UN's Ban Ki-Moon Excuses Palestinian Terrorism As "Natural" Reaction

It was less than 2 years ago that we read that Ban Ki-moon Admits United Nations Anti-Israel Bias, going so far as to say, "Unfortunately, because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel has been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias and sometimes even discrimination."

It should not be surprising that Ban shows the same bias when he claims It Is 'Human Nature' to React to Occupation:

Anne Bayefsky: Ban Ki-moon's Shameful Message in Israel's Hour of Need

For Immediate Release: July 22, 2014

Contact: info@humanrightsvoices.org Follow us on Twitter

Ban Ki-moon's Shameful Message in Israel's Hour of Need This article by Anne Bayefsky originally appeared on The Jerusalem Post. It is hard to imagine two more unwelcome, uninvited visitors to Israel in the middle of a war against Palestinian terrorists than UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State John Kerry. But even more unwelcome is that they are working together. Their common cause is that although Israel has a right of self-defense in theory, Israel ought to be prevented from exercising this right in practice. Events over the past week have provided an extraordinary demonstration of this reprehensible nexus. On July 16, 2014, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a report stating: “the Israeli military delivered text messages to virtually all the residents of Ash Shuja’iyya and Az Zaitun neighborhoods in eastern Gaza city, approximately 100,000 people, warning them to leave their homes by 8 am today (16 July), ahead of attacks to be launched in the area.” The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also made phone calls and distributed leaflets. OCHA then describes what came next: “Subsequently, the Palestinian Ministry of Interior in Gaza reportedly instructed the residents to…not flee the area.” As a result, OCHA admits: “the vast majority decided to stay.” This story tells us both that Israel adhered to the Geneva Convention demand of providing “effective advance warning” to civilians and that Hamas violated the rule forbidding parties to “direct the movement of …civilians in order to shield military objectives from attack.” What was Hamas trying to protect when it used Palestinians as human shields in Shuja’iyya? The IDF refers to Shuja’iyya as the Hamas’ “terror fortress” in the Gaza Strip. The IDF has found more than ten openings to tunnels in Shuja’iyya and since July 8, Hamas has fired over 140 rockets at Israel from this neighborhood alone. As IDF Chief of General Staff Benny Gantz put it: “Hamas has built a war machine in residential areas.” This is another violation of the laws of armed conflict. By deliberately locating its terrorist infrastructure in the midst of Shuja’iyya’s civilian population, Hamas violates the prohibition on “locating legitimate military targets within or near densely populated areas." Following the warnings, the IDF went into the Shuja’iyya neighborhood – and is still there – for the purpose of destroying the tunnels that have been designed and used to attack Israeli civilians. This is Hamas’ most basic war crime of all. In the words of the Geneva Conventions, civilians “shall not be the object of attack.” On the night of July 19, 2014 in separate incidents in the Shuja’iyya area, Israel lost 13 soldiers, more soldiers in a single night than Israel lost in the whole of the three week 2008-2009 ground offensive Operation Cast Lead. These soldiers died in an ambush. An anti-tank mine. Trapped in a burning building. The IDF affords us the context. They “encountered fierce Hamas fighting in the dense urban environment” as Hamas tried “to defend their tunnel infrastructure.” In these circumstances, Palestinian civilians who remained in Shuja’iyya – despite the warnings – died. Data on fatalities, in OCHA’s own words, are “preliminary and subject to change based on further verification,” so the number of civilian casualties is unclear. What is clear is the outrageous reaction of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. On July 20, 2014 he said: “dozens more civilians, including children, have been killed in Israeli military strikes in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in Gaza. I condemn this atrocious action. Israel must exercise maximum restraint and do far more to protect civilians.” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon speaks at a joint news conference  with Qatar's foreign minister Photo: REUTERS Ban Ki-moon said nothing about Hamas having failed to protect Palestinian civilians. He said nothing about Hamas having put Palestinian civilians directly in harm’s way. In fact he said nothing about any “atrocious action” by Hamas. He also made no demand that Hamas “restrain” itself from fulfilling its stated goal, namely, that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” For the UN, no move that Israel makes short of surrender to the Palestinian mob, will ever be sufficient. When Palestinian civilians did heed Israel’s warnings and did not die, on July 16, 2014 OCHA complained “the relocation experience has been…traumatic…Women have reported stress due to their inability to maintain…modesty norms…[in] overcrowded spaces...” Five million Israelis have just seconds to run for a bomb shelter and save their lives. Older people have died from heart failure when the sirens go off. Small children flee rockets raining down on their kindergartens and spend hours trapped between four walls day after day. Let alone the parents and brothers and sisters of the 50,000 plus heroic young men and women on the front lines who spend every waking minute dreading a phone call, haunted by the prospect of kidnapping by very real monsters. The truth is the UN doesn’t give a damn about the suffering of Israelis. On July 18, 2014 the giant UN apparatus assembled in Geneva for the world press. There was OCHA, and the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA). Not one of these organizations said one word about Israelis. This is not merely indifference; it is gross negligence and collaboration. On July 17, 2014 UNRWA confessed to “discovering” rockets in one of their schools, then refused to make the photographs public, and promptly gave the rockets back to the rocketeers – or as UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness delicately called them, “the local authorities.” UNRWA had the audacity to claim “this incident is the first of its kind…” knowing full well that Hamas has directly involved UNRWA schools in its war crimes before – with video evidence over the past decade to prove it. Canadian reporter Patrick Martin happened to be visiting UNRWA’s Fakhoura School on July 15, 2014 and described the experience this way: “Heading toward the exit, we were overwhelmed by the jet-like sound of two rockets being launched from somewhere near the school. Hamas, or some militant group, clearly is hoping the Israelis won’t strike at the launchers…because they’re close to the school.” He adds that the kids were enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the weaponry; “as the Hamas-made missiles screamed off into the sky...the kids all cheered,” and one boy identified the make and model as the kind aimed at Tel Aviv. Israelis, by contrast, are not cheering Palestinian civilian deaths. On June 20, 2014, the UN Secretary-General gave a major speech on UN action on Syria and unashamedly declared: “Since June last year…the United Nations has not been issuing any statistics of death tolls. It is impossible and very sad and tragic to count all these dead bodies.” The UN does not count Syrian dead because it’s too sad, but throwing around unverified numbers of Palestinian civilian casualties serves a more palatable political endgame. When Ban Ki-moon comes knocking, therefore, his bona fides are non-existent. So why is Secretary Kerry by his side? On June 20, 2014, responding to a question from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about Palestinian civilian casualties, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel is “trying to be as pinpointed as we can.” Shortly thereafter, Secretary Kerry was caught on camera by Fox News talking to an aide who was apparently briefing him on the CNN conversation. Kerry reacted “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation.” Set aside the 273 civilians across Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, who have been killed unintentionally during the Obama administration’s limited endeavors to reduce terrorism. Think back to the President’s speech on America’s right to self-defense in the context of Syria – a country not on the U.S. border and not posing an imminent threat to three-quarters of the American population. Addressing the nation on September 10, 2013, Obama declared “the United States military doesn’t do pinpricks.” One rule for Israel and another for everybody else, evidently appeals to both the UN and the Obama administration. A shameful scheme in Israel’s hour of need. Anne Bayefsky is director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust. Follow her@AnneBayefsky.

