Sunday, May 08, 2016

08-May-16: For Israeli victims of terror, a fruitless search for signs of genuine decency and humanity at the UN

The Meir family bury their wife and mother in January [Image Source]
Remember the murder of Dafna Meir, a Jewish nurse and a young mother of six children?

We wrote about it here ["18-Jan-16: Multiple Arab-on-Israeli attacks and a Jewish mother is murdered at her front door"]. We noted at the time that the BBC had managed to report that savage murder - by a youth who stabbed her to death at the door to her Otniel home in the presence of her children - without mentioning the word "terror" (or any variant of it) even once. A death. Maybe a crime. Perhaps an accident. Next.

Mrs Meir's husband, at the urging of one of the Israeli terror victim groups, went to the United Nations along with his oldest daughter Ranana, aged 17, on April 19, 2016 to be present at a UN Security Council debate on the Middle East that was scheduled to touch on matters concerning the Arab/Israel conflict. (Background at Israel National News and Jerusalem Post.)

How well do you imagine that went? Our own quite negative experiences at the UN gave us reason to be deeply pessimistic when we read about the Meirs' impending trip. It turned out to be traumatic and upsetting and they want people to know.

Natan Meir has just sent a brief open letter to the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, reflecting on the quite shocking way he and his daughter and their message were treated and making some serious points about how diplomats view real, live, in-the-flesh terror victims when they occupy the same room. It's searing.

Excerpts from the letter which he has now published via Facebook:
  • "Israel's UN ambassador introduced me and my daughter and told our story. Not one UN ambassador bothered to come and comfort my 17-year-old daughter. No one came to shake our hands. No one called or met with us before or after. Not one letter."
  • "Even you, Mr. Secretary General, you were sitting at the front of that meeting and you did not open your mouth nor look in the eyes of someone in who is in anguish and pain.”
  • “In our presence, the Palestinian representative complained that hundreds of Palestinian children are in Israeli prisons. One of the children he talked about murdered my wife! Despite the terrible scandal of misrepresentation, nobody prevented him from continuing his speech...”
  • "How can the United Nations strive to be relevant when there is not a single drop of basic human compassion? How can delegates not look directly in the eyes of a man who has all the right to condemn another person? Where is the honesty? Where is the human aspiration that was the basis of establishing the institution you lead? Can such an organization prevent hatred, animosity and inequality?” 
  • “Dear Secretary-General, as the UN celebrates the rights of the Palestinians, they must also remember the Jewish national desire to reclaim their cities, which they have longed for thousands of years. Billions of people worldwide know of the Jews and their deep connection to the Biblical land of Israel. A peaceful solution must also take into account the dream of the Jewish people. "
  • "If you still insist on helping, please help us to build bridges and connections between people without borders and fences."
We hope Natan Meir and his family take the shattering reality of their close encounter with the very, very ordinary men and women who populate the world's most important international organization and turn it into additional inspiration to keep speaking out in the name of their loss and their prayers for a better future. What they have to say is far more meaningful than the delegates' speeches and studied indifference. 

Sitting back and waiting for a political or diplomatic process to bring something constructive and sustainable to our side or for that matter to the Arabs is, it has to be said, not only a waste of time but, as we have seen ourselves, deeply humiliating and harmful to the human spirit. This, emphatically, is not how things should be.

We plan to come back to this issue later in the week.

3 comments:

chris moyler said...

The UN exists for one reason and one reason alone: to become the centre of world government.

On the face of it, that sounds like a good idea. To bring all the nations of the world together under one roof, where they can learn to talk together and to resolve their differences with one another, isn't that a great idea?

Well it would be if the UN assembly were to acknowledge that mankind has a Creator, and that their discussions were being conducted in the presence of that Creator. But the UN acknowledges no such thing.

Enter Israel. What is HER story? Her story is,"we carry within us both the revelation of the Creator, and also the revelation of how that Creator has planned to save the world from itself."

And that, my friends, sums all that is hateful about Israel, in the eyes of the world. She is a completely unique nation, unlike any other. She alone carries the Creator's revelation of himself to his Creation.

That is why she must be destroyed. Her supernatural creation, her ongoing survival against all the odds, and her message are all anathema to the very foundation of the UN, which is profoundly humanistic.

And that is precisely why Dafna Meir's husband and daughter were given such a cold reception.

Thank you and Shalom. C

NancyB said...

