PrintJanuary 11, 2009
Ban Ki-moon's bigotry
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon portrays Israel and the terrorists who seek its destruction as morally equivalent-but the news gets even worse.
The Associated Press reported on Dec. 29 that Ban "again condemned Israel's excessive use of force...'All this must stop. Both Israel and Hamas must halt their acts of violence and take all necessary measures to avoid civilian casualties. A ceasefire must be declared immediately. They must also curb their inflammatory rhetoric...'"
To be "evenhanded" between terrorists and a nation they target is appalling--but the UN chief even falls short of this evenhandedness, as was dramatically revealed during his 2007 Mideast visit when he laid a wreath of white flowers on the grave of serial killer Yasir Arafat and met with the parents of young Palestinians serving time in prison for terrorism.
He did not lay wreaths on the graves of Arafat's victims, nor did he meet with their families.
He did not lay wreaths on the graves of Arafat's victims, nor did he meet with their families.
If Ban Ki-moon is not infected by the world's most ancient form of bigotry, what other explanation is there for his behavior?
Politics never made stranger bedfellows than Ban and Arafat, considering that the UN was founded to prevent genocide and the PLO was founded in 1965 to revive the Nazi-Palestinian Arab alliance's genocidal dream that had been crushed by the Allies two decades earlier. Arafat swore that the PLO's goal was to ensure that "the blood of every last Jew from the youngest child to the eldest elder is spilt..."
During the same trip, the UN Secretary-General compounded the insult by calling for the removal of Israel's anti-terrorist security barrier-a remarkable instance of chutzpah, considering that Ban's own South Korea is protected by a concrete border wall. In addition, South Korea's wall is supplemented with security measures including a buffer zone blanketed with more than a million land mines, along with 37,000 US troops whose sole purpose is to protect Ban's countrymen from those who might cross the border to harm them.
Another barrier was constructed to protect Ban and his colleagues at the UN headquarters, even though there have been no suicide bombings there. A news brief posted on the UN's own website on May 6, 2004 was headlined, "UN TO UPGRADE SECURITY AT NEW YORK HEADQUARTERS, and informed us, "The United Nations is set to begin a slate of projects - including the construction a new perimeter fence - to bolster safety and security measures at its New York Headquarters."
During the same trip, the UN Secretary-General compounded the insult by calling for the removal of Israel's anti-terrorist security barrier-a remarkable instance of chutzpah, considering that Ban's own South Korea is protected by a concrete border wall. In addition, South Korea's wall is supplemented with security measures including a buffer zone blanketed with more than a million land mines, along with 37,000 US troops whose sole purpose is to protect Ban's countrymen from those who might cross the border to harm them.
Another barrier was constructed to protect Ban and his colleagues at the UN headquarters, even though there have been no suicide bombings there. A news brief posted on the UN's own website on May 6, 2004 was headlined, "UN TO UPGRADE SECURITY AT NEW YORK HEADQUARTERS, and informed us, "The United Nations is set to begin a slate of projects - including the construction a new perimeter fence - to bolster safety and security measures at its New York Headquarters."
Considering that one month later the UN General Assembly would vote overwhelmingly to condemn Israel's security barrier, the announcement of their own protective "perimeter fence" would read like an amusing punchline if the subject weren't so tragic.
The UN Secretary-General needs to recuse himself from the case of Israel vs. the terrorists. He has an undeniable conflict of interest.
Edward Olshaker is a longtime journalist whose work has appeared in History News Network, The Jewish Press, FrontPage Magazine, and other publications.
