U.S. Ambassador John Bolton addressed the UN Secretariat's office about this blatant Mohammedan disrespect for the sovereignty of the nation of Israel, a UN member incidentally.
Ambassador Bolton finally received a response dated January 16, 2006. Basically Kofi Annan's position is that the Secretariat has no control over the Assembly actions. The article explains how that interpretation is hogwash and is a revelation of Annan's Mohammedan sympathies!
The UN is more and more blatantly is becoming the tool of Third World Islamofascist to the detriment of the United States - the largest contributor to the UN financial budget.
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1/20/06
On November 29, 2005 I took a photograph of a map on display at a major meeting at UN Headquarters in New York, which omitted the UN member state of Israel. The map was perched on a frame at the front of the room with a flag of the United Nations on one side, and a Palestinian flag on the other. The occasion was the annual UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
How did it get there? Who was responsible? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, and the UN had literally-speaking already done so. American UN Ambassador John Bolton was properly concerned and wanted some answers. He wrote to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on January 3, 2006 posing three questions: "First, who is the highest level official within the Secretariat who approved the use of the map for the event? Second, does the United Nations intend to use the map in future U.N. sponsored functions and events? Third, in light of prohibitions under U.S. law to fund events such as this one, do you consider it appropriate for the United Nations to advertise and promote the event on its general website and other venues, which do in fact benefit from U.S. funds?"
By letter dated January 16, 2006 the UN responded. [*A Word Doc Link] In an obvious slight to any American Ambassador, and straining to duck responsibility for the event and the response, Secretary-General Kofi Annan refused to write back directly. The letter was signed by Ibrahim Gambari, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs.
The responses reveal an underlying pathology in the UN system that demands attention.
The letter from this UN official begins with the statement that "the decision to display the map is a decision of Member States not the Secretariat" - ergo no official within the Secretariat was responsible.
I watched the UN staff from the Division for Palestinian Rights bring the map into the room, set it up, and take it back to the Division where it is kept on the 33rd floor of the UN secretariat building only five floors below the office of the Secretary-General. According to the UN Charter "The staff shall be appointed by the Secretary-General under regulations established by the General Assembly." So those staff members are directly appointed by, and responsible to, the Secretary-General. The UN Charter establishes six principal organs of the United Nations, including the General Assembly and the Secretariat. This gives the Secretary-General the capacity to refuse to associate himself, or his staff, with an action that is incompatible with the UN Charter. Actively taking steps to depict the erasure of a UN member state is hardly compatible with the Charter "principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members."
Rather than the "who me?" routine, the Secretary-General (or his legal advisor) might have considered his responsibilities in light of the context in which the decision to display the map was taken. In 1975 the United Nations General Assembly declared Zionism to be racism. Every meeting of the UN on the Arab-Israeli conflict or racial discrimination between that moment and 1991, when the resolution was rescinded, was predicated on the Zionism equals racism declaration. [*Word doc Link] On Palestinian Solidarity Day in November 1981 the UN Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) took a decision to display the map and flag. Here is the decision and the conversation in the Committee immediately following:
Chairman: Mr. SARRE (Senegal) I should like to draw member attention to the map and flag now positioned just outside this chamber; they are those of Palestine as it existed in 1948. If there is no objection I shall ask for that map and that flag to be brought into the chamber, where they will remain until the end of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. If there is no objection, it will be so decided. It was so decided. The
CHAIRMAN: I now call upon the representative of the South West Africa People's Organization.
Mr. GURIRAB (South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO)): I cannot miss this opportunity to note the map that has just been brought into the room, which shows Palestine as it existed in 1947, and the flag, which symbolizes the aspirations and legitimate demands of the Palestinian people. It is therefore my pleasure to be speaking at this point, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for directing the Secretariat to bring the flag and the map into the room...With the exception of the racists and Zionists, nobody questions the legitimacy of the oppressed peoples' using all means at their disposal, including revolutionary violence - that is, armed struggle... [I]t is my pleasant duty...to extend on this solemn International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People our revolutionary greetings and warm congratulations to the delegation of the Palestine liberation Organization and its Chairman, Comrade Arafat...for the intensification of the armed struggle against the common enemy...[T]hank you...for all the efforts that are being made to hasten the day of the final liberation of Palestine. That day is inevitable, whether it comes through the bullet or the ballot...
