Blair, not to mention the majority of the UN big boys themselves. Worse, the son of the dictator has made fun of the fact Libya is not about to pay a dime to the families of the victims. Do you read of any cries of concern from the crocodile tear criers of human rights groups or the UN folks anywhere?
Of course not!
But the history of UN sensitive avoidance goes back for years.
Were there any courts convened to review the numerous wars of attrition conducted by the Arabs against Israel?
Nope!
Was there an international court to review the 1973 Yom Kippur attack by Egypt against Israel? Come now, let’s get serious.
When old Jews at prayer in a Paris synagogue were murdered by Arabs, did the world councils of the UN shed any tears? When Israeli Olympic athletes were murdered by Arabs in 1972, when a crippled old man in a wheel chair was tossed over the side of a cruise liner, when a restaurant in Paris was sprayed with machine gun bullets…..oh let’s not continue with the phony non-responses of the world organizations called the “United” Nations.
The reality is that many in the UN have hoped for the final demise of Israel from the day it voted it into its renewal after its original destruction a few thousand years ago. Does anyone recall any threat of an International Court to indict the several nations that promptly attacked the renewed State of Israel in 1948? If there was such a court, it would be useful to find it somewhere in any kind of UN files. It did not exist. Nor were any of the subsequent wars of attrition ever described as “excessive force.”
Yet, this United Nations, a heavily financed operations of many hopeful countries, has turned into a special interest operation that gets upset in very selective ways. Millions are killed in various African countries sans any formal charges from the UN. Women’s right are trashed in Arab nations with little to no expressions of problems from the UN. And the list goes on and on.
So we return to Israel saying ‘no mas’ to rocketry that threatened residential settlements, and the UN of Hypocrisy cries not just “foul”, but mass criminal activity requiring criminal investigations. Worse, they engage someone who happens to be Jewish to give some credibility to its investigation and reports, as if Jews do not ever disagree with each other.
The reality should not be dismissed as some simple situation suggesting one country screwed up and has to be chastised. It is a kind of Rubicon of what is supposed to be the place where the world’s disagreements can be negotiated and some kind of peace or avoidance of war achieved.
The UN of Hypocrisy has failed miserably. Worse, it has associated itself with more than anti-Israeli commentary; it has knowingly joined the chorus of the old time anti-Semites who have found new and more fertile territory.
What this will mean if and when there is some settlement of this major colloquy may well determine the future of this hugely important attempt at international union called the UN. When the League of Nations failed, the world resumed its tragic path toward new wars.
It is imperative that leadership from somewhere emerge to expose this hypocrisy and either make the causes of concern balanced and unbiased or we are headed for a kind of international madness no one wants to suggest.
* * *
Honick is president of Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based GMA International Ltd, the consulting and public relations firm he formed in 1975 to help companies broaden their business abroad especially in China and Japan. He also contributes to a variety of publications on public policy issues.
Editor's note: To view the Goldstone report, click HERE
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