In the Media

Daily Telegraph – 1 November 2023

Just when you thought the United Nations couldn’t get any more ineffective and counter-productive, it somehow finds a way.

Last Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in effect, justified mass murder – or at least asked everyone to “understand” why the murderers did it. He said the horrific terrorist attack against Israel on October 7 “did not happen in a vacuum”. It was all because of the Israeli “occupation” he argued. And anyway, he implied, Israeli self-defence actions against those Hamas attacks are just as bad as the attacks themselves, saying “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the horrific attacks by Hamas. Those horrendous attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

Guterrres was following in a well-established pattern of justifying or offering “understanding” for terrorist evil that has been on exhibition virtually every day at the UN since Oct. 7, when at least 2,500 Hamas terrorists invaded 22 Israeli civilian towns and massacred 1,400 people, and kidnapped 239 others, including elderly women and babies.

For example, on Oct. 9, the UN Human Rights Council held one minute’s silence to remember “the loss of innocent lives in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere” without ever mentioning Israel or Israelis. This was a move initiated by the Pakistani Ambassador who blamed Israel’s “seven decades of illegal foreign occupation” for the violence. Note that since Israel only took control over the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, he was saying Israel’s very existence since 1948 has been “illegal foreign occupation.”

Then, this past weekend the General Assembly could not even bring itself to condemn the war crimes committed on Oct. 7.

It passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire without even mentioning the terror group Hamas or the unprovoked spree of mass-murder on Oct. 7 – the only reason there’s a war going on in the first place!  It couldn’t even manage to call for the release of the hostages Hamas kidnapped.

Australia at least abstained but it would have been better for us to have voted no and be counted among the 14 principled nations which rejected this sham.

When 3,000 Americans were murdered on 9/11, did anyone say it “did not happen in a vacuum” and list the grievances of the terrorists? What about Bali, or Mumbai?

But besides a lack of elementary humanity, various UN bodies and officials have also displayed an alarming degree of historical amnesia regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

No one at the UN seems to remember that in 2005, Israel left Gaza completely – forcibly removing every Jewish civilian and soldier from the enclave at great national trauma to the country.

This was done to give the Gazan Palestinians a chance for the national freedom they said they wanted – with the moral and financial support of the world.

Unfortunately, on the very day Israel left, Palestinian looters destroyed the existing businesses and infrastructure left behind for them, including successful greenhouses that employed 3500 workers and had an existing export market for fresh produce.

The destruction of these once-thriving businesses is symbolic of a future that could have been.

A few months later Palestinian legislative elections were held, and Hamas won the highest percentage of votes, and a majority of seats. But the previously dominant Fatah party did not take defeat easily, and violence broke out between the groups. Eventually, Hamas staged a violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Since them Hamas has controlled Gaza with absolutely no Israelis on the ground, the closest thing to an independent Palestinian state that has ever existed.

And since then, Hamas has devoted all its efforts to turning Gaza into a terror statelet, including an entire underground city with hundreds of kilometres of tunnels and rocket building facilities – even digging up existing water pipes to repurpose as rockets.  It has started war after war with Israel – firing more than 40,000 rockets at Israeli towns and cities – leading to terrible suffering for Gaza’s population when Israel inevitably responded to stop further rockets.

Despite billions of dollars that the UN, the EU and others have poured into Gaza, Hamas has not built hospitals, power plants, water treatment systems or educational facilities. Given how all that aid disappeared into the black hole of Hamas’s obsession with seeking violent confrontation with Israel, serious questions need to be asked about any new aid that goes to Gaza today, including the additional $25 million Australia has promised.

The cold reality is that Hamas has never shown any interest in peaceful coexistence, let alone a two-state resolution, which many, including the UN Secretary-General, urge as the only path to peace.

Instead of obsessively blaming Israel for everything, Guterres and the UN should re-evaluate their currently morally bankrupt stance and focus instead on actually helping both Palestinians and Israelis – by stopping the lifeline they are currently offering to the genocidal terror group which started the current war and caused all the suffering that has resulted from it.

If not, the UN will continue to betray its founding ideals – perpetuating violence and conflict, rather than peace and diplomacy.

Justin Amler is a Policy Analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).