Dore Gold on the UN, antisemitism and the left.

[Mediocrates]

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Rea...e.asp?ID=16564

Tower of Babble
By Jamie Glazov
http://<font color="maroon">FrontPag...ine.com</font> | January 7, 2005

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dore Gold, Israel’s U.N. ambassador from 1997 to 1999. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Hatred’s Kingdom and of the new book, Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos.

FP: Mr. Gold, welcome to Frontpage Interview. It is a privilege to have you with us.

Gold: Thank you, in the last years I have enjoyed the articles which Frontpage brings to the attention of the public.

FP: What motivated you to write Tower of Babble?

Gold: During the period, when I served as Israel's ambassador to the UN in the 1990's, I was struck by a sense that the world was becoming far more anarchical than anyone had anticipated at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. After all the Cold War was over. The competition between the superpowers was no longer going to exacerbate conflicts around the world and their delegations on the UN Security Council were not going to neutralize one another with their respective veto power. For that reason, President Bush (41) envisioned a "New World Order" emerging and after the success of the Security Council in confronting the aggression of Iraq in Kuwait, the UN was supposed to become the main glue holding that order together. Yet instead, the decade of the 1990's was marked by growing disorder--global chaos. A new, and far more dangerous brand of international terrorism arose that struck the US on 9/11, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction accelerated, and acts of genocide returned in Africa and even on the continent of Europe.

From my vantage point, the UN seemed to be directly connected to this global deterioration. Had it not taken responsibility for multilateral diplomacy over the future of Afghanistan during the rise of the Taliban, or not claimed to protect international security through the mechanism of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and finally not deployed peacekeepers on the ground in Rwanda and Bosnia prior to the mass killings in those areas, then I couldn't make that charge. But peoples of the world looked to the UN to protect them, and the UN let them down. And frequently these UN failures led to the spread of far worse crises, particularly in the Central African Republic and in the Balkans. With this record, what moral right did the UN have to attack President Bush for seeking to forcibly implement UN Security Council resolutions with respect to the regime of Saddam Hussein?

FP: It doesn’t appear it had any moral right at all. So crystallize for us briefly, then, your main indictments against the U.N.

Gold: For President Franklin Delano Roosevelt the UN was supposed to be instrumental in "nipping aggression in the bud," and by doing so, preventing a re-play of the Second World War. But the UN couldn't even define aggression until 1974 and even then its definition was full of loopholes. Worse still, the UN is a manufacturing plant for the worst moral equivalence that just cripples effective action to stop wars: in its international behavior, for the most part, the UN does not distinguish between aggressors and the victims of aggression. In Bosnia, UN forces were partial to the Serbs, and not to their Bosnian Muslim victims. In Rwanda, when General Romeo Dallaire, the UN commander on the ground, proposed to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, headed by Kofi Annan, that it was necessary to destroy the arms of the Hutu militia before they were used to exterminate the Tutsi tribe, he was told by Annan's office to not take sides--indeed, he was instructed to remain "impartial". More than eight hundred thousand Rwandans were massacred within a few months.

Most recently, the UN General Assembly sought to activate the UN's judicial arm--the International Court of Justice in the Hague--to stop Israel's security fence. Annan's office supplied supporting documentation to the judges in the Hague about Palestinian grievances over the fence, without even relating to the wave of Palestinian suicide terrorism against Israeli civilians that caused the fence to be built in the first place (nor was there mention of other security fences built on disputed territory in Kashmir or Cyprus). Yet the UN holds itself up to be "the source of international legitimacy"--a beacon of international justice. It is clear, however, that the UN does not determine the relative justice in the claims of parties engaged in an international dispute. It can only reflect the sum total of the political power that a state or national movement can mobilize on his behalf within the halls of the UN. For many peoples, from Tibetan Buddhists to Rwandan Tutsis, to Lebanese Christians to Iraqi Kurds and Black African Muslims in Darfur, Sudan, (and not just the Jewish people) that leaves them completely unprotected if they have to rely on the machinery of the UN.

