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United Nations Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 22, 2016 7 Comments
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the U.N. today. As usual, it was an excellent speech. The headline is that Netanyahu offered to have Palestinian President speak at the Israeli Knesset (parliament) and for Netanhahu to speak at the parliament in Ramallah. https://twitter.com/IsraeliPM/status/779005562390515712 Put aside intentions, there will be some hurdles to overcome if Netanyahu is to speak to the Palestinian parliament. It hasn't met since 2007.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 21, 2016 9 Comments
Richard Haass is the quintessential member of the foreign policy establishment. Long-time President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Haass has served in Republican and Democrat administrations and advised candidates from both parties. In this election, he has been very critical of Donald Trump. So no taint of partisanship can be applied to the normally mild-mannered Haass' scathing comments on today's Morning Joe about President Obama's UN speech of yesterday. After calling the speech a "major disappointment," Haass unleashed the unkindest cut, saying of Obama's detached attitude to the crises of the day "this is not the faculty lounge." Ouch.

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 13, 2016 9 Comments
The UN's Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) has found during their nine month investigation that the organization simply ignores corruption when it comes to light. The investigators found that UN officials remain in a "state of near denial" about this corruption:
“The report is pretty devastating,” observes Brett Schaefer, an expert on U.N. finances at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “The U.N. apparently has very little interest in policing fraud, and there is very little reason to believe its own figures and data about it.”

