UN’s Failures Extend to Gaza

Terrorists in relief workers clothing

By John Klar | Feb 6, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News Tags: Articles, International, Opinion

Deteriorating conditions in Gaza are bad enough without the complications presented by claims UN relief workers participated in the October 7 attacks against Israel by Hamas. Several nations (including the US) have paused relief funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) pending further investigation. The UN’s apparent failure to vet its staff threatens its mission to provide medical aid to injured civilians, a deja vu of previous systemic failures in Congo and Haiti. The UN has aggravated Israel with calls for a ceasefire; now it appears some of its paid UNRWA employees were agents of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Hamas and UNRWA

There were claims of UNRWA teachers and staffers openly celebrating the Hamas attacks of October 7, but recent allegations go much farther – suggesting actual physical participation. Israel claims the number of hostile UNRWA infiltrators exceeds 190 workers. At least 12 have been confirmed, including a social worker and nine teachers. Seven of these may have participated directly in the October 7 hostilities. Israel claims one UNRWA worker was part of a kibbutz massacre of 97 civilians that day. Early claims by an Israeli journalist that one of the Gaza hostage takers was a teacher at a UNRWA-run school were roundly denounced by UNRWA officials, who demanded an “immediate stop” to “unsubstantiated claims” and “misinformation.” It now appears that information was accurate and may be just the tip of a bloody iceberg.

UNRWA, created as a subsidiary of the United Nations General Assembly in 1949 to provide services to Palestinian refugees, has long been accused of associations with Hamas and Islamic anti-Semitic militantism. Israel accuses UNRWA of aggravating tensions with Hamas, storing weapons at its facilities, and indoctrinating children with inflammatory rhetoric in UNRWA-operated schools. As reported by The Times of Israel:

“According to an IMPACT-se report, UNRWA-produced educational literature ‘contains material that encourages jihad, violence and martyrdom, promotes antisemitism, and promotes hate, intolerance, and lack of neutrality.’

“False conspiracy theories teach students that Israeli policies include attempts ‘to erase Palestinian identity,’ to ‘steal and falsify the Palestinian heritage,’ and to ‘erase the cultural heritage of Jerusalem.’”

Hostility Toward Israel?

United Nations entities have repeatedly been embroiled in geopolitical maneuverings. The World Health Organization (WHO), another UN subsidiary, allegedly supported the Myanmar government indirectly via favorable medical care provision and similarly favored the Assad regime in Syria. In the highly volatile Middle East conflict, the United Nations has come under fire for interfering with Israel’s national security.

In December 2023, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticized Hamas for using civilians as human shields and called upon Israel to urgently implement a ceasefire. Israel Foreign Affairs Minister Eli Cohen rebuked the UN’s position sharply on X:

“Guterres’ tenure is a danger to world peace.

“His request to activate Article 99 and the call for a cease fire in Gaza constitutes support of the Hamas terrorist organization and an endorsement of the murder of the elderly, the abduction of babies and the rape of women.

“Anyone who supports world peace must support the liberation of Gaza from Hamas.”

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan tag-teamed in this criticism of Guterres, arguing that the UN had not taken that stance in Yemen, Syria, or Ukraine. The recent revelations about UN-affiliated aid workers participating in actual terrorism against Jews certainly undermine UN credibility in ceasefire negotiations, at least until the left hand figures out what the right hand is doing.

UN’s Worldwide Credibility Problem

The UN’s alleged conflicts of political interest in Gaza and Israel are compounded by lost trust due to betrayals of traditional fiduciary obligations. In Congo’s 2018-2019 Ebola outbreak, the medical profession was corrupted when WHO personnel dispatched to rescue impoverished patients from the deadly disease reportedly raped and impregnated many women, including a 13-year-old. (As in Gaza, many WHO employees had inadequate background checks.)

Additional UN sex trafficking scandals have been reported in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as a notoriously ignominious child sex ring organized in Haiti by more than 100 UN personnel who had been insufficiently screened. In all of these experiences, insufficiently researched UN (or its numerous bureaucratic subsidiaries) staff become predators against those they were entrusted to aid, then returned home with impunity.

WHO’s Fingers Are in Gaza?

The UN’s influence in the Israel conflict has thus far been a three-pronged triumvirate. UN Secretary-General Guterres called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” on October 19, 12 days after the obscene attacks. UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini accused Israel of “collective punishment” of Palestinians and suggested civilian casualties in Gaza “cannot be ‘collateral damage.’” The WHO joined the October chorus demanding a ceasefire – three voices from one throat.

The WHO has boots on the ground in Gaza and stridently objects to military checkpoints that hinder ambulances and cause medical workers and patients to be searched or detained. Given the attacks on Israel and the Hamas tactic of clustering civilians as human shields around hospitals, Israeli security precautions appear necessary to tell friend from foe – the UNRWA workers who joined in the bloodbath are proof of the profound challenges faced.

WHO complained in a December 12, 2023, press release that its staff were detained by military personnel in Gaza on December 9:

“Obstructing ambulances and attacks on humanitarian and health workers are unconscionable.

“Healthcare, including ambulances, are protected under international law. They must be respected and protected in all circumstances.

“The difficulties faced by this mission illustrate the shrinking space for humanitarian actors to provide aid within Gaza, even though access is desperately needed to alleviate the catastrophic humanitarian situation….”

The space for humanitarian actors shrinks when the terrorists committing unspeakable atrocities are the teachers and social workers themselves. The UN is projecting onto Israel increased tensions and distrust seeded by its recurrent incompetence in preventing Hamas from permeating the organization. The space for trust of medical personnel and UN and WHO employees shrinks when doctors traffic women on the front lines of wars against disease.