[Mediocrates]

FP: How did it happen that the forces of anti-Americanism and anti-democracy hijacked an international institution that was supposed to fight aggression, combat terrorism, and preserve global order?
Gold: I am strongly of the belief that moral values are as important in international diplomacy as they are in domestic settings. The UN was actually born in a moment of extreme moral clarity, when there was no confusion over the evil of Nazi Germany and the good of the allies who liberated Europe. In fact, to join the UN in 1945, a state had to declare war on one of the Axis powers, making the original UN more of an alliance rather than a morally rudderless collective body. Even though Stalin's USSR was an original founding member in 1945, it even had to defer to the leadership of the democracies in many cases. Moscow didn't dare vote against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it would only abstain. But with the expanded membership in the 1960's, moral clarity was lost. Many pro-Soviet Third World regimes re-worked UN resolutions to serve their interests. Individual human rights and freedoms were increasingly re-defined as collective economic rights; the General Assembly, meanwhile, adopted resolutions about the non-interference in member states’ internal affairs by exploiting human rights resolutions. With this ethos, it is not surprising that the UN did nothing when the Khmer Rouge slaughtered two million Cambodians; indeed, the UN invited the Khmer Rouge to the Cambodian peace process -- rather than indicting them for war crimes.


FP:Tower of Babble shows how terrorist groups have infiltrated UN organizations. Can you illuminate this horrifying reality for us a bit?


Gold: The story of the UN and terrorism is really about the loss of standards in the world organization. There may have been pre-conditions to join the UN in 1945, but no pre-conditions were set years later. In 1974, Yasser Arafat was invited to address the UN General Assembly, without having to first renounce terrorism; in a 1970 interview just recently aired on CNN, he voiced his opinion that airplane hijackings could be justified by UN resolutions. In fact, from 1970 through 1982, the UN General Assembly adopted resolutions condoning resistance to alien domination "by all available means" and then added "including armed struggle" -- to this day this has served as the key phraseology for legitimizing terrorism. More recently, in the years 2002-2003, Syria sat on the UN Security Council and was not required to close the offices of more than a dozen terrorist organizations in Damascus as a pre-condition to this elevation of rank in the UN system. No wonder the Syrians feel that they can back the insurgency against the US in Iraq with impunity. The same trend continued elsewhere. UNRWA, the refugee agency for Palestinians, also sets no pre-conditions about the workers it employs; the heads of UNRWA unions are declared members of Hamas. In short, from 1974 to 2004, those engaging in international terrorism were rarely punished in the UN (its post-9/11 Counter-Terrorism Committee, notwithstanding). A political atmosphere was created that was conducive to the appeasement of terrorism instead of directly confronting its global spread.

FP: So what is the solution for this mess? Do we try to fix the U.N. or just discard it for the anti-American and anti-democratic force that it is, and just pursue justice and security without it?



Gold: It is tempting to just discard the UN, but it would be a mistake. For the US, in my judgment, it would boomerang and just create more enemies. Historically, as I have noted, US administrations have bypassed the UN when their vital interests were at stake. President Kennedy relied on the Organization of American States in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and not on UN authorization for his naval quarantine of Castro. President Clinton acted in Kosovo through NATO, and not the UN. Finally, President George W. Bush assembled a coalition of the willing in the 2003 Iraq War, unlike his father's UN Gulf War coalition in 1991. Coalitions of the willing will become the likely vehicle in the future for urgent military interventions.



In the ongoing war on terrorism, it might be useful to form a permanent coalition of democratic countries. Some democracies, like France and Belgium, might be unlikely, at this point, to join. But besides European states, like Britain, Italy, and the new democracies from Eastern Europe, the US could go outside of Europe to Turkey, Israel, India, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia. Should this bloc become substantial, it would be worthwhile to force through the UN General Assembly new resolutions that served our collective interests and brake the hold of the Non-Aligned Movement. It is important for many countries what the UN is saying. If it is condoning terrorism in its resolutions, then they will not act sufficiently against armed groups. If it is protecting the Third World dictatorships by adopting resolutions about the "non-interference in the domestic affairs of states", then they will abuse their citizens and ignore their responsibilities to human rights conventions.

[Mediocrates]

In short, in the near term, it is necessary to bypass the UN when the Free World faces imminent dangers. But in the medium to longer term, it may be possible to alter the UN--not by the kind of structural reforms, now being suggested by a panel of experts reporting to Secretary-General Kofi Annan (enlarging the Security Council from 15 to 24), but rather by reforming the substance of the UN through an agenda that serves the democracies instead of the dictatorships.









