The U.N.’s moral bankruptcy
Rabbi Jonathan Greenberg
October 20, 2011
Stand for Israel
http://blog.standforisrael.org/articles/the-u-n-s-moral-bankruptcy
Those who seek to undermine free, democratic societies must privately laugh at how easily we in the West are often tied in knots by our own moral obtuseness.
Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (itself a caricature of its name) and the office of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/18/us-palestinians-israel-un-idUSTRE79H1W720111018 \t _blank released statementsjust before the Shalit trade happened expressing “concerns regarding reports that hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank may be released to the Gaza Strip or abroad. If in some cases this has been without the free and informed consent of the concerned individuals, this may constitute forced transfer or deportation under international law.” He added, “we are not sure to what extent they consented to this.”
Allow me to summarize:
Under international law, it is illegal to forcibly transfer prisoners of war or send them to other countries. The U.N. is concerned that Israel may have “forcibly transferred” some of the terrorists to places they didn’t want to go. I’m sure you’re as concerned as I am.
Every convicted terrorist (remember, every one of these “detainees” has been convicted by a free and independent court) was privately interviewed by the International Committee of the Red Cross to assess their wishes pertaining to release. And what authority allowed those interviews to take place? That would be Israel.
Gilad Shalit was taken captive in a cross-border raid that took place on his own soil – a violation of international law. At the time of his kidnapping he was a uniformed soldier in his nation’s armed forces, thereby requiring his captors to meet certain standards of treatment under international law. He was held in a dungeon for more than five years and never saw the sun (and has the vitamin D deficiency to show for it) – a violation of international law. He never had access to the Red Cross as required by international law. His captors released a single video of him to prove that he was alive – and then only to maximize his trade-in value – which was also a violation of international law. You get the drift.
The U.N. statement refers to Gilad as a “prisoner” and describes his former condition as “detention” and, essentially, says the same about the released terrorists. Such tripe is as offensive as it is ridiculous. Gilad was a victim of an illegal kidnapping. The terrorists were arrested, tried, and convicted by the legal authority of the democratic and sovereign state of Israel. Under that warped line of thinking, the man who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart – now that he finds himself imprisoned – is in the same ethical and practical circumstance as the one Miss Smart found herself in during the commission of the crime.
The moral bankruptcy of the U.N. is perfectly illustrated here. One side (Hamas) is a serial violator of the law (actually, in order to violate the law, you’d have to first care about abiding by it). One side (Israel) complies with the letter and spirit of it – despite the fact that they invite recrimination, investigation, and condemnation from a world that largely has it in for them.
They’re laughing at us in Tehran. And Damascus. And Beijing. And Havana. And every other tyranny-soaked capital in the world.