The futility of relying on the international community

Over 120 countries – equating to two thirds of total United Nations membership – convened in Tehran to partake in the 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement hosted by the Iranian Islamic Republic.

The Iranians boasted that three kings, 27 presidents, eight prime ministers and 50 foreign ministers attended. Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsy was present, breaching Egypt’s long-standing estrangement from Iran, which he now describes as “a strategic ally,” even though he condemned Assad’s regime in Syria. India, the world’s most populous democracy, participated with a delegation of 250 headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, stating shamelessly that its objective was to increase trade and commerce with Iran.

Despite appeals from the United States and others, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also attended. He did so only days after his condemnation of Iran for defying repeated Security Council resolutions demanding that it end its uranium enrichment program and repeated contravention of the UN Charter by calling for the destruction of Israel.

In his address to participants, Ban, without explicitly naming Iran, did condemn “threats by any member state to destroy another, or outrageous attempts to deny historical facts such as the Holocaust.” He also called on Iran to stop supplying arms to Assad in Syria and expressed regret at Iran’s refusal to halt its nuclear enrichment program.

Ban’s media spokesman, Martin Nesirsky, stated that in private meetings with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the UN leader also referred to the vicious verbal attacks against Israel as offensive, inflammatory and unacceptable.

But this did not detract from the fact that, combined with representatives from 120 nations, the UN secretary general’s presence effectively provided legitimacy to Iran and sabotaged efforts to isolate it, the regime which serves as a launching pad for global terrorism, as a pariah state. In fact, only last week Iran proudly proclaimed that it had dispatched members of its Revolutionary Guard Corps and other fighting personnel to support Assad’s criminal rule in Syria.

At the opening of the conference, Khamenei made yet another feral, anti-Semitic speech, shamelessly exhorting the world to annihilate Israel, the “cancerous growth,” referring to the “blood-thirsty Zionist wolves” who kill and torture Palestinians and control the global media. Yet the UN secretary general, together with the other 120 participants, remained passively glued to their seats. In many respects, the atmosphere was reminiscent of the late 1930s when the European nations, bent on appeasing Hitler, abandoned Czechoslovakia.

Had the Iranians, instead of targeting Israel, been describing a country like the UK as the cancer of Europe and calling for its elimination, it would have been inconceivable for Ban and the participating countries to attend a meeting hosted by such rogues.

But apparently, for Israel, anything goes, provoking Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to appropriately describe the Tehran NAM summit as “a disgrace and stain on humanity.”

To exacerbate matters, in their closing statement, the 120 participants mockingly denounced the UN Security Council “unilateral sanctions” and unanimously endorsed Iran’s right to pursue “a peaceful nuclear program” including “nuclear enrichment.”

Nor was there a single dissenting voice when Egyptian President Morsy handed over the rotating presidency to Holocaust denier Ahmadinejad, who will now preside over NAM during the next three years.

Any criticism or deviation from Iranian policy, such as Ban’s censure of Iranian behavior or Morsy’s condemnation of Syria’s Assad, was predictably censored by the local media, who presented the summit to the Iranian public as a vindication of their policies and a global rejection of efforts to isolate and impose sanctions against their government.

Not surprisingly, the Iranian leaders jubilantly proclaimed that the broad global participation vindicated them and represented a repudiation of US and Western efforts to deter them from becoming a nuclear power. All in all, it was a major PR victory for this evil regime and an indictment of the dismal state of the international community.

The willingness of so many countries to attend such a conference in Tehran at this time and unanimously endorse the ayatollah’s nuclear policies clearly demonstrates the abysmal failure of US President Barack Obama’s initial policy of “engaging” with Iran and his subsequent decision to impose sanctions and isolate the rogue state.

This episode underlines the futility of Israel relying on the international community to resolve potential conflicts.

It also reaffirms the disfunctionality of the United Nations, which the Obama administration continues to appease.

Nothing epitomizes this more demonstratively than the prominent role of Syria, Iran, Libya, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and similar dictatorships in the formulation of the policy of the so-called United Nations Human Rights Council. Ironically, both Syria and Sudan, whose leaders are recognized war criminals, notorious for brutally butchering their own people, are candidates for seats on this bogus organization’s council, scheduled for election next month.

Ironically, the US is the principal financial donor to the UN – to the tune of a staggering $6 billion annually. It is highly unlikely that Ban would have dignified the Iranians with his presence, had the US threatened to review its funding to the UN budget if he proceeded to undermine efforts to isolate Iran for defying Security Council demands and repeatedly calling for the annihilation of a member state.

The United States and Western democracies must recognize that they will become utterly impotent if their global policies continue to be effectively subject to veto by international bodies dominated by an alliance of Islamic nations, dictatorships and tyrannies.

Democracies should unite and seek to create a world order which will strengthen freedom, encourage oppressed people to achieve self-determination and, if required, be willing to employ military power to deter the barbarians at our gates. Failure to confront these problems now threatens the long-term survival prospects of Western civilization.

In Europe, the motivation to resist anti-democratic forces has been substantially weakened by the immigration of large numbers of Muslims who have undermined the foundations of genuine multiculturalism by seeking to impose their way of life on indigenous communities.

This has been aided and abetted by the post-modernists – whose anarchical leftism and confused anti-colonialism have led them to ally themselves with terrorist organizations and apologists for the most rabid racists.

The message emerging for us in Israel is that we must retain our relationship with democratic countries, in particular the US, which despite the Obama administration’s appeasement of Muslim extremism has not capitulated to Islamic pressures like the Europeans.

Ultimately, the bottom line is that we must not succumb to pressures from those seeking to deter us from taking steps to thwart threats to our survival. Nor should we be tempted to rely on undertakings from other, “friendly” nations. We have learnt from bitter experience that when the chips are down we must rely on ourselves.

As Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon recently stated: “the righteous work may be done by others, but we have to prepare as if no one else will do it for us.”

The writer’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com. He may be contacted at ileibler@netvision.net.il