For more human rights and United Nations coverage see www.HumanRightsVoices.org.

-----

If you found this post interesting or informative, please it below. Thanks!

Technorati Tag: Israel and Ban ki-Moon and Hamas and Operation Pillar of Defense.

Anne Bayefsky: Duplicity as the UN Secretary-General Visits Auschwitz

For Immediate Release: November 18, 2013

Contact: info@humanrightsvoices.org Follow us on Twitter

Duplicity as the UN Secretary-General Visits Auschwitz This article by Anne Bayefsky originally appeared on The Jerusalem Post. Today, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will pay a visit to Auschwitz where he will make a show of concern for the demonization of Jews in the past century. However, at the very same time his UN staff is actively discriminating against Jews at UN Headquarters in the here and now. On Friday, November 15, 2013, an official UN-accredited Jewish non-governmental organization had its security clearance to attend an open UN meeting in New York revoked at the behest of the UN Division for Palestinian Rights.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon Refuses To Condemn Rocket Attack On Israel

It doesn’t matter whether Tamerlan or Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ever took the usual American school trip to the United Nations. The poisonous ideology of Islamic countries that is continually broadcast unimpeded from the UN’s global stage is ubiquitous.
Anne Bayefsky

Expect many to try to explain why the Boston Marathon bombing happened.

