Exposing the UN’s creepy clowns

Creepy clowns (Wikimedia Commons)

The United Nations has become a really bad joke, a place where creepy clowns gather. The UN seemingly brings out the worst in people. The UN was hijacked decades ago by anti-Semitic elements and about the only time there is unanimous agreement is when Israel’s Jews are singled out for condemnation and persecution.

There have been 223 resolutions during the past decade condemning Israel while only 8 resolutions condemned the Syrian regime for massacring almost a half million of its own citizens. Even outgoing Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recognized the strong bias of the UN against the only Jewish state and admitted that this bias had not helped the Palestinian cause.

The UN is hardly a beacon of moral authority. Bribes are not uncommon at the highest levels of the UN. Millions of dollars were illegally diverted into the private bank accounts of UN officials during its Iraqi Oil-for-Food Program between 1996 and 2003. Ban Ki-moon referred to the widespread rape of local women by UN peacekeepers as a cancer in the UN system. “Peacekeeper babies” were the documented result of dozens of rapes, for example, in the Central African Republic.

According to Freedom House, less than half of UN member states are free democracies. In 2003 the UN Human Rights Commission elected Muammar Gaddafi’s ambassador, Najat al-Hajjaji, as its president. And the world looks to such an organization for moral clarity? What an outrage! Dictatorships and totalitarian governments carry the day rather than democracies capable of taking a stand against evil.

The UN’s creepiness is contagious and even US President Barack Obama could not resist on December 23 getting his pound of Israeli flesh when he instructed Samantha Powers to abstain in the Security Council’s condemnation of Israel and not use the US power of veto, thereby facilitating passage of the resolution against the last refuge of the Jewish people.

I must be clear. Jews have been indigenous to Jerusalem and Judea for several millennia. The twelve sons of Israel walked the sacred land more than a thousand years before the foundation of either the Greek or Roman empires. Jerusalem and Judea were the homeland of Jews thousands of years before Christopher Columbus ever set sail for the Americas.

Yehuda was one of the 12 sons of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. The very word Judea in Hebrew is Yehuda and the word for Jew is Yehudi. The rest of Israel was bequeathed to Judah’s brothers 4,000 years ago and was settled by their descendants thereafter.

In contrast, Arabs in Israel are relatively recent interlopers, having come to the area 2,600 years later than the Jews. And now the American president and the US secretary of state talk as if Jews are trespassing on their own land?

How could the UN Security Council condemn Jews for settling in their own land? The UN itself helped to establish Israel as a Jewish State. So why would Obama feel the need to ruin what little lasting legacy he had left by siding with humanity’s basest instincts and taking just one more cheap shot at Israel?

A few analysts blamed the Israeli prime minister for the bad blood between Obama and Israel, as if Obama sought personal revenge against Netanyahu for opposing his deal with Iran and for being more popular in the U.S. Congress than the American president. Yet it is the people of Israel who will suffer because of one more UN resolution seeking to undermine Israel’s credibility. Obama is not stupid. He knows that this resolution will weaken Israel’s position in any future peace talks.

A vote for Obama eight years ago seemed like a vote for optimism, hope for the future, and the ultimate goodness of mankind. The young senator from Chicago seemed such a sincere person with lofty goals and aspirations to help those less fortunate by promising to work for more accessible health care, international peace, and human rights among those living under Middle East dictatorships. It was not uncommon for his powers of oratory to bring tears of emotion to the eyes of supporters.

President Obama appeared to be a friend of the Jewish people. Images stick in my mind of White House Chanukah celebrations and Passovers with the US president himself leading the seder and reading from the Haggadah. Obama invited famous Jews like Elie Wiesel to the Oval Office.

How could Obama not be a friend of Israel? Benjamin Emanuel, the father of Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, worked with the Irgun in the 1940s. Another Jew, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, became the DNC chair under Obama. But no observance of Passover seders with leftist Jews or lighting of White House Chanukah candles will whitewash Obama’s latest betrayal of Israel.

There were a few red flags eight years ago when Obama began his campaign for the presidency. Certain enemies of Israel associated with him. Yet we tried to believe that these people did not represent Obama. After all, no one can control everyone and is not responsible for everything that supporters do and say. Yet it seems that many of our concerns about Obama have now been vindicated.

President Obama’s apparent contempt for Israel has been frustrated for eight years by strong support for Israel in the US Congress and among the vast majority of the American people. Most US citizens recognize Israel’s indispensable role as America’s strongest strategic ally in the Middle East and the region’s only true democracy.

Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser to President Obama, let slip on Friday the real reason for Obama’s waiting until now to betray the Jewish state at the UN by pointing out that the American president no longer has to worry about politics because he will soon be leaving the White House. Obama apparently waited until after the US presidential election so as not to endanger Hillary Clinton’s chances to be elected president. Now that Clinton’s chances have passed, Obama can be himself and demonstrate his underlying animosity toward the Jewish State.

He often stated that if voters wanted to preserve his legacy, then they needed to vote for Clinton. She, after all, as secretary of state was very closely associated with Obama’s pressure on Israel to accept his vision of the two-state narrative and his timetable for its fulfillment. Ben Rhodes placed the blame for the failure of the two-state narrative on Israel’s settlement policy instead of Palestinian terror against Jewish civilians for the past century, even before the modern Jewish State was founded.

Donald Trump’s unpredictability scares me. I am appalled by his apparent lack of character as a New York businessman. Many of his comments during the presidential campaign sickened me.

Yet Trump did promise that things would be different at the UN after January 20. This is one Trumpism I can cheer. It is time for the UN’s creepy clowns to go.

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You can write to Yoeli Kaufman at the following email address: yoeli@israeliupdate.co.il