generalspeaking

Funding The United Nations

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has left the precincts of the United Nations for a foray to the seat of power in the United States of America. To plead the case for ongoing funding of the international bureaucracy that he heads. Western powers fund the United Nations to exist as a representative voice for peace and tranquility, fairness and justice, enlightenment and aspirations to in a restive world.

The United Nations concerns itself with being a voice for the voiceless, the powerless, to bring them into the fold of human self-fulfilment and freedom and human rights. The United Nations exists as a global diplomatic entity representing the needs and the justifiable rights of all humanity. Ideally, that is. To enhance the powers that reside within its bureaucracy it has a nation-volunteer army of peacekeepers.

Offshoots of the United Nations are various, for the empowerment of women, the support of children, food distribution, and health and medical services, investigations and alerts. The General Assembly is an assemblage of 192-member-countries whose voices are raised in various committees struck to achieve good in the world. The Security Council is comprised of the most powerful countries of the world: United States, China, Russia, France, England and ten elected, non-permanent members.

The United States and Japan provide the United Nations with 35% of its operating budget. Japan may now understandably be re-thinking the practicality of its ability to surrender such a large part of its treasury given its current emergency situation following the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster afflicting it, with an estimated $300-billion required for the country's reconstruction efforts.

The United States, itself in a financial bind with an immense deficit and debt, would like to see value for its financial outlay. That value would be gratifying to see occur, but the United Nations is a bloated bureaucracy, with too many entitlements for too many nation-representatives most of whom view their largest benefactor with attitudes failing esteem.

The most egregious example of a morals-corrupted UN-member committee, the Human Rights Commission, is a miserable parody in action of what the nomenclature might lead one to anticipate. What most of the committees struck by members of the United Nations in their voting blocs and influence peddling have in common is the stance by African, Latin American and Arab/Muslim countries denouncing the State of Israel as a pariah.

Addressing a meeting of foreign ambassadors representing European and Arab member-countries meeting in Israel, President Shimon Peres had some interesting scenarios to describe and questions to ask:

“Hundreds of thousands of mothers and their children in southern Israel cannot sleep at night as a result of the rocket attacks from Gaza,” he said. The ambassadors hailed from countries represented on the United Nations Security Council, as well as countries in the Middle East.

“Can the United Nations guarantee that terror attacks will not happen again? None of you would give up on the safety and security of your citizens, just as Israel will stand in its own defense,” Peres declared. He tied recent terrorist attacks to international “flotillas” attempting to break Israel's naval blockade of Hamas, saying, “Whoever wants to help Gaza should insist that Gazans stop firing on Israel.”

He also took issue with the UN over Iran, whose head, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called to destroy Israel. “Why do you permit him to do this while allowing him to continue to be a member?” he asked.

The UN is inherently anti-Israel due to its organization, but Israel is committed to membership nonetheless, Peres added. “We can never benefit from a majority. The blocs in the UN are based on being anti-Israel and we don't have an opportunity for justice. In spite of this we will continue to struggle on and fight for peace.”

Is this a description of a just and equitable organization dedicated to the concepts of freedom and equality and justice extended to all countries of the world? Are the great outlays of wealthy countries dedicated to sustaining the United Nations and its tentacle-groups concerned with the balance of world affairs reflective of what this global body produces?

Where is the neutrality, the even-handedness, the dedication to fairness?

Labels: Israel, Political Realities, United Nations

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, April 09, 2011