Some will blame Islamist ideology.
Others will blame the US government.
Still others will blame American society.

But according to Anne Bayefsky: "Why" Boston Terror? Try the UN:

CLAUDIA ROSETT: NEW SECRETARY GENERAL OF UN HAS FAILED THE ETHICS TEST.

Technorati Tag: Ban Ki-Moon and UN.

UN HEAD SHOCKED THAT UN IS TAKEN SERIOUSLY: From The Washington Post:

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was "shocked and dismayed" at a report that Iran's hard-line president said the world would soon witness the destruction of Israel, the United Nations said Thursday.

After decades of near-total focus on Israel, one should be shocked if the UN's message was not picked up.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Iran and UN.

IT'S LIKE HE NEVER LEFT: From Israel Matzav--Ban Ki-Moon on 40 years after the Six Day War sounds just like Kofi Annan.

Technorati Tag: Israel and UN and Ban Ki-Moon.

FARS FETCHED: According to the Fars News Agency:

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, in a phone conversation with Iranian President on Wednesday, appreciated Ahmadinejad for pardoning the 15 British troops.

Further during the same phone talk, the UN chief expressed the hope that such intrusions would not happen in future, and voiced deep enthusiasm for cooperating with the Islamic Republic government.

Just icing on the cake for Iran.

If Ban was not this obsequious, there is nothing the West had done that would render such a statement unlikely.
[Hat tip: The Corner]

Technorati Tag: Iran and Ban Ki-Moon.

BAN KI-MOON THE DIPLOMAT: Last week, The Jerusalem Post wrote that UN Secretary-General Bank Ki-Moon went against the grain and publicly said that the Palestinian unity government was a "disappointing"--while at the same time claiming that the 2002 Saudi Peace Plan was a "pillar" of future peace. Perhaps one can distinguish between the two.

But now, Yahoo has a picture of Ban with the following caption:

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon lays a wreath at the grave of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during his visit in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Sunday, March 25, 2007. The visiting U.N. secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, said Sunday that the time is not ripe for meetings with Hamas officials in the new Palestinian government.

Neither Ban nor Yahoo sense the jarring discrepancy.

Ban seems intent on making symbolic moves and statements that placate each side and are quite diplomatic, which in the end of course mean nothing.

Technorati Tag: Ban Ki-Moon.

NEW UN SECRETARY GENERAL NOT FOLLOWING THE CROWD: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is not following those who are rushing to praise the new unity government:

"The initial report coming from this unity government seems to be a little bit disappointing."

On the other hand, he thinks the Saudi initiative is just swell:

I think the Arab peace initiative of 2002 by Saudi Arabia is one of the pillars which will facilitate the peace process in the Middle East.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Ban Ki-Moon.

Will Ban Ki-Moon Cover Up UN Abuse Like Kofi Annan?

Claudia Rosett, who did in-depth investigations of Kofi Annan's coverup of the Oil-for-Food and other UN scandals is now asking: Will the U.N. Development Program Probe Be Ban Ki-Moon's First Cover-Up?

For just one day last week, it looked like Ban, in the first real test of his self-proclaimed mission to "restore trust" at the U.N., had risen above the bureaucratic evasions of his scandal-plagued predecessor, Kofi Annan. That day was Jan. 19, shortly after FOX News and The Wall Street Journal broke the story of U.S. State Department accusations that the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), violating its own rules, had allowed hard currency to flow to the now-sanctioned rogue regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. The State Department told of UNDP offices in North Korea dominated by officials of the regime, "sham" audits of programs to hide the cash flow, and an extended cover-up of the situation by the UNDP itself.

