Author: Raymond Kearney
Published: Coastrider Newspaper (Jan21)

The United Nations was founded 72 years ago this year, shortly after the end of World War II. Today the UN membership is an impressive 193 countries. The UN is best known for the multi-national peacekeeping force normally deployed to keep opposing factions apart on agreed or disputed borders. The UN and all its various branches became synonymous with "Peace, help, aid and fairness". If the UN said something, it had to be right, after all, it was the entire human family coming together to ensure balance and fairness.

Organizations can become corrupt, bigoted and unfair and the UN is not an exception. Bullies emerge who try to control others. The UN has an inner sanctum called "The Security Council" made up of 15 member countries, 5 of whom are permanent. These 5 permanent members have more power than the other 188 member countries. If some of the permanent members want a little country to be reprimanded, sanctioned or even invaded they can have the Security Council vote for resolutions and sanctions whether they be fair or not.

Some years back the Security Council was assured by two of the most respected permanent members that Saddam Hussein of Iraq had vast stores of weapons of mass destruction. We were told that the proof was 100% certain; the whole world was in danger from this madman. This war was approved by the Security Council and the madman was toppled. Unfortunately or fortunately, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found. A clever and well-engineered lie had started the invasion of a sovereign state. The bombing of Libya led to the toppling of another madman, General Gadhafi. ISIS was born and nurtured as a result of these two UN approved invasions.

The UN regularly passes resolutions to keep rogue nations in check. In 2016 the UN passed a total of 24 resolutions, amazingly 20 were passed against Israel. With all the strife in the world, with all the terrorist activity perpetrated by ISIS and other Islamic terrorists, why is the UN so biased against one little country half the size of Ireland? Why did outgoing President Obama orchestrate last month’s UN Security Council resolution against Israel? Last week the "Paris Peace Talks" were designed to maneuver Israel into a corner, demanding adherence to the failed two-state solution, conceived in the 1970’s and became official UN strategy in 1993.

In June 1967 Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq backed up by Kuwait, Algeria, Sudan and Saudi Arabia gathered an army of 465,000 troops, almost 3,000 tanks and 800 military aircraft besieging Israel and declaring that they were going to promptly obliterate them. The UN did not intervene. As the best form of defense is attack in a situation like this, the Israeli air force destroyed the Arab fighter planes on the ground in a preemptive strike and after just six days Israel accepted a proposed ceasefire from a position of strength. They had pushed the besieging forces back and regained some of their own territory that had been stolen from them centuries earlier including a portion of Jerusalem.

The Arab aggressors then wanted the occupied territories they had "gambled and lost" to be returned to them. When you go to war, shed blood and then lose, you’ve got to live with the consequences, ask Germany. The Palestinians want Israel to give up their land which historically had been theirs anyway. Israel wants peace but the Palestinians won’t even sit down with the Israelis until they give this land to them. The Palestinian Authority is using the UN to pressure Israel. The Palestinians believe that there should be no negative consequences to their aggression, past or present. The lands referred to as the "occupied territories" should be more correctly referred to as the "Israeli Reoccupied territories". So now you decide, is the UN what you thought it was? Is the UN a force for good and fairness in the world?

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