Epic UN failure

The UN is making it clear that it does not want Israel to defend itself.

The United Nations, or UN, is failing in its role to spearhead the multinational response to the terror crisis in Israel. It must act because of the global implications of the conflict as not only Palestinians and Israelis are affected by the atrocities of Hamas.

Thousands of people of other nationalities, including over a hundred Filipinos, are trying to escape the war zone, but countries with seeming sympathy for the terror group have sealed their borders.

Hamas, in its evil design, wants civilians to remain in the conflict area as a shield against the expected onslaught by Israeli forces.

The world is waiting for the UN to make its presence felt. Its response thus far has been to warn Israel that the methods it is using to flush out the militants and recover the hostages are a violation of human rights.

When Hamas launched its assault on Israel, the UN offered a whimper of a statement about the brutality of the surprise 7 October attack. The UN, nonetheless, issued a stronger condemnation when Israel made its response known.

UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk criticized Israel’s retaliatory air strikes against the Hamas militant group across the Gaza Strip, while adding that the “sieges” were illegal under international law.

Turk said Israel’s “imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law.”

The UN even accused Israel, and not Hamas, of war crimes. “Such acts may amount to a war crime,” intoned UN Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani. A UN-appointed Commission of Inquiry then said in a statement that there was “clear evidence that war crimes may have been committed” by all sides to the conflict.

The actions taken by the UN are similar to the disconnected effort of the UN-sanctioned International Criminal Court in its investigation of the Philippines’ anti-narcotics campaign, where it failed to consider the atrocities committed by the drug syndicates on the Filipino people.

Israel thus condemned the feeble UN response to the terror attack. Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan particularly lambasted the UN response “to Israel’s early warning to the residents of Gaza.”

Erdan branded the UN statements as “shameful” and ignored the brutality of the attack on Israel. He also noted that the UN special coordinator for the Middle East Tor Wennesland met with the foreign minister of Iran right after the Hamas attack.

“Don’t forget to wash the blood of Israeli babies off your hands after that handshake,” Erdan, showing a photo of Wennesland shaking hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, fumed.

“Tor Wennesland not only met with the Iranian regime’s FM, but didn’t even bother to condemn Iran for its role in the massacre of Israeli women and children,” Erdan wrote on X. “It’s no secret that Hamas terrorists are openly praising Iran for funding, arming, and training them,” he added.

“The UN’s support for and legitimization of genocidal terrorists is a threat to civilization!” Erdan charged. Thus far, the UN has failed to contribute to the resolution of the conflict and its role can be compared to that of a kibitzer, who contributes to further inflaming the situation.

Israel’s UN envoy said, “For years the UN has buried its head in the sand. As resources and funds poured into Gaza and went straight into Hamas’s terror coffers — the UN stayed silent.”

“As Hamas dug terror tunnels under residential neighborhoods — the UN stayed silent.” He criticized the UN for wanting to “minimize collateral damage but in the same breath condemning civilian evacuation.”

“What we all hear is not the UN’s concern for civilians. What we hear is the UN’s indifference to the murder of 1,300 Israelis,” Erdan said. “The UN is making it clear that it does not want Israel to defend itself.”

The UN, thus, is entirely unfelt in the terror crisis besetting Israel.

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Credit belongs to: tribune.net.ph