I’ve previously written of my aversion to authority. Faced with an authoritarian person or institution, my initial response’s somewhere between scepticism and cynicism. The United Nations, founded in 1945 after World War II to stop future wars and promote dialogue, is arguably the only institution with global participation and authority. I’d love to believe in the UN, its ideals, and its activities which should transcend politics. But alas, I cannot. For example following the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the Security Council, in Resolution 1701 (2006) ‘created a buffer zone free of “any armed personnel” – both Hizbollah militants and Israeli troops – between the United Nations-drawn Blue Line in southern Lebanon and the Litani River’. This hasn’t occurred; Hizbollah’s re-armed under the very nose of UNIFIL. And in Gaza UNRWA openly collaborates with Hamas: its workers aren’t security screened; they double as Hamas combatants; Hamas uses its refugee camps and schools as training bases and missile launch-sites; and as UNRWA’s attempt to transfer a letter from Hamas to US Senator John Kerry during his recent visit to Gaza demonstrated, UNRWA’s also willing to be Hamas’s surrogate. And what about UNRWA’s deliberately false claim during Operation Cast Lead, of Israel shelling its school, killing dozens. The moral? The UN’s not apolitical, not disinterested, not principled and not trustworthy. It may have been a great idea once. But no longer. More’s the pity.