FP: What do you think about the rise of anti-Semitism world-wide? What explains it?





Gold: I would pick up from the insight of David Horowitz about the emerging alliance between militant Islam and the radical left. It is important to remember for perspective that Islam, while relegating non-Muslims to a second class status, nonetheless showed a remarkable degree of tolerance at times, especially to the Jewish people: the Ottoman Empire opened its doors to Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century and provided land grants for Jewish resettlement in the Land of Israel, well before the British. The Ottoman Sultans were the caliphs of all Sunni Islam, yet this background of limited inter-religious tolerance has been wiped out entirely by the new Islamic militancy, that has been fed by the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In their effort to wipe out the "infidels", the new Islamic militancy has even produced in the last few years fatwas (religious opinions) that call for the mass murder of non-Muslims and the employment of weapons of mass destruction. Delegitimizing the enemy, including the revival and spread of anti-semitism for them is a critical first step to prepare the groundwork for what they operationally plan. France already has a rich anti-semitic past, but if you throw into the mix the message being spread to French Muslims by radical Islamic preachers, you can easily restore European anti-semitism. Rather than attack the Jewish people directly, the formula that many prefer is to demonize the Jewish state, Israel, to such a disproportional extent that the target audience can only conclude that Israeli behavior emamates from something inherently flawed or evil in Jewish character. That is the nexus between anti-Israelism and anti-semitism.



Here the radical Muslims have found a willing partner. The old European left felt connected to Israel. First, their Soviet allies initially supported Israel as an instrument against British imperialism. Later, after the split between Israel and the USSR, Israel still stood out as a real experiment in socialism; for the European left that no longer bought into the Soviet Union as a workers' paradise, the hard-working farmers on an Israeli kibbutz were to be admired and many Europeans came to volunteer for a summer on a kibbutz. Finally, until 1977, the European socialist parties maintained strong ties with the Israeli governing elite from the Israeli Labor Party through the Socialist Internationale. Secularized European socialists did not have to consider whether the return of the Jewish people to theirhomeland after 2000 years was legitimate, because the results of this experiment, regardless of its roots, was supposed to be part of their socialist world order, in any case.



When Israel became a global ally of the United States in the early 1970's downing Soviet MiGs over the Suez Canal and taking on Soviet expansionism in the Eastern Mediterranean, the European left became more disenchanted with Israel, just like they became alienated from other American Cold War partners (they went after the human rights record of US allies and not Soviet satellites). And with the rise of the the conservative Likud Party, that replaced the Israeli Labor Party for the first time in 1977 (and kept getting re-elected in the next fifteen years) the special Socialist link to the European Left was broken. Some of their leaders adjusted to the new reality. But for the radical Left, Israel now had no redeeming features. The Bible certainly had no meaning to those who were weaned on a strictly Marxist diet in their youth. Many looked at Israel, not as an epic drama of a people returning to history after centuries of exile, but rather as a throwback to European imperialism. For them it became illegitimate. And just like the radical Muslims, the radical leftists could easily transfer their dislike of Israel, which democratically made a sharp break with its past, to a general dislike of the Jewish people, in general. Todaythe anti-globalizes have taken on the PLO flag as one of their symbols; they associate Israel with the global capitalist establishment, which is their adversary. And like the radical Islamists, they buy into wild conspiracy theories about neo-conservatives in America serving Israel's interests in Iraq. This way they convert their anti-Israeli perspectives into a global assault on Jews, whether they are Israelis or just American citizens.

[Mediocrates]

FP: What do you think is the psychology of the Left in its contemporary alliancewith radical Islam? The Left supposedly values women's rights, gay rights, minority rights and all other democratic rights and yet it is now on the side of a group of fascists and zealots that violently extinguish all of those rights. What's the story here?



Gold: For all these groups anti-Americanism is a supreme value, above all others. That is why some women's rights groups could oppose the US intervention in Afghanistan even if the Taliban abused women.



FP: The U.S. and Israel are clearly fighting the same battle for liberty againsttyranny and terror. Tell us a bit what strategies you think both nations should be pursuing in the terror war.



