Jewish Chronicle, April 30 2004

Truly, we are living in a time of madness. Fifty-two former British diplomats have attacked Tony Blair for supporting George Bush over Iraq and Israel. They therefore appear not to want Israel to get out of Gaza and uproot the settlements; have no proposals to defend Israel against terror; and want to return instead to ‘the principles which for nearly four decades’ have guided policy in ‘the Holy Land’ — principles of appeasing terror which have resulted in political stalemate and the escalating mass murder of Jews.

Their letter was published against the background of near media silence about the massive Iraq ‘oil for fraud’ scandal. In this enormous larceny, the UN either managed to miss or corruptly connived at a scam in which Saddam Hussein siphoned off billions of pounds of aid while dozens of people in Russia, France and other countries also pocketed the proceeds.

Reaction in Britain has been muted, not despite the vast implications of this scandal but because of them. For in the current obscene climate of inverted moral values, the UN is not seen for what it is — a corrupt, incompetent and terror-promoting organisation — but is regarded instead as the fount of order, morality and civilised values.

The revolting diplomats doubtless think the fact that Iraq is about to be delivered into the hands of the UN is its last chance. Yet this is akin to putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.

Take the recent remarks by Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN’s special representative for Iraq who has the diplomats’ approval. There was no doubt, he opined, that ‘the great poison in the region is this Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians…’

On the contrary, the great poison in the region is the UN. Mr Brahimi’s vicious distortion merely reflects the malevolent agenda that fuels UN policy in the Middle East (and courses through the diplomats’ letter). It does everything it can to discriminate against, punish and vilify Israel while sanitising, ignoring or even encouraging the murderous Jew-hatred of so many of its member states.

Last year, the UN’s so-called Human Rights Commission actually sanctioned ‘all available means, including armed struggle’ against Israel’s ‘occupation’. That means mass murder through the means of human bombs. This follows its persistent refusal to condemn terrorism which it has instead excused, legitimated and rewarded.

Over and over again, it condemns Israel, the democratic victim of terror, but refuses to condemn human rights violations by tyrannies such as China, Syria or Saudi Arabia. It provides a platform for incitement and libels against Israel and America. Its Durban conference ‘against racism’ in 2001 turned into a monstrous carnival of demented Jew-hatred.

During the massacre-that-never-was in Jenin, Terje Larsen, the UN's Special Co-ordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, claimed that the devastation caused by Israel was ‘horrific beyond belief’ and a ‘clear violation of basic humanitarian principles’. Not only were his claims grossly untrue — some 52 mainly armed Palestinians died in that incident along with no fewer than 23 Israeli soldiers — but he failed to acknowledge the lengths Israel went to avoid unnecessary loss of life, damning it instead for an atrocity that did not happen.

Last year a British UN worker, Ian Hook, was killed in Jenin after an Israeli soldier fired on him by mistake. The Israelis claimed he was caught in a gun battle after they returned fire from Palestinian gunmen. The UN denied there had been any such battle and presented Israel as trigger-happy assassins. Yet although the UN launched an inquiry within days of the incident, its report still has not been published. Why not? Might it be because it discovered that the Israelis had been telling the truth?

The UN has even more serious questions to answer. United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) workers and their vehicles have been used in terror attacks. UNWRA schools teach hatred of Jews and encourage incitement, and UNWRA staff have even allowed human bomb factories to function freely in their camps .

In Lebanon, the UN has persistently failed to stop Hezbollah firing on northern Israeli towns. When three Israeli soldiers were abducted by Hezbollah in 2000, suspicions that the UN was involved were fuelled by the discovery that it was hiding a videotape of its own trucks towing away the vehicles used in the abduction -- in which were found UN insignia, uniforms and licence plates, along with weapons and explosives.

In short, far from being the honest broker in the Middle East the UN is actively involved in promoting and encouraging terror, hatred and bigotry. Yet the US still provides one fifth of its income. This is ludicrous. The UN is the world’s problem, not its solution. It should be shut down, and a United Democratic Nations formed instead. The US should indeed be criticised —not for tearing up four decades of corruption and appeasement, but for not [ital ‘not’] doing so with sufficient rigour.

Posted by melanie at April 30, 2004