Posted by Miriam Elman on July 13, 2016 10 Comments
On Tuesday morning July 12, 2016, the family of Hallel Yaffa Ariel, the 13-year-old Israeli girl who was brutally stabbed to death on June 30th as she lay asleep in her bed, was granted special permission to visit the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—the most sacred site in Judaism. Hallel’s anguished parents, Rina and Amihai Ariel, had reportedly requested permission to ‘pray for the ascent of Hallel’s soul’ at the holy place that was dear to her and their hearts. [caption id="attachment_177363" align="alignnone" width="550"]Credit: The Times of Israel Credit: The Times of Israel[/caption] Rina Ariel had written directly to PM Netanyahu asking him to personally intercede. Via a YouTube video that went viral over the last few days, they also invited their fellow Israeli citizens to join them in the special prayer service:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 26, 2016 10 Comments
We recently showed a video about how Palestinian incitement to violence is generated both top-down from the Palestinian Authority, and bottom-up through social media, VIDEO: No truly “Lone Wolves” in the Palestinian Knife Intifada A newly released video expands on the problem of incitement. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is notorious for helping to perpetuate the Middle East conflict, among other ways, by perpetuating the "refugee" status of Arab refugees created during the civil war and Arab invasion at the end of the British Mandate for Palestine. These refugees are unique in that other Arab countries refuse to integrate them or allow citizenship, while UNRWA uniquely counts even subsequent generations as "refugees." But UNRWA does much worse. It helps incite violence against and hatred of Jews through bigoted education. A recent film and study released (h/t Elder of Ziyon) demonstrates the problem, Filmmaker Calls for UNRWA ‘Self-Introspection’ Over Palestinian Classroom Incitement:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 09, 2016 19 Comments
In February, President Obama said we should not "panic over Zika." At the same time, he asked Congress for $1.8 billion in funding for the resources to combat the Zika virus, the pathogen spreading rapidly through the Americas that can cause birth defects and neurological problems. In a rare display of fiscal restraint, Congress granted $622 million (mainly from unused Ebola response money). However, as negotiations continue for even more Zika funding between these two branches of government, it seems that $500 million of those taxpayer dollars initially allotted now sits in the coffers of the United Nations.
The Obama administration siphoned $500 million that could have gone toward combating the Zika virus into a United Nations effort aimed at mitigating climate change. Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.) wrote in an op-ed published in the Daily Signal that the Senate last year granted Obama the authority to pay for a response to Zika, but his administration chose instead to allocate those funds toward the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund.
As a reminder, that $500 million is the first installment of $3 billion that Obama agreed to turn over as part of the UN Paris climate conference deal.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 08, 2016 4 Comments
Anders Kompass, who worked as director of field operations at the UN human rights office, has resigned after the organization did not hold senior officials accountable for human rights abuses. The UN suspended Kompass after he leaked a report that said French troops sexually abused children in the Central African Republic. However, the UN never took action and Kompass decided "he could no longer work for an organisation with no accountability." From The Guardian:
“The complete impunity for those who have been found to have, in various degrees, abused their authority, together with the unwillingness of the hierarchy to express any regrets for the way they acted towards me sadly confirms that lack of accountability is entrenched in the United Nations. This makes it impossible for me to continue working there.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 08, 2016 4 Comments
The United Nations has shown they care more about money than children's rights as they removed Saudi Arabia from a list of countries who committed atrocities in Yemen. The kingdom threatened to pull money from numerous UN programs if they remained on the list. UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon immediately gave into their demands and will remove Saudi pending a review. Not just human rights. This list only mentioned countries that violated CHILDREN'S rights. The UN put money above innocent children. The list claimed that "the Saudis' campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen was blamed for causing 60% of child deaths in the conflict."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 22, 2016 15 Comments
While Americans squabble over which bathroom stall to use, a block of fifty-one Muslim countries blocked eleven gay and transgendered groups from attending an upcoming AIDS meeting at the United Nations, scheduled for June. Western countries are not happy.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 01, 2016 9 Comments
Apparently, the White House is bowing to pressure from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (yes, such a position actually exists) and is going to look for alternate ways to bring Syrian refugees into the country. Fox News reports:
The Obama administration appears to be bowing to international pressure and pursuing under-the-radar “alternative” ways to bring in more Syrian and other refugees -- as soon as this year. The latest indication that the administration is preparing to take in more than the 10,000 Syrians this year it already has committed to follows a March 30 “high-level meeting” on Syrian refugee admission in Geneva, Switzerland -- convened by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. At the meeting, attended by State Department officials, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi called for countries to pursue “alternative avenues” for refugees – such as student and work visas, and expanded family reunification programs.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 04, 2016 4 Comments
The Vassar College Student Association  council is voting anonymously on March 6, 2016, on an anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolution proposed by Vassar Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Vassar Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). For details, see Vassar anti-Israel activists attempt stealth academic boycott Resolution. For years the BDS campaign on campus has been punctuated by crude and misleading accusations against Israel, and an implicit and sometimes explicit argument that Zionism is inherently racist. Overt anti-Semitism rears its head from time to time. In researching Vassar's history, I came upon an interesting historical contrast with the current situation. In November 1975, the U.N. General Assembly passed the notorious (and now rescinded) "Zionism is Racism" Resolution. Then U.S. UN Ambassador Daniel Moynihan spoke eloquently in rebuttal of spoke of the “infamous” Zionism is Racism act.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on February 02, 2016 4 Comments
As negotiations to negotiate an end to the Syrian civil war plod along, the UN has admitted, internally, that it is powerless to enforce any Syria peace deal. According to Foreign Policy, the UN knows it cannot enforce or even monitor any peace deal it brokers:
In a confidential strategy paper exclusively obtained by Foreign Policy, the office of the United Nations’ top envoy to Syria warns that the U.N. would be unable to monitor or enforce any peace deal that might emerge from landmark political talks underway in Geneva. The paper raised concerns the world might harbor unrealistic expectations about the U.N.’s ability to oversee and verify a cease-fire in a civil war beset by a dizzying array of armed factions and terrorist groups. “The current international and national political context and the current operational environment strongly suggest that a U.N. peacekeeping response relying on international troops or military observers would be an unsuitable modality for ceasefire monitoring,” according to the “Draft Ceasefire Modalities Concept Paper” by U.N. envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura’s team. In plain English, that means Syria will be far too dangerous for some time for traditional U.N. peacekeepers to handle.