Gold: The war on terrorism involves a military campaign, but it can only be won with a diplomatic campaign, as well. This is really a world order problem. How do you get countries to adopt a code of behavior that neutralizes all aspects of the new global terrorism. Clearly, states must not provide sanctuary for terrorist groups, but as in the case of Syria, UN membership is insufficient to get Syrian behavior changed. Defeating terrorism means also getting at terrorist financing; efforts in this area have only begun. Most importantly, defeating terrorism involves eradicating incitement to engage in terrorist acts. Given our common backround in support of religious liberty, we all get uncomfortable monitoring what is said in a mosque or in a religious school. But the creation of a culture of religious tolerance may be as important as halting terrorist financing. The US does not have to impose these changes by force across the Middle East. It will need diplomatic partners worldwide in this endeavor. When the Wahhabis threatened the Middle East with a new militant extremism in the early 19th century, it was the Ottoman Empire that ultimately crushed them for many decades, not the British Royal Navy. As of yet there is no Muslim power which is willing to play that role today, but the Islamic world will ultimately have to take responsibility for extinguishing its own militancy, that seeks, after all, to first crush the "infidel" regimes of the Arab world, and then complete its global jihad. These are not short-term changes; they will take decades to be completed.



FP: Mr. Gold it was a privilege to speak with you. Thank you for joining us.



Gold: Thank you Jamie.

[Zlatorog]

Schwartzmania.

Some old excerpts...

The making of America's Bosnia policy

excerpt

Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention

excerpt

Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime

excerpt

Love Thy Neighbor : A Story of War

excerpt

SouthEast Europe

http://www.seeurope.net/en/

Serbian monks and some albanian guests

"the international media" from an albanian perspective

Sociological aspect of the phenomenon of antisemitism in Bosnia and Hercegovina can be found here somewhere

[Zlatorog]

WHERE DOES THE EU AND USA TAXPAYERS' MONEY GO?

During the past ten years Bosnia and Herzegovina underwent the process of deep reforms and structural adjustments dictated by the Euroatlantic integrations for which BiH opted after signing the Dayton/Paris Peace Accords. Numerous reforms have significantly changed the Bosnian society in only one decade, though at certain points of time they were slowed down and opposed by the national/nationalistic parties. Although the nationalists most often rejected the reform efforts of the state of BiH, they nevertheless participated in those processes with various forms of pressurising which changed general political relations in the state.

However, the Office of the High Representative is the only institution operating in BiH which has failed to carry out any serious reforms within itself in order to show that it approves the spirit of changes which have swept through the Bosnian society and that it is willing to participate actively in those changes by reforming and adapting itself.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was - unlike the other neighbouring states - deprived of the opportunity for democratic development in the early 1990s due to the national/nationalistic parties, has expected OHR to accelerate the democratic processes by constantly adapting the methods of its activities within OHR to the social processes. Regrettably, OHR is the most bureaucratised institution today with an extremely low level of democracy in which the High Representative with his actions promotes the concept of totalitarian regime and treats BiH in certain moments as a kind of a colony rather than a sovereign state which is actually member of UN and strives for membership in EU and NATO.

The IFIMES International Institute believes that with those actions OHR has compromised the reputation and credibility of the international community in BiH and the region. This has been confirmed by constant resistance to the OHR's activities which in turn reduces the international credibility of BiH which has already become one of the less interesting states due to other crises in the region such as Kosovo, Macedonia etc.

The High Representative for BiH is not capable of implementing the international authority under the very complicated conditions in BiH. Lord Paddy Ashdown who has carried out this function for the past 33 months has very often applied the methods resembling totalitarian and dictatorial regimes.

The IFIMES International Institute believes that the actions taken by the present High Representative for BiH Lord Ashdown reflect his political background and the country from which he comes. The overaccentuated military career which he pursued most of his life and the fact that he was born and grew up in India, the largest former British colony, mark significantly his present behaviour in BiH.