Ban came out that same day for a public housecleaning, with guns blazing. In a break with the stonewalls of the U.N. when faced with Oil-for-Food and other scandals, he promised to call for what his spokeswoman described as "an urgent, system-wide and external inquiry into all activities done around the globe by the U.N. funds and programmes."

So far, so good. But then Ban retreated from his original position and instead proposed that the U.N. General Assembly's own budget oversight body, the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions oversee the investigation. One problem is that, besides the fact that though perhaps 'external', the group is cannot be considered to be independent of the UN.

The other problem?

The board is made up of the government audit arms of a rotating trio of U.N. member states, currently consisting of the Philippines, South Africa and France. This was precisely the same trio of government auditors, serving on precisely the same U.N. oversight board, that provided so-called external audits during the final graft-crammed years of Oil-for-Food.

Besides the fact that Ban's actions in this issue are less than satisfying, this is not the first time that Ban has backed off from an initial stand he has taken. He also backtracked from his initial response to Saddam Hussein's execution:

In a break with the orthodoxy of his predecessor, who had led the U.N. on an anti-capital punishment crusade, Ban first noted that Saddam had committed heinous crimes, and that hanging such a monster was a matter for individual U.N. member states to decide. By the end of the week, however, he had joined the eternal U.N. chorus that condemns all capital punishment, even of mass murderers like Saddam.

But Rosett raises a more troubling problem, one that may already undercut Ban Ki-Moon himself:

In backing away from a genuinely independent audit of U.N operations in North Korea, Ban may well be throwing a blanket over significant aspects of his own history. Prior to his U.N. appointment, Ban was South Korea's foreign minister. His country has been shipping huge amounts of aid, including hard currency, to the North Korean regime for years, some of it during his own term in Seoul as foreign minister. Some of those funds may well have passed through the UNDP. If there is anything unsavory to uncover in that regard, Ban would be wise to get it over with now, via truly independent investigators. Otherwise, the UNDP scandal, which currently looks like a holdover from his predecessor, might turn out to be Ban's own Achilles' heel.

We may soon have the feeling that it's as if Kofi Annan never left.

Technorati Tag: Ban Ki-Moon.

A New UN Secretary General and Controversy Is Already In The Air

Now that Ban Ki-Moon is the new Secretary General of the UN after taking the oath of office, it appears that controversy is already in the air as he gets ready to announce his choice for under-secretary-general for administration and management as well as the head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The former position--under-secretary-general for administration and management--has usually gone to an American:

The appointment of a non-American to the job would be a "disaster" for the U.S.-led effort to reform the U.N., according to one U.N. official.

On the other hand, it's not all that clear that the reform effort has been chugging right along. But at issue is also the ability of the US, which provides almost 25% of the UN budget, to oversee where that money is going and what it is being used for.

Currently, there are unconfirmed reports that Ban might choose Alicia Barcena of Mexico as head of the administration and management office. Barcena is Kofi Annan's former chief of staff.

But she has other ties as well:

Barcena also is a onetime protégé of Maurice Strong, the former special adviser to Annan who resigned his last U.N. post after it was revealed he had received about $1 million for a family-owned firm that originally came from Saddam Hussein and had ties to the Oil-for-Food scandal.

Barcena also has ties to Mark Malloch Brown, who gave a speech in June last year that was very critical of the US, decrying its lack of support for the UN, and claiming that the US kept the achievements of the UN secret from Americans

Bolton was so incensed over what Brown said that he said the next day:

"I spoke to the secretary-general this morning, I said 'I've known you since 1989 and I'm telling you this is the worst mistake by a senior U.N. official that I have seen in that entire time,"' Bolton told reporters on Wednesday.

With one simple appointment, Ban would be sending a message on what to expect from him and the UN in the coming years.

Technorati Tag: UN and Ban Ki-Moon.

New UN Secretary General: Is The Party Already Over?

And to think that things started out looking so promising...

• The Jerusalem Post reported that, Ban Ki-Moon was the first South Korean foreign minister to visit Israel and is generally considered to a friend of Israel.
  
  
• The Mail & Guardian reported that senior officials at the UN were unhappy with the appointment Ban Ki-Moon: a hopeful sign in itself.
  
