Action Alerts > CJME Alert #17

Op-ed piece on United Nations' "hatred of Jews" is inflammatory and fictitious
Call Readers' Representative at Kansas City Star
 

The Issue:

Call or write the Kansas City Star to complain about the Sat. April 9 opinion article by local writer Kenneth P. Katz accusing the United Nations of hatred of Jews in addition to rape, sexual abuse of children, corruption, ineffectiveness and support of terrorism. The letter as a whole is inflammatory and exaggerated, and the material related to Palestine particularly so.

Send letters to letters@kcstar.com or call the Reader's Representative at the Star at 816-234-4487 to protest. To avoid duplication, please let us know if you use one of the model letters below or consider changing the wording slightly. We'd appreciate if you'd drop a line mentioning if you followed up otherwise, either by sending your own draft of a letter or phoning the Star.

Key points that relate to Israel in Kenneth Katz's letter:

1. Mr. Katz said U.N. workers have allowed Palestinian refugee camps to become hotbeds for terrorism and have allowed their official vehicles, included ambulances, to transport terrorists and explosives.

  • Points to make in response: In Oct. 2004 Israel released a videotape that purported to show UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) workers transporting a rocket in an ambulance. Later, Israel withdrew the allegation after it became clear that what it said was a rocket was really a stretcher.

2. Mr. Katz said that in 2003 the U.N. General Assembly passed 18 resolutions that criticized Israel. "The entire rest of the world merited just four in that year. The United Nations lets mass murder pass with barely a yawn, but it's Israel, Israel, Israel all the time." Elsewhere Mr. Katz says that "Demonizing the Jewish state is the nearly full time job of much of the United Nations."

  • Points to make in response: Israel owes its existence to the United Nations.
    The United Nations Relief Work Agency was established to deal with the Palestinian refugees created by the establishment of Israel. The United Nations has a special responsibility vis a vis Israel. Readers could point out that the dozens of vetoes United States has cast to protect Israel have been less than helpful and have prevented effective action by the UN to resolve the conflict.

3. Mr. Katz says "Syria is a flagrant abuser of human rights. Syria occupies Lebanon. Syria has been a fanatic enemy of the Middle East peace process, providing bases to the terror groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah."

  • Points to make in response: Israel is also an abuser of human right. Israel occupies Palestine in violation of numerous U.N. resolutions.
Sample letters:
1. I deplore the corruption that has been exposed at the United Nations, but Kenneth Katz' attack on the United Nations (KC Star, April 9) suffers from the same hypocrisy that he condemns. Mr. Katz criticizes Syria's abuse of human rights and tells us "Syria occupies Lebanon."
Does Mr. Katz need reminding that Israel also occupies Palestine and is also guilty of human rights abuses? Perhaps it's these facts, more than the "hatred of Jews" that Mr. Katz alleges, which explains the U.N. resolutions directed at Israel.

2. Kenneth Katz (KC Star, April 9) charges the United Nations with "hatred of Jews" in addition to many other crimes. Has Mr. Katz forgotten that Israel owes its creation to the United Nations?

3. Kenneth Katz (KC Star, April 9) speaks of the UN's "hatred of Jews" and cites as evidence the 18 resolutions passed by the UN General Assembly in 2003 criticizing Israel.
Perhaps these votes reflect the world's frustration at a conflict that has continued to fester with the active assistance of the United States, which has cast more than three dozen vetoes in the Security Council to protect Israel from having to comply with international law and the United Nations' own resolutions.

What You Can Do:

1. Write a letter to the Kansas City Star refuting the content of the article appearing in the April 9, 2005 issue.

Kansas City Star -- E-mail: letters@kcstar.com

Readers' Representative Phone: (816) 234-4487

2. Send an email to info@cjme.org and let us know that you wrote or called to the KC Star on this issue.
Time to fund bursting but ineffective coffers - (in print KC Star, April 9, 2005) - KENNETH P. KATZ

(KC Star requires registration) http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/11348971.htm

It is six days until your income tax return is due. The American taxpayer is the largest financial supporter of the United Nations.

Consider what the United Nations is doing with your money.

The United Nations talks a good game about human rights. The U.N. General Assembly passed a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to a U.N. Web site: “The U.N. Commission on Human Rights is the world's foremost human rights forum.” It is an open question whether the proper response to this claim is to laugh or to gag.

The human rights group Freedom House has found that six of the worst human rights violators on the planet — China, Cuba, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Zimbabwe — are members of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

The organ of the United Nations charged with keeping international peace and stability is the Security Council.

Syria was elected to a two-year membership in the Security Council in 2001. Syria? Syria is a flagrant abuser of human rights. Syria occupies Lebanon. Syria has been a fanatic enemy of the Middle East peace process, providing bases to the terror groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. Syria sponsors terrorism against Israel, Iraq and American forces. How can the United Nations be treated with any moral or practical seriousness when Syria has sat on the Security Council?

It is bad enough that state sponsors of terrorism are on the Security Council. Even worse, the United Nations has allowed the refugee camps that it operates for Palestinians to become hotbeds of terror. Israeli forces have found the homes of U.N. workers covered with posters praising suicide bombers. U.N. workers have used their official vehicles, including ambulances, to transport terrorists and explosives.

Israel is the United Nations' obsession. Demonizing the Jewish state is the nearly full-time job of much of the United Nations. Nearly 30 percent of the resolutions passed by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to condemn specific states have Israel as the target.

In 2003, the U.N. General Assembly passed 18 resolutions that criticized Israel. The entire rest of the world merited just four in that year. The United Nations lets mass murder pass with barely a yawn, but it's Israel, Israel, Israel, all the time. The 2001 World Conference Against Racism organized by the United Nations turned into a hatefest against Israel, denying its right to exist.

From the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War until Iraq was liberated in 2003, Iraqi oil sales were managed by the United Nations under the oil-for-food program, to prevent the proceeds from falling into the hands of Saddam Hussein. Congressional investigators have discovered that the program had rampant corruption with more than $10 billion being diverted by Hussein. U.N. officials as well as the governments of China, France and Russia appear to have been involved with the scandal.

Rape and pedophilia have been commonplace during U.N. peacekeeping operations. A U.N. official ran a child pornography operation in the Congo. Equally disgusting is the practice of “food for sex,” where U.N. personnel have demanded sexual favors from young girls before they can get their food rations.

U.N. personnel have also committed similar crimes in Bosnia, Cambodia, East Timor, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Kosovo and Sierra Leone. The former top U.N. official in Cambodia, Yasushi Akashi, shrugged off these allegations, saying, “Boys will be boys.”

The United Nations has a record of ineffectiveness, with lethal consequences for innocents in need. In 1993, the U.N. intervention in Somalia had to be bailed out by the American military. U.N. forces sat on the sidelines while 800,000 Rwandans were massacred.

In 1995, Bosnian Muslims were slaughtered while U.N. peacekeepers did nothing. When the horrific Indian Ocean tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people, it was the United States and some of its key allies, most notably Australia, that conducted the majority of the critical early relief. The lavishly funded United Nations did little more than hold press conferences during those desperate days immediately after the tragedy.

Coddling tyrants, supporting terrorists, hatred of Jews, corruption, rape, sexual abuse of children, ineffectiveness in times of crisis — that's what the United Nations does with your tax dollars.

Kenneth Katz is a project manager. He lives in Overland Park. To reach Midwest Voices columnists, write to the author c/o the Editorial Page, The Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108. Or send e-mail to oped@ kcstar.com.