All the former High Representatives for BiH (Bild, Westendorp, Petrisch) as well as the present High Representative Lord Ashdown failed to deal with the fundamental problems of BiH, i.e. political organising on national basis. Moreover, in contrast to his predecessors, Lord Ashdown even accepted the nationalists (SDA - Party of Democratic Action, SDS - Serbian Democratic Party, HDZ - Croatian Democratic Union) as partners in carrying out the reforms of the Bosnian society in 2002. Due to Ashdown's approach to reforms Bosnia and Herzegovina is facing a deep crisis in implementing the powers which is most pronounced in the Republic of Srpska (RS) and in the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

During Ashdown's term of office the feeling of deep national division has become very strong. This raises the very serious question whether BiH can be preserved as the union of three nations. The present High Representative Lord Ashdown has frequently taken over the role of domestic institutions in carrying out national tasks, especially in foreign policy. Thus, he has often assumed the role of the Presidency of BiH and of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This suggests that Lord Ashdown carries the frustrations of not becoming a politician in his country of origin, Great Britain.

The IFIMES International Institute is of the opinion that the international community, acting through High Representative and the Council for the Implementation of Peace in BiH, must take a far more serious approach (in form and content) to the issues of limiting and weakening the influence of nationalistic parties in the Bosnian society, for they are one of the key generators of various forms of conflicts which have not stopped even ten years after signing the Dayton Peace Agreement in this economically almost the poorest European state.

The statement that the current crisis in the BiH Council of Ministers could be overcome by engaging the SDS, SDA and HDZ staff along with the announcement that the vacant position of minister of foreign affairs could be filled in by the conditionally new/former SDS staff such as Mladen Bosic, former BiH ambassador to Slovenia, who - as president of SDS in Brcko - opposed the arbitration process for Brcko in 1997 by organising with a group of his followers the most brutal demonstrations in the post-Dayton Bosnia (the international community has been developing the Brcko District as the most successful multiethnic project in BiH), undoubtedly impair the democratic development of BiH.

This rises the question whether people like Mladen Bosic can carry out the function of minister of foreign affairs or any other important function in BiH if they took part in and supported the anti-Dayton activities during the most sensitive period thus destroying the international peace plan for BiH?
Bearing in mind the insufficient democratic development of BiH, the imminent economic breakdown and the blossoming of corruption and organised crime in BiH, the IFIMES International Institute raises the question of what was the basic aim of enormous funds provided mainly by the EU and USA taxpayers for the functioning of OHR and the High Representative and where were those funds spent. Due to the non-transparency of activities carried out by OHR and the High Representative, the international community has namely never been informed of the costs of the OHR mission to BiH incurred so far.

The IFIMES International Institute is of the opinion that OHR has significantly reduced its authority in the eyes of the public of BiH, especially during Lord Paddy Ashdown's term of office. It would therefore be reasonable for the Council for the Implementation of Peace in BiH to consider his replacement. The new High Representative should assume this position as soon as possible in order to start the process of reforming OHR and its role in BiH. This would also provide a positive stimulus for BiH to return to the path towards true democratisation and reform and help BiH to achieve a sustainable multiethnic society in which there would be no room for current Ashdown's partners and reformers who stem from the SDS, SDA and HDZ nationalistic parties.

[Zlatorog]

"I disliked Love Thy Neighbor. At first I had trouble putting my finger on why. But rather than toss it in the trash, I decided to conduct an autopsy on it and try to diagnose what went wrong. Here are the results of my exam.

First, let Maass tell you -- in his own words -- why he isn't the ideal war correspondent:

"Reporting on the war required me to take many more risks than I felt comfortable with, so I did my best to avoid the unnecessary ones. Everyone has to make his own private rule, draw his own private line. Mine might be more conservative than others, less heroic, and it might mean I would miss out on stories or experiences that other journalists would get, because they were willing to do things I would not. I could live with that."

I can live with that, too. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for the best of books. And that brings us straight to problem number one:

Problem #1) When there is no drama, drama is spun out of thin air.

