After the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad so memorably called recently for Israel to be wiped off the map, the UN duly obliged by doing precisely that. At a UN meeting last November, a map of the Middle East displayed on a frame at the front of the room with a flag of the United Nations on one side, and a Palestinian flag on the other omitted altogether the presence of the UN’s member state, Israel. The occasion was the annual UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

This astounding cartographical ethnic cleansing was revealed by the UN-watcher Anne Bayefsky, who had the wit to take a photograph of this map. As a result American UN Ambassador John Bolton write to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on January 3 to ask: ‘First, who is the highest level official within the Secretariat who approved the use of the map for the event? Second, does the United Nations intend to use the map in future U.N. sponsored functions and events? Third, in light of prohibitions under U.S. law to fund events such as this one, do you consider it appropriate for the United Nations to advertise and promote the event on its general website and other venues, which do in fact benefit from U.S. funds?’

As Ms Bayefsky reports in an update of the affair, Annan's office replied with a weaselly and evasive brush-off:

To recap what the Secretary-General's junior answered in response to Ambassador Bolton's queries.

Question: Who is the highest level official within the Secretariat who approved the use of the map for the event?
Answer: Nobody, since nobody at the secretariat is responsible for anything. Everything is the fault of member states.

Question: Does the United Nations intend to use the map in future U.N. sponsored functions and events?
Answer: 'The Secretary-General...hopes that the Member States' Committee...will consider deciding not to display the 1948 map in future...You may wish to discuss the issue further with Ambassador Badji [Chairman of the Committee].'
Translation: It's not my problem, and as for its use beyond that Committee, I'm making no commitments. My lips are sealed.

Question: In light of prohibitions under U.S. law to fund events such as this one, do you consider it appropriate for the United Nations to advertise and promote the event on its general website and other venues, which do in fact benefit from U.S. funds?
Answer: '...the observance of the Day of Solidarity...has been mandated by the General Assembly...and is organized by...a committee of the General Assembly. In providing information about the event on the UN website, therefore, the Secretariat is simply doing its job.'
Translation: We're just a collection agency. We take the annual 1.5 billion dollars of U.S. money and we don't care if there are strings attached for activities to which Americans have strong objections. And if you have a problem with that, don't pay.

The grotesque Durban hate-fest against the Jews in 2001 revealed beyond doubt that the UN is an organisation that promotes Judeophobia and winks at genocidal terrorism against Israel. Far from policing the world against violence, terrorism and tyranny, it actually connives at these evils. Bolton has threatened to cut US funding to the UN if it continues to promote such anti-Israel events. The time for such action is long overdue.