  
• Haaretz reported that Ban Ki-Moon condemned Holocaust denial as well as Iran's call for the elimination of Israel.

But that was all last year. Come January 1 and according to the Jerusalem Post, the party is already over:

Ban Ki-Moon, the new secretary-general of the United Nations, said on Monday that the Israeli-Palestinian issue was at the core of solving all the problems in the Middle East.

..."If the issues with the conflicts between Israel and Palestine go well, [resolutions of] other issues in the Middle East, including Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Syria, are likely to follow suit.

On the bright side, Ban is considering some changes in personnel which supposedly could affect the way the UN operates in Israel and the West Bank. He is also supposedly planning on streamlining the UN bureaucracy.

But bottom line, Ban is already beginning to sound like Kofi Annan.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Ban "is not known to have developed expertise on the Middle East."--if Ban Ki-Moon owns up to that, he would be the first international figure to admit it.

Speaking of following in Kofi's footsteps:

Ban is temporarily residing at a hotel. He will not move into his official residence - an 85-year-old neo-Georgian town house on New York's fashionable Sutton Place overlooking the East River - until renovations (the first since 1950) are completed. The General Assembly recently approved $4.9 million to modernize the residence's heating, air conditioning, plumbing, kitchen and security, which is expected to take about nine months. [emphasis added]

This comes in the wake of Kofi's last scandal:

...after Kofi and his wife moved into the rent-free official UN residence at the beginning of 1997, their old low-rent taxpayer-subsidized apartment appears to have been passed to the family of his brother, Kobina Annan — who for some years has been serving as Ghana’s ambassador to Morocco, complete with an official residency in Rabat. [emphasis added]

The sooner Ban streamlines the bureaucracy, the better.
Unless, of course, he intends to become part of it.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Ban Ki-Moon and Kofi Annan.

New UN Secretary General Is Already An Improvement

In Looking Forward To Kofi Annan's Successor, I mentioned that given that Ban Ki-moon had a reputation for being a friend of Israel and his selection as the new UN secretary-general made UN officials uneasy--things might be looking up.

Maybe they are:

Incoming United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Iran on Thursday it was unacceptable to deny that the Holocaust took place or to call for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Ban was responding to a question asked at a news conference about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who since coming to power in August last year has caused an outcry by terming the Holocaust a "myth" and calling Israel a "tumor" in the Middle East.

..."Denying historical facts especially on such an important subject as the Holocaust is just not acceptable," Ban said.

"Nor is it acceptable to call for the elimination of states or people," Ban said. "I would like to see this fundamental principle respected in both rhetoric and practice by all the members of the international community."

Right now it's only talk, and Ban has not said anything about Iran's attempt to acquire nuclear capabilities--but so far he stands head-and-shoulders above Kofi Annan.

Technorati Tag: Ban Ki-moon and UN and Holocaust.

Looking Forward to Kofi Annan's Successor

Boker Tov, Boulder! has some good news--Kofi Annan will be out as Secretary General of the UN at the end of the year.

The likely replacement may be good news as well. South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon.
According to the Jerusalem Post, he was the first South Korean foreign minister to visit Israel and is generally considered to a friend of Israel.

On the other hand, the UN itself is unhappy with the potential choice:

Senior officials at the United Nations expressed despair on Friday at the prospect of Kofi Annan being succeeded as Secretary General by Ban Ki-moon, the South Korean Foreign Minister.

"The mood among staff is glum," one of the officials said. "We are not very excited about the outcome." With morale low at the UN after five years dominated by divisions, deadlock and corruption, they are sceptical about Ban's ability to turn the organisation round or provide the strong, inspirational leadership they had been hoping for.

Another official, who has met Ban several times, said: "He is pretty faceless and does not have much charisma. Kofi, for all his problems, is a man of considerable dignity, political insight and wide international experience."

If the UN itself is unhappy with the choice, that is a good sign already--and if a UN official can describe the scandal plagued Kofi Annan as "a man of considerable dignity, political insight and wide international experience," then the UN is clearly overdue for a change.

Technorati Tag: UN and Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-Moon.