The book is full of things that "could" or "might" have happened. For example, while driving in a BMW and being pursued by Serbs in a Yugo (for entering a restricted area) Maass conjures this scene up:

"Perhaps as they drove deeper into the cornfield they realized that they should probably get permission to punish us. "Damn journalists," the barrel-chested leader might have said. "They deserve to die, but, s.hit, we better get the commander to approve it first." He might then have started at one of the guys in the back, "Hey, Bogdan, stop hogging the brandy, and goddamnit, stop farting." (p. 19)

Keep in mind that none of that happened. And the line about "brandy" and "farting" is flat-out bizarre. Imagine if you were reading a story about a man being pursued by the police in the United States. Imagine if this man would later write about his experience: "Perhaps the NYC policemen chasing me were thinking about shooting me 41 times like they did to Amadou Diallo. 'Damn tourists,' the cop might have said. He might then have told his partner: "Hey Johnny, stop drinking Coca-Cola and eating Big Macs, and goddamnit, stop farting."

If that sounds silly, it's because it is.

Problem #2) Bad Teenage poetry is used to describe a concentration camp.

Maass gets an attack of Live Journal Syndrome (LJS) during a visit to the Trnopolje camp and writes:

"I saw dozens of other walking skeletons of that sort. I could break all of their arms, all of their legs. Snap. Snap. Snap." (p. 41)

Even better would be: "I could break all of their arms, all of their legs. Snap. Crackle. Pop. Kablam!"

Problem #3) On Caricatures.

"Muslim" is a horrible word in America because it dredges up racist images. The images are of unshaven rug merchants with a hand on your shoulder and another in your pocket; of billionaire sheiks who ooze piety and hypocrisy at the same time; of Koran-waving fanatics .... toothless nomads... In Bosnia, the caricature didn't fit." (p. 69)

In other places this caricature fits like a charm?

Problem #4) Incorrect Apocalypse Now Reference

This is actually considered a capital crime in some universities. Here's the offending passage:

"A doctor who had survived the attack on Gorazde's hospital, and who apparently had seen "Apocalypse Now," requested over the radio link that America attach loudspeakers to the wings of its F-16s and have them fly over the city blaring out the "Death March." (p. 82)

It's not the "Death March." As any college freshman will gladly point out, it's Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." There is in fact a "death march" in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen -- it accompanies the death of Siegfried in Goetterdaemmerung. But that's not what the American helicopters play in the movie.

Problem #5) Sloth.

This part makes me want to snap, crackle, pop:

"An often told incident in the press corps concerns a Serb roadblock where a carload of journalists was stopped, searched, and then one of them was hauled away for "questioning." The quivering journalist, from a Dallas newspaper, was taken to the commander, who demanded to know who shot J.R. This tale might be apocryphal. A similar episode is described in Thomas Friedman's book "From Beirut to Jerusalem," regarding a checkpoint in Lebanon. I suspect that both episodes occurred." (p. 92)

How difficult would it be to determine if this story is true? How hard do you think it would be to find out who was writing for a Dallas newspaper in Bosnia during the war, and then ask them if it really happened? Five minutes? More?

Problem #6) Avoids the Main Actor in the Bosnian War: Death

"I have a confession to make. In the period that I covered the Bosnian war, approximately 100,000 human beings were turned into corpses. I saw precisely one of them. It was not easy to miss the 99,999 other ones, but I did." (p. 135)

No comment.

Problem #7) Has Slightly Skewed Priorities Because He Avoids the Main Actor in the Bosnian War: Death

"It's a sign of the nature of journalists today that I dreamed about being stuck in a remote part of Bosnia without a special telephone linkup. Refugees shrieked at night because of murder; I was more likely to shriek because of modems." (p. 103)

War is hell?

Problem #8) Botched an interview with Milosevic.

A really hard-hitting, gloves-off interview with Slobodan could have single-handedly redeemed this entire book. But after struggling to get an interview, Maass can't bring himself to even ask a question about Milosevic's parents. He ends up folding faster than Superman on laundry day:

"I folded. The idealistic journalist inside of me says I was a coward. Journalists are not supposed to let presidents stare us down." (p. 218)

Problem #9) Inappropriate WW2 metaphors.

You know, we've been through at least five-thousand years of civilization already. Why do we insist on using the years 1939-1945 for all of our historical metaphors? Just for the record: Saddam is not Hitler, Bush is not Hitler, Milosevic is not Hitler, in fact, the only one who can be accurately described as Hitler is Adolf "Schicklgruber" Hitler.