Mr. MUHTASSER (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) ...The Zionist entity is perpetrating barbarous crimes...these crimes even exceed the crimes committed by Nazi Germany...
Mr. ASHTAL (Democratic Yemen)... The resistance and the heroic revolution in Palestine are clear proof of the potential of the struggle represented by Arab resistance movements against the plans for aggression by imperialist and Zionist forces, aimed at aborting the armed struggle of our Arab brothers to recover hegemony over our destiny and future...
Mr. TROYANOVSKY (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)... "I wish you, Comrade Arafat, your co-fighters and the entire friendly Palestinian people further success...
Mr. AL-ALI (Iraq): I have the honour to read out a message from Mr. Saddam Hussain... The Zionist leaders have constantly made threats and resorted to all means to implement the very strange theory of 'Israel's security'. Thus, we are convinced that the struggle against international Zionism will be a difficult and long struggle because of the nature of Zionism and racial discrimination and the nature of the Zionist policy and its perfidious plans of hegemony...
Clearly, the map without the state of Israel was agreed upon in the context of advocating the violent elimination of the Jewish state or the "Zionist entity." In other words, it was a decision taken during a time in UN history that the self-determination of the Jewish people was said to be a violation of international law and it was intended to promote that policy.
Gambari's letter, however, makes no mention of the 1981 UN environment but instead dismisses it as an innocent "historical map, showing Palestine as it was in 1948, at the end of the British Mandate...[It was] the map and flag "of Palestine as it existed in 1948." Apparently, the Secretary-General needs a history lesson.
The United Nations General Assembly had adopted a resolution dividing the region within the British Palestine mandate into an Arab and a Jewish state on November 29, 1947. The 1948 UN map which purports to be historical, post-dates the UN General Assembly's division, but ignores it.
The title of the map is not the "British" Palestine mandate – but just "Palestine." And what would the British mandate be doing with a flag on it representing Arab nationalism? The Sharifian flag was designed in connection with the Arab Revolt in 1916, and became a symbol of Arab nationalism. (In 1922 the order of the colored stripes was changed.) At the Palestinian conference held in Gaza October 1-3, 1948 the Palestinian National Council adopted the flag (as well as a bill purporting to establish a government and a declaration of independence). The adoption of the flag occurred after the May 14, 1948 expiration of the British mandate and the May 15, 1948 Israeli declaration of independence. A map dated 1948, entitled Palestine, with an Arab flag adopted by the Palestinian National Council along with a declaration of independence, making no reference to the 1947 UN division of the British mandate, is not merely historical – except as a statement of the historical rejection of the state of Israel.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964 and granted observer status at the UN in 1974, adopted an emblem which contains the same UN map in form. Why does the PLO emblem have this map? The Palestinian National Charter [*Word Doc Link] explains: "Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit...The liberation of Palestine...is a national duty and...aims at the liquidation of the Zionist presence in Palestine...The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time..." Therefore, the adoption in 1981 of a map dated 1948, entitled Palestine, missing the UN member state of Israel, by a UN Committee living and breathing "Zionism = racism," with the active participation and support of the PLO UN observer, was a statement of rejection of the Jewish state.
The PLO is not alone in their affinity to the UN map which fails to depict a state of Israel.. The emblems of at least eight terrorist organizations, seeking the destruction of the Jewish state, have adopted the same form as displayed in the so-called "historical" UN map: Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade; Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Islamic Palestine Block, An-Najah Students Cell; Palestinian Islamic Jihad; Palestinian Liberation Front; Palestinian National and Islamic Forces; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command.
Nevertheless, it is not the context, or the history, or the purpose, or the other uses of this map and flag, which make the UN nervous. The Secretary-General says he is worried "the display of the 1948 map has acquired a new and very troubling connotation in the light of the remarks made recently by the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran." New? For decades the UN has been at the forefront of the effort to isolate and demonize the state of Israel. UN actions have had real consequences: terrorism has been encouraged, Israeli self-defense measures have been undermined with Israel being driven towards indefensible borders. Israel is the only UN state which is not a full member of any of the UN regional groups, key negotiating and appointment-making bodies. Within the last two months the UN General Assembly adopted 31 resolutions critical of human rights records of particular states – 19 of which directed at Israel alone. It is hard to take seriously the Secretariat's concern over Iran's remarks while they ignore the chokehold of the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference on actions in their own backyard.
