Mehdi Hasan: Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
Over the past year, Israel has launched attacks on multiple countries and occupied territories: the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran. Yet countries and territories aside, Israel has also targeted one specific organization with a series of unprecedented rhetorical and violent attacks.
Yes, the United Nations. We have all witnessed Israel, effectively, declare war on the UN.
Consider the record of recent weeks and months:
- Israel’s outgoing ambassador to the UN shredded a copy of the UN charter with a miniature paper shredder while also standing at the podium of the general assembly, and later said the UN headquarters in New York “should be closed and wiped off the face of the Earth”.
- Israel’s foreign minister falsely accused the UN secretary general of not having condemned Iran’s attacks on Israel, declared him “persona non grata in Israel” and announced that he had “banned him from entering the country”.
- The Israeli government actively obstructed a UN-mandated commission of inquiry trying to collect evidence on the 7 October attacks.
- Israel’s parliament is in the process of designating a longstanding UN agency, Unrwa, as a “terrorist organization”.
- The Israeli military has bombed UN schools, warehouses and refugee camps in Gaza for 12 consecutive months, and killed a record 228 UN employees in the process. “By far the highest number of our personnel killed in a single conflict or natural disaster since the creation of the United Nations,” to quote the UN secretary general.
- The Israeli military is now also attacking UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. According to the UN, “five UN ‘Blue Helmets’ serving with UNIFIL in Lebanon have been injured as Israeli forces inflicted damage on UN positions close to the ‘Blue Line’.”
How is any of this OK? Acceptable? Legal? Perhaps the biggest question of all: how is Israel still allowed to remain a member of the UN? Why has it not yet been expelled from an organization that it is relentlessly and shamelessly attacking and undermining? Sure, there are other human rights abusers that remain card-carrying members of the UN – Syria, Russia and North Korea, to name but a few – but none of them have killed UN employees en masse; none of them have sent tanks to invade a UN base; none of them have “refused to comply with more than two dozen UNSC resolutions”. It has been more than 60 years since any country in the world dared make the UN secretary general himself “persona non grata”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/15/israel-united-nations
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Bernie Sanders declares it's 'not antisemitic' to criticize Israel, calling out how false "accusations of antisemitism" are often lobbied at progressives, saying "it is not antisemitic to criticize the policies of the Israeli government."
Being anti-Trump does not make us anti-Americans, just as Bernie being anti-Likud does not make him antisemitic.
(Photo: AP)
Source:
https://theweek.com/speedreads/877713/bernie-sanders-declares-not-antisemitic-criticize-israel