Posted by New Neo on December 16, 2015 26 Comments
The number of Syrian Christian refugees the United States has taken in is extremely small. And yet this is a group that ought logically to be first in line because members face the most obvious danger and persecution---not only in Syria, but in several Arab or Muslim countries to which they might have fled. Syrian Christians would also have little chance of being terrorists. We already have seen how little Obama has said or done about the plight of Christians in the Middle East today, both rhetorically and in terms of action. So it's no stretch to imagine that the lack of Syrian Christian refugees may be the result of a deliberate policy of this administration. However, at least some of the lack of Christians among the Middle Eastern refugees to the US is a reflection of the way the system works vis-a-vis the UN, which usually does the initial vetting for us---a system that, by the way, desperately needs changing:

Posted by David Gerstman on November 27, 2015 4 Comments
Rep. Mike Pompeo (R - Kan.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R - Ark.) have a lot in common. Both are army veterans and both are graduates of Harvard Law School. And both have been doing a great job of exposing aspects of the nuclear deal with Iran that the administration would rather keep quiet. This week it was reported that an inquiry from Pompeo got the State Department to admit that the nuclear deal was never signed and is not "legally binding." Julia Frifield, the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs, wrote in response to Pompeo's inquiry if he could see the signed agreement, in a letter reproduced at the congressman's website, that the nuclear deal was not binding and that it was not signed by any party. The key parts of the letter read:
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document ...

Posted by Miriam Elman on November 15, 2015 4 Comments
Forty years ago, on November 10, 1975, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted resolution 3379, which declared the Jewish people’s national aspirations to live in their ancient homeland to be a form of racism. On that day, 104 UN delegates acted shamefully. But two ambassadors—one from the United States, the other from Israel—joined together to speak the “conscience of the world” and condemn the blatant expression of bigotry. By all accounts, they made a good tag team. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the U.S. Ambassador, was an Irish-Catholic who was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma but moved to New York City as a young child, growing up on the rough and tumble streets of Harlem and eventually serving in the United States Navy. [caption id="attachment_149832" align="alignnone" width="450"]Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihan[/caption] Chaim Herzog, the son of Ireland’s Chief Rabbi, was raised in Dublin but migrated to Palestine in 1935 where he fought for the Haganah, Mandatory Palestine’s Jewish paramilitary force, the British Army, and later the Israel Defense Forces.

Posted by Amy Miller on October 06, 2015 19 Comments
Today US authorities charged former United Nations General Assembly President John Ashe with accepting over a million dollars in bribes from Chinese real estate mogul Ng Lap Seng in exchange for lucrative government contracts. More via Fox News:
In exchange for the money, federal prosecutors say Ashe used his position as Permanent Resident to the United Nations for Antigua and Barbuda and General Assembly head to introduce a U.N. document in support of a real estate project being developed by Chinese billionaire Ng Lap Seng. Prosecutors say some of the bribe money was used to pay for Ashe's family vacation and to construct a basketball court at his home in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. He opened two bank accounts to receive the funds and then underreported his income by more than $1.2 million, officials said. “There is a lot more work to do,” Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, told reporters on Tuesday when asked about the probe. He said more charges were possible, adding, “We will be asking the question: Is bribery business as usual at the U.N.?”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 01, 2015 20 Comments
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the U.N. General Assembly today. It was a powerful speech -- one of, if not his best. The full speech is at the bottom of the post. The full text is here. Here are some highlights. Too bad neither John Kerry nor Amb. Samantha Power were present to hear it, and as a show of solidarity. Netanyahu had a powerful 45 seconds of silence shaming the U.N. for its silence on Iran's threats to destroy Israel. In the face of repeated Iranian threats and U.N. anti-Israel resolutions, Netanyahu declared "Israel will do whatever it must do to defend our state and to defend our people."

Posted by Amy Miller on September 28, 2015 14 Comments
Today before the United Nations General Assembly, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin sparred publicly over how their respective nations have approached a solution to crises in Ukraine and Syria. For both leaders, these speeches were an opportunity to regain control of a spiraling military, security, and human rights narrative that is now being influenced not only by the spread of Islamic terrorism, but the effects of mass migration out of the Middle East and Africa and into Europe. President Obama lashed out at Putin over Russia's aggression toward Ukraine and criticized Putin's leadership (or, lack thereof) on the Syrian crisis. Oddly enough, though, Obama somehow managed leave himself space to justify a partnership with Russia as a way of addressing conflict in Syria. From the New York Times:
Mr. Obama made a forceful defense of diplomacy but also castigated Russia by name multiple times in his speech for its defense of the Syrian government, its takeover of Crimea and its actions supporting Ukrainian rebels. “Dangerous currents risk pulling us back into a darker, more disordered world,” Mr. Obama said. Those currents include major powers that want to ignore international rules and impose order through force of military power, he said.
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