Just once, I'd love to see someone say that Saddam resembled Sin-shar-ishkun of Assyria. Even if there are no similarities, it's better than this whole "You're a Nazi! No, you're a Nazi!" phenomenon.

That said, Maass can't seem to resist the lure of the Second World War and writes that British Prime Minister Major "followed the politics" of Chamberlain, and that Mitterand was like Petain, etc... (p. 266) In case you didn't know, Mitterand was like Petain because when the Serbs overran France during the Bosnian War, Mitterand ruled the south of the country as a fascist sympathizer. Or something like that.

Problem #10) In the middle of a warzone, worries what his colleagues might think of him

Remember number six? The one about seeing one dead body despite being in the middle of a war? Well, the dead body he sees is in an old people's home in Nedzarici. He goes there with 12 journalists to check it out. There he sees an old lady, named Milena Topalovic, who is in the process of dying. A British journalist comforts her, which is something Maass "could not imagine doing" (p. 138)

He then writes:

"I would feel awkward when the time came to leave, and I would feel foolish if other colleagues saw me doling out tenderness." (p. 138)

Apparently, if Maass had comforted the lady he would have gotten a telegram the next day from an AP reporter saying something like:

"i saw u with the old d00d last night! LOL!!!!!!! u r a big faggit!!!!!"

The Stirring Conclusion

The thing about this book is that, despite its weaknesses, the author comes across as a likeable guy. He's modest and passionate and hates injustice. If you mixed all of this together with fearlessness and a bit more background knowledge, you would have a fantastic war correspondent. Unfortunately, that's not the case here, with this book."

[goliath]

Zlatorog ,sometimes you're really amazing , and impressive,

[Mediocrates]

More dissembling and obfuscation from the UN.

http://www.yaleisraeljournal.com/spr2005/tharoor.php

Healing Old Wounds:
Israel and the United Nations
An Interview With Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor began his career with the United Nations in 1978. He has held senior positions in the UN since 1989, including Special Assistant for Peacekeeping Operations (1989-1996), Executive Assistant to the Secretary General (1997 to 1998), and Director of Communications and Special Projects (1998 to 2001). Tharoor has served as the UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information since 2002. He is in charge of the UN’s communications strategy, with particular responsibility for ensuring the coherence and effectiveness of the organization’s external message. He is the author of eight books and numerous articles and literary reviews.

Yale Israel Journal: When you recount successful UN peacekeeping missions, you often cite the UN’s work in Namibia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique, and East Timor. Should you include south Lebanon?

Shashi Tharoor: All of those peacekeeping operations have successfully concluded, but the UN still has troops deployed in Lebanon, so it is naturally too soon for a final pronouncement. That said, there have been notable accomplishments. In 2000, the UN confirmed Israel’s commendable withdrawal from southern Lebanon, where the guns largely fell silent for the first time following more than two decades of conflict. That historic development showed that United Nations resolutions, when fully implemented by all parties working together, can be the building blocks of peace.

Of course the situation remains fragile, reminding us that the parties hold the key responsibility for peace. But the United Nations has been doing all it can to impartially document violations of the withdrawal line and to encourage all sides to exercise restraint.

YIJ: The UN Interim Force in Lebanon has not been able to stop Hezbollah from firing missiles and mortars into Israel since Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from south Lebanon. Today, Israel worries about the danger posed by Palestinian rocket-fire from Gaza that may persist after an Israeli withdrawal. How useful could the UN potentially be if it were to play a security role in Gaza?

ST: There is currently no plan for a UN security role in Gaza. The United Nations is working to foster peace in the Middle East through the diplomatic “Quartet,� a group which also includes the United States, the Russian Federation and the European Union. The Quartet backs Egypt’s efforts to reform and rebuild Palestinian security services. Ultimately, the Quartet’s efforts aim at implementing the “Road Map� outline peace plan which envisages two states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace within secure, internationally recognized borders.

YIJ: In the past, Secretary-General Annan has regularly acknowledged Israel’s right to self-defense in the face of terror attacks. But in its judgment against the Israeli barrier that is being built in the West Bank, the International Court of Justice ruled that Article 51 of the UN Charter, guaranteeing the right of self-defense to UN member states, does not apply to Israel vis-ÃÂ-vis Palestinian terror attacks because those attacks are not imputable to a foreign state.1 How do you reconcile the ICJ’s ruling with statements by Secretary-General Annan?