As a RN myself, I strongly identified with the horror story of Dafna’s death and the considerable amount of goodness that she made happen in her too short life. While each and every terror victim and death has felt to me like a body blow, Dafna's murder at her home with her children inside was beyond gripping to me. The UN's blatantly cold and callous reception of her beloved husband and daughter is shocking to me and very telling. I would have imagined that if for no other reason except basic human decency or political correctness, the UN’s members would have at least faked some show of concern. That 100% of the members and leadership rudely ignored real live terror victims whose grief had to be palpable in that room – they were right in front of them; confirms for me the calculated bias and willful blindness of this harmful and corrupt organization. I sometimes fantasize that Israel rescinds their membership…

Obama has consistently been bent on engaging the UN as if it were the central part of his foreign policy, as well as the sole arbiter of international law – all while the UN itself has rapidly succumbed to the influence of radical Islam. This is in direct opposition to every other President during my life time.

Obama’s speech to the Muslim world from Cairo University in 2009 delivered nothing short of a paean to Islam. He praised Islam as the precursor of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and called it a religion of peace and tolerance – a sentiment he has repeated a hundred times. None of Obama’s paeans to Islam are based in historical fact. He is complicit, along with the UN, whose power he has wanted to enhance, in a propaganda campaign. They have used the irreproachable shield of “religion” to disguise a barbaric system of oppressive laws.

Obama didn’t just heap undeserved praise on Islam in that Cairo speech. He apologized for the supposed transgressions of the West against the Muslim people. All this obsequiousness accomplished was to feed the Islamists’ narrative of victimhood at the hands of an imaginary “neo-colonialist” American-Zionist cabal. This false narrative, constructed mostly from bizarre conspiracy theories, helped to fuel resentment and murderous fury throughout the (mostly illiterate) Muslim world.

In this speech Obama declared that “it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit”. He apologized to the Muslim world that his country’s “rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation.” He then promised to change all that: “I’m committed to work with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.” Even after the second Holy Land trial in 2008 the jurors found all the defendants guilty on all counts of helping finance terrorism, Obama aggressively embraced the Muslim Brotherhood members of CAIR and transformed training of how FBI investigations are conducted.

While the OIC is the Islamists’ principal intergovernmental arm, it works in tandem with the Muslim Brotherhood’s NGO’s. These NGO’s have significant clout in shaping the UN’s agenda in “the service of Islam.” It has used its power in the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly to pass a series of resolutions defining “defamation of religions” as a violation of international law, overriding any right of free expression. Many countries in Europe have adopted these laws that prohibit any criticism of Islam. Recently, Obama alluded to the need to consider such a law to counteract so-called Islamophobia!

NancyB said...

(continued comment)
Obama’s top State Department legal advisor, Harold Koh, believes that the US Constitution must conform with International norms. This former dean of Yale Law School, believes American courts should apply international legal norms to their interpretations of the Constitution – even if such norms are embodied in treaties our elected officials have previously rejected. In a 2007 meeting of the Yale Club he stated that he did not see why sharia law could not be applied to decide a case in the US. And he has unequivocally endorsed a “transnational” approach to jurisprudence, which aims to bring the US into line with international norms. So much for the self-governing sovereign nation our Founding Fathers created more than two centuries ago. So, I have no doubt that Obama will not follow the law and protect Israel’s legal rights before he leaves office.

Islamists now have the power to rewrite international law because they dominate the UN General Assembly, the Human Rights Council and other global forums. Their dominance comes from their enormous voting bloc of 56 Muslim member states. This bloc usually votes in unison, and often bring with them their allies in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The Europeans often acquiesce to the Islamic agenda because they are too afraid to offend the Islamists or are too economically beholden to them to take a moral stand. And with Obama busy placating world opinion in general and the Islamists in particular, the easier it is for him to claim that these votes are simply reflecting international opinion. And Obama gives every indication of wanting to be in synch with world opinions. So I expect Obama to increasingly join in Europe’s appeasement. Just look at Obama’s groveling “engagement” with the thugs in Iran.

Despite scandal after devastating scandal, the UN is still regarded by many nations – including the US under Obama – as the most legitimate arbiter of international legal norms. And since the US and other democracies take international legal norms and world opinion into account when crafting their own policies and domestic laws, the Islamists have now found a potent means to use our own system of laws against us. Because of Obama’s aggressive outreach to the Muslim world and his obsession with currying international approval, Obama has lead the US directly into the Islamists’ trap. And unless Trump succeeds Obama, and will stop courting the Islamists and international opinion so assiduously, the US is in danger of becoming another “special place” for sharia-friendly institutions.