The last excuse trumpeted in the UN letter is that Secretary-General Annan attended and addressed the meeting [*Real Player Sound Link], but so did Ambassador Bolton's predecessor John Danforth in 2004. The parallel ends there. Ambassador Danforth was President of the Security Council in the month of November 2004 and read an agreed text of the Security Council to the meeting. He did not attend or speak as American Ambassador. He took strong measures to distance himself from the proceedings, by missing all the introductory matters and other statements, showing up only to deliver his own 5 minute address and leaving immediately thereafter. His disdain for the proceedings was sufficiently evident to all in attendance that the Palestinian representative, Nasser Al Kidwa, was irate. Prior to delivering his own remarks (in the absence of Ambassador Danforth) he said: "Before I read this message, I would like only to express my hope with [sic] the arrival of the President of the Security Council for this meeting in accordance with the tradition which has been established since 1987, considering his presence [is] the presence of the president of the Security Council, and a presentation of the Security Council and not the national authorities, and we look forward to the arrival of the President of the Security Council." Kofi Annan, on the other hand, and a large phalanx of his employees in the Division for Palestinian Rights, had no trouble arriving early and participating in the Committee's usual opening move, namely, to rise for a "minute of silence...for all those who have given their lives for the cause of the Palestinian people..." - which would include suicide bombers.
In a parting snub, Under-Secretary-General Gambari told Ambassador Bolton "you may wish to discuss the issue further with Ambassador Badji." Badji [*Word Doc. Link] is the Senegalese Chair of the Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, who on November 29, 2005 admonished Israel in the General Assembly for "provoking" suicide-bombing.
To recap what the Secretary-General's junior answered in response to Ambassador Bolton's queries.
Question: Who is the highest level official within the Secretariat who approved the use of the map for the event?
Answer: Nobody, since nobody at the secretariat is responsible for anything. Everything is the fault of member states.
Question: Does the United Nations intend to use the map in future U.N. sponsored functions and events?
Answer: "The Secretary-General...hopes that the Member States' Committee...will consider deciding not to display the 1948 map in future...You may wish to discuss the issue further with Ambassador Badji [Chairman of the Committee]."
Translation: It's not my problem, and as for its use beyond that Committee, I'm making no commitments. My lips are sealed.
Question: In light of prohibitions under U.S. law to fund events such as this one, do you consider it appropriate for the United Nations to advertise and promote the event on its general website and other venues, which do in fact benefit from U.S. funds?
Answer: "...the observance of the Day of Solidarity...has been mandated by the General Assembly...and is organized by...a committee of the General Assembly. In providing information about the event on the UN website, therefore, the Secretariat is simply doing its job."
Translation: We're just a collection agency. We take the annual 1.5 billion dollars of U.S. money and we don't care if there are strings attached for activities to which Americans have strong objections. And if you have a problem with that, don't pay.
Exactly. It is high time to follow the money trail. The implementation of existing Congressional riders on US-UN funding should be extended. It isn't enough to withhold US contributions to the UN for the amount the UN General Assembly claims is spent on the Committee on the Inalienable Rights for the Palestinian People. For example, last month the Committee booked the UN's Dag Hammerskjöld theater for three days running to screen a film which promotes a one-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and attempts to convey the prevalence of Jewish racism. In the words of one interviewee, "All Jews seem to care about is work and money." Why use U.S. dollars to pay for operating the theater, or the employee running the videotape, or the advertisement for the film in the UN daily journal? Or how about those exorbitant renovation costs for UN Headquarters housing the Division for Palestinian Rights? UN officials' explanation that they are merely "providing information" on anti-Israel (and often anti-American) activities cannot be allowed to obscure a global propaganda campaign of staggering proportions that is centered at the UN. The excuse that the UN Secretariat is "simply doing its job" ought to ring alarm bells for forensic accountants (and democratic societies) everywhere.
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