Should America Pull out of the United Nations? An Historic Conference about the Demonization of Israel at the UN that Has Not Been Covered by the Mainstream Media, by Phyllis Chesler
I once worked at the United Nations and have vowed that someday I will write about what a soul-scorching experience it was—especially for someone who was and still is a white Jewish-American feminist and Zionist. I had to absorb the most virulent, almost surreal hatred because of who I am and for the views that I hold. This happened long before I was perceived to have crossed any political aisle.At the time, when I tried to tell people about this, few wanted to understand. The UN diplomat’s dining room was so elegant, the parties and social circles so colorful and so career-building that even radical feminists did not want to understand that the tyrants and mediocrities that dominated the UN would never, ever police themselves and that sexism, racism, poverty, and even genocide would remain unchecked by this corrupt international body.
Friends: This was twenty-seven years ago and matters have only gotten worse. The United Nations has been effective in only one matter. It has increasingly legalized Jew-hatred by its demonization of Israel.
This past Sunday, a major conference on this very subject was held in New York City. Unfortunately, at the last moment, I could not attend it. To the best of my knowledge, only two articles about this conference have so far appeared: In the Jerusalem Post HERE and on the internet website War to Mobilize Democracy (WMD) HERE. However, journalist Fern Sidman, who wrote the WMD piece, has sent me an extended version of her piece which I have posted HERE.
Please understand that powerful figures spoke at this conference, including former American Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, Senator Norman Coleman, and Congressman Thaddeus McCotter.
I share Congressman McCotter’s view that both the United States and Israel, who pay the largest amount of money to the UN, should pull out of it and form a new alliance of democracies, or as McCotter suggests, a “Liberty Alliance.” I know, there are other views that claim that the humanitarian work done by the UN justifies even the corrupt political hierarchy and that Israel must continue seeking a group that will allow her to join them; currently, Israel is not allowed to be part of either the Middle East or European group and is therefore a permanent non-member of the Security Council.
Let me congratulate Herb London and Anne Bayefsky who hosted this conference and who have continued to work on this important subject.
Dear Readers: What do you think? Should America leave the United Nations? If not, what chance do you think America has of reforming this body? And if you think it has absolutely no chance—what is your thinking about why we should still remain a dues-paying member? Do you want your taxes going to support non-intervention in Darfur and the demonization of Israel?
ANOTHER REASON TO END AMERICA’S MEMBERSHIP IN THE UN!
ReplyDeleteA special U.N. Human Rights investigator has been invited to come to the United States to probe racism and Islamophobia in America. During his three week visit, which started on May 19th, Mr. Doudou Diene, a Senegalese lawyer, will be visiting eight cities and will meet with various federal, state and local government officials, lawmakers and members of the judiciary. According to the United Nations, the purpose of his visit is to gather information on issues related to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other related intolerance in America.
Mr. Diene is from Senegal, a country with a 95% Muslim majority that is also a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which makes up the largest single voting bloc in the United Nations. The 57 Islamic countries in this (OIC) bloc have a record of consistently voting against Western-style democracies and routinely condemning Israel.
Mr. Diene has a personal history of focusing his human rights investigations mostly on Western-style democratic societies, issuing biased reports on alleged institutionalized racism and ‘Islamophobia’ in democratic countries such as Japan, Canada, Denmark, and Switzerland while ignoring real human-rights violations in the non-democratic Muslim countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
It should also be pointed out that the United Nation’s Human Rights Council includes some of the world’s worst human-rights violators, including China, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. This same UN Human Rights Council has previously urged the United States to halt the post 9-11 racial profiling of Americans of Arab, Muslim and South Asian descent. At the same time, the United Nation’s Human Rights Council has ignored the fact that United Nations’ own peacekeepers in Africa are currently raping women in the Congo and have turned a blind eye to the man-made starvation of millions in southern Africa. In the arena of human rights, the United Nations is not only morally bankrupt, but it is rapidly becoming an irrelevant institution.
Doudou Diene has a clear record against freedom of speech and free expression when it comes to Islam. Mr. Diene had criticized Danish newspapers when they published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, accusing them of placing their country’s right of free speech above fighting religious intolerance and incitement to religions hatred against Muslims. It would appear that Mr. Diene would not be a supporter of the First Amendment of the US Constitution either.
As we all know, copies of the Quran are available in almost any bookstore in America and the book is studied in countless American universities, while Christians and other non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia are not even allowed to possess a copy of their holy books. The Saudi government routinely desecrates and burns Bibles that its security forces confiscate at immigration points coming into the country or during raids on Christian expatriates worshiping privately. Just days before Crown Prince Abdullah recently met with President Bush, two Christian gatherings in Saudi Arabia were raided in Riyadh where Bibles and crosses were confiscated to be eventually incinerated. Why hasn’t the United Nations’ Human Rights Council sent Mr. Diene to investigate Saudi Arabia’s overt religious intolerance and persecution of non-Muslims? Why hasn’t the United Nations sent Mr. Diene to investigate the anti-Christian persecution and murders in Albania and Kosovo committed by the Muslim governments? It’s because a very clear double standard now exists at the United Nations.
American taxpayers contribute approximately $5 Billion a year to the operations of the United Nations, which devotes much of its double-standard energy to shielding dictatorial regimes, attempting to usurp individual nations’ sovereignty and promoting a future new world order in which UN bureaucrats will be in charge. Worst of all, the United Nations serves as an on-going forum for rampant anti-American and anti-democratic diatribes.
The United Nations has been granted no authority over the American people or our government because the UN does not derive its powers from the consent of the American people. Americans need to stop thinking that the United Nations has some legitimate, legal authority over our country. It does not! Americans have a choice. We can follow the U.S. Constitution and protect our freedoms, liberties and sovereignty, or we can continue to contribute billions of dollars to a bottomless pit and submit to the unconstitutional interference by the United Nations in our country’s internal affairs.
In this particular investigation into racism and ‘Islamophobia’ in the USA, Mr. Diene is interfering in our country’s internal affairs and he is hardly an objective reporter or an impartial judge of racial conditions, xenophobia and other related intolerance in America. Indeed, Mr. Diene will find a great deal more racial, religious and ethnic intolerance and persecution in his own backyard in Africa and the Middle East.
Perhaps, the time has finally come for Americans to rethink the value of our membership and participation in the United Nations.
The evidence is clear. Not only should we get out of the United Nations, but maybe it is also time for the United Nations to get out of the United States as well.
I support the “American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2007” (HR-1146), introduced by Rep. Ron Paul, to end the membership of the United States in the United Nations.
By: John Wallace
Candidate for Congress
NY’s 20th Congressional District
www.FreedomCandidate.com