The appeal by the UN for renewed funding for its Gaza agencies is as predictable as horror tales of women and children raped (and now Jews murdered and kidnapped) under its lackadaisical watch. UN authorities claim the entire organization should not be blamed for the actions of the few. But the war crimes of the few have been enabled by the many, and it is the people of Gaza who suffer the penalty – whether UNRWA funding is resumed or not.

 

Read More From John Klar

Holding WHO Accountable

The World Health Organization has a poor track record, but the most recent blunder beggars belief. by 

Henry Miller and Jeff Stier City Journal April 18, 2022

The Covid-19 pandemic should be a wakeup call that there is something very wrong—irreparable, even—at the World Health Organization. This revelation shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, the WHO is a constituent of the relentlessly incompetent and politicized United Nations.

From the beginning, government officials, health experts, and analysts have raised concerns about the WHO's bungled response to the coronavirus, accusing the organization of misplaced trust in the Chinese government, which initially tried to conceal the outbreak in Wuhan. Taro Aso, Japan's deputy prime minister and finance minister, even derided the WHO as the "Chinese Health Organization." Rather than taking Beijing to task for its attempted cover-up, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised Chinese president Xi Jinping for his "very rare leadership" and lauded the Chinese Communist Party's "transparency" in responding to the virus. Few would dispute that Tedros and the WHO acted tardily in declaring a global health emergency and, thereafter, a pandemic. But the most recent WHO blunder beggars belief.

Medicago, a Canadian company, developed a Covid vaccine synthesized in the Nicotiniana plant, a relative of tobacco. In clinical testing, the vaccine proved 71 percent effective against all variants studied prior to the emergence of Omicron and 75 percent effective against the Delta variant. Canada's department of health approved the vaccine for domestic use in February, but its global distribution has encountered an unexpected obstacle: the WHO won't consider approving the vaccine for wider use because of the manufacturer's ties to U.S.–Swiss tobacco company Philip Morris International, which owns a roughly one-third equity stake in Medicago.

Wealthy countries currently have a plentiful supply of Covid vaccines, but the WHO's authorization of the Medicago vaccine, Covifenz, is critical to expanding vaccine access in low- and middle-income countries, as it would qualify the vaccine for inclusion in the organization's COVAX global vaccine program. Access to Covifenz would particularly help countries lacking sophisticated medical infrastructure because, unlike some of the other Covid vaccines, Covifenz doesn't require storage in an ultra-cold freezer. Medicago might find a workaround—Philip Morris could divest itself from partial ownership of the company, for instance—but the WHO's current intransigence denies relief to countries its COVAX program is designed to aid.

This most recent folly should prompt the United States, as the WHO's biggest donor, to conduct a thorough review of the organization's competence and values. Global public health is consistent with American interests not only because we are a generous people but also because, as Covid has reminded us, public-health battles not won overseas will find their way to our shores. We would be derelict to contribute money to public-health organizations without mandating good stewardship.

American taxpayers are the largest contributors to the WHO's approximately $2 billion budget. Like other UN organizations, the WHO is plagued by wasteful spending, disregard for transparency, incompetence, and a failure to adhere to even basic democratic standards. Its Western Hemisphere subsidiary, the Pan American Health Organization, supports antidemocratic regimes and actually "weakens public health rather than strengthening it," according to a Wall Street Journal article.

The WHO's history is rife with ineptitude and ethically compromised dealings. Under its polio eradication policy in Syria, for example, health-care workers were allowed to work only with the brutal, corrupt regime of Syrian president Bashar Assad but not in rebel-held areas. Thus, while the WHO effectively contained polio within government territory, the disease spread throughout rebel areas. The WHO has also been widely condemned for failing to raise the alarm about the dangers of Ebola in West Africa in 2014. The WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is known to promulgate alarmist reports frequently contradicted by regulators worldwide. When a U.S. congressional committee attempted to investigate (well-founded) charges of corruption and conflicts of interest within the agency, the IARC rebuffed the effort.

What explains the WHO's dubious track record? Look to the structure of the UN.

First, the UN is essentially a monopoly. "Consumers" of UN products and services cannot punish the organization by patronizing competitors. To the contrary, inadequacy is too often rewarded with additional resources. Unlike in the private sector, where failed projects get shut down, bureaucrats often champion and clamor to expand programs that clearly don't work.

Second, UN officials are rewarded for making the bureaucratic machinery run—for producing reports, guidelines, white papers, and agreements, and for holding meetings—regardless of whether their efforts prove effective. Bureaucrats typically sacrifice quality and veracity for consensus.

Third, no authority holds the UN accountable, and no electorate can oust UN officials when they act contrary to the public interest.

Finally, the organization is no meritocracy. Leadership candidates' country or region of origin seems to be valued more highly than their qualifications, and countries seconding staff to the WHO understandably don't send their best talent.

The United States' funding of UN activities exceeds that of every other country. In 2020, the U.S. contributed more than $11 billion, which accounted for just under one-fifth of funding for the organization's collective budget. Unless an effective oversight and auditing entity can be created to oversee the WHO, the U.S. should discontinue its funding and instead support an entity that we can hold accountable for protecting global public health—a mission both worthy and necessary, as Covid reminds us.

Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. He was the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology at the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Jeff Stier is a senior fellow at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

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Influential U.N. Body Elects Sudan to Leadership Position

By Patrick Goodenough January 30, 2013 

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court but remains relatively free to travel and his regime has now been elected to a leadership post in an important U.N. body.   Three months after Sudan was controversially elected onto an influential United Nations body with key human rights-related responsibilities, Khartoum’s Islamist regime scored a further diplomatic coup this week when other members elected it as vice president.  The decision to select Sudan as vice president of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) drew sharp criticism from activists concerned about the northeast African country’s human rights record. President Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide charges.  To Read More….