ST: Yes, Secretary-General Annan has regularly acknowledged Israel’s right to self-defense and has repeatedly and consistently condemned all terrorist acts. But the ICJ also recognized Israel’s right to defend itself, although it determined that the barrier is illegal under international law, saying it was not convinced that “the construction of the wall along the route chosen was the only means to safeguard the interests of Israel against the peril it invoked as justification.�

YIJ: What implications does this interpretation of the UN Charter have for other countries, including the U.S., that use force against terrorist groups on the basis of a self-defense claim?

ST: This question of how the Charter deals with threats from non-state actors is important. Recently, a high-level panel set up by the Secretary-General to examine emerging global challenges issued recommendations on this issue. Panel members said the UN Security Council may well need to be prepared to be more proactive in the future, taking decisive action against imminent terrorist threats. The report also offered a clear definition of terrorism to serve as a guideline for action by Member States.

The recommendations have been hailed by experts as an important and critical contribution to adapting the UN to present realities and future challenges. Among those praising the report was the venerable Jewish weekly The Forward, which called it Kofi Annan’s “surprise Hanukkah present to the friends of Israel and democracy.�

YIJ: Israel has consistently claimed that the UN has a pro-Arab bias and consequently does not put its faith in the institution. Is this a legitimate claim? What can be done to improve relations between the UN and Israel?

ST: The UN is used to being criticized from both sides of every issue: I note that the UN is often accused of being pro-Israeli by those who support Palestinian demands for statehood, and see the lack of enforcement of United Nations resolutions on the Middle East as evidence of bias against Palestinians. Resolutions, however, are within the purview of Member States, not the Secretary-General or the Secretariat.
One of the Secretary-General’s priorities has been to try to heal the wounds caused by the unfortunate 1975 General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism, which has thankfully since been rescinded. He is also encouraging UN member countries to resolve the anomaly of the current system of regional groupings at the United Nations so that Israel can be better represented by inclusion in the ‘Western European and Others’ group. The seminar on anti-Semitism which he led this summer was an important effort to heal the breach that many Israelis feel exists with the UN. And our efforts will continue.

YIJ: In your closing address to the UN seminar on anti-Semitism in June, you said that the UN has not always lived up to its ideals in confronting anti-Semitism. Is the UN well equipped to combat anti-Semitism?

ST: The Secretary-General himself frankly stated that the UN’s record on anti-Semitism has at times fallen short of the organization’s ideals, and he has made some very strong statements calling for increased efforts to stamp out this repugnant form of discrimination. He has also urged UN human rights experts to examine anti-Semitism more closely. While this might seem like a theoretical, rather than a practical response, these reports carry weight and often serve as input for the collective decisions of States. But the real responsibility rests with people and with their governments. The UN cannot impose policy or attitudinal change. It can only encourage others to make those changes.

YIJ: You also said that political action was required on the part of Member States in this regard. Do you believe there is any specific action that Israel can take to combat anti-Semitism?

ST: I was referring specifically to the idea that the General Assembly might adopt a resolution condemning anti-Semitism, and making the point that only Member States can propose and adopt such a resolution. Resolutions are usually the result of discussions between States, and Israel, as a member of the United Nations (and therefore the General Assembly) could certainly hold discussions with its fellow members in support of a resolution.

Indeed, on November 23 a draft resolution expressly condemning anti-Semitism, along with other forms of intolerance based on religious affiliation, was approved in committee by 177 Member States (with no votes against) and stands every likelihood of being passed in the General Assembly. I would interpret that to mean that discussions are underway, and that they are, indeed, bearing fruit.

1 Editor’s note: The ICJ ruling states: “Article 51 of the Charter ... recognizes the existence of an inherent right of self-defence in the case of armed attack by one State against another State. However, Israel does not claim that the attacks against it are imputable to a foreign State... Consequently, the Court concludes that Article 51 of the Charter has no relevance in this case.� ICJ Advisory Opinion No. 131, 9 July 2004, para. 139.

Shashi Tharoor was interviewed by the Yale Israel Journal on December 8, 2004.

Copyright 2005, Yale Israel Journal