By Anne Bayefsky
Wednesday, September 07, 2016
The United Nations was founded as a global pact among
states, but over the decades in the name of transparency and to further the aim
of globalization, it has opened its doors to more than 6,150 non-governmental
organizations (NGOs). While governments wring their hands over incitement to
terror and dangerous uses of social media, they ignore the alarming focal point
within arms’ reach: the United Nations. An examination of U.N. NGOs reveals
that the U.N. has handed a global megaphone to groups spreading hatred and
inciting terror from the world stage. In short, the so-called representatives
of “civil society” aren’t so civil after all.
In theory, the U.N. has processes for accreditation that
share a common requirement: respect for the purposes and principles of the
organization. In order to qualify for accreditation, NGOs must operate in
conformity with, or promote, the U.N Charter. They must affirm “faith in
fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the
equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.”
In practice, NGOs have been welcomed into the world of
international diplomacy and have gained access to international media platforms
while they are simultaneously betraying the core U.N mission by advocating
terror and intolerance.
Most striking for an organization founded on the ashes of
the Holocaust, the U.N. has accredited NGOs that play a central role in
promoting modern anti-Semitism and encouraging the destruction of the Jewish
state.
The benefits of U.N. accreditation for NGOs are tangible
and significant: the ability to sponsor speakers, mount exhibits, and screen
films in the same U.N. facilities that house an international press corps; the
right to speak at U.N. meetings and have their words translated and broadcast
via U.N. webcasts worldwide; the capacity to publish written statements and have
them disseminated by the U.N.; the opportunity to attend negotiating sessions
and to influence the world’s diplomats. U.N. websites even link directly to
selected NGO websites, greatly enhancing their traffic and messaging.
Scattered around the U.N. system are a few disclaimers of
responsibility for the content of NGO events and websites. But NGO events on
U.N. premises are permitted only after detailed applications and approval by
U.N. representatives. NGO website links are selectively posted on U.N. sites by
U.N. officials. And NGOs are regularly singled out for coveted speaking gigs by
U.N. representatives. U.N. selection and approval procedures, from
accreditation on, belie claims that U.N. officials and envoys are ignorant of
the purposes and content of the NGOs they choose.
In May 2016, many of the world’s major NGOs complained
that the accreditation processes were unfair because applications were being
thwarted by certain member states for fear of empowering critics of these
states. And, indeed, many of the states running the U.N. accreditation
processes — such as China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, and Sudan — inhibit free speech
and curtail the freedom of association in their own backyards. At the same
time, these nations use their powers on the U.N. NGO Committee to protect
themselves in the international arena.
But the NGOs busy clamoring for more access to the U.N.
are seeking the privileges without the responsibilities. They have no intention
of policing themselves. On the contrary, the common mantra among NGOs is that
they promote “the voices of the victims” — where victimhood is self-defined, regardless of the legitimacy of
the claims. The reality is that U.N. member states are not only delaying or
denying accreditation to the right NGOs; they are accrediting the wrong NGOs: the terrorist advocates, the
haters, the anti-Semites.
Here is a selection of the output from U.N-accredited
NGOs, their websites, their social-media accounts, their written and oral
statements at the U.N. — all easily accessible online in 2016.
Posted on FB by Palestinian Solidarity Campaign Thailand
• “Zionism, with its inhumane ethnic, racist principles,
with its devilish schemes which generate chaos all over the world, with its
dangerous plans to dominate . . . with its beastly octopus which has almost a
decisive role in directing the policies of the greatest countries in the world
. . . ” — the International Organization
for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
• “The main obstacle to the advancement of Zionism is the
heroic daily resistance of the Palestinians, manifested in the recent ‘youth
intifada.’ . . . Zionism instrumentalizes the memory of the Holocaust as a tool
to legitimize war crimes. . . . We must expose the fallacy of partition and the
two-state solution.” — Alternatives,
Action, and Communication Network for International Development
• “Never forget or forgive! We will fight until total
liberation of #Palestine from the River to the Sea! #Nakba67” — Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return
Coalition
• “I saw how the settlements are spreading everywhere
like spores inhabited by pervert vagabonds who came from everywhere around the
world to occupy this land.” — Arab Commission for Human Rights
• The most important feeling is when you feel your soul
and the souls of the people you love are so cheap, and your suffering and your
blood so cheap, and there is only one blood and soul that is holy, which is
Israeli Jews, you just lose your mind.” — United
Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine (UNISPAL) entry on the
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
• “This year uncovered, for the first time, the practice
of extracting human organs from killed Palestinians whose bodies were in the
hands of Israeli forces and the sale of these organs.” — The International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination
• “Zionist ideology is the driving force behind the
ongoing Palestinian reality of apartheid.” — BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
• “To boost Israeli arms sales, Palestinian families have
suffered three onslaughts of ‘systematic genocide’ wars in six years.” — Third World Network
The use and abuse of the United Nations to broadcast and
support modern anti-Semitism and its lethal consequences is part of a
burgeoning global network of incitement to violent extremism. The democratic
states that control U.N. purse strings have the power and the duty to stop it.
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