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The Evil of the United Nations -- But the US is much more responsible

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Reason Man

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On another site somebody has posted a lot of material about the UN. I have posted my experiences in Iraq about the UN. Those interested in knowing about my UN experiences can see http://www.solopassion.com/node/7451

The OP's posts on the same forum are here http://www.solopassion.com/node/7296

The OP has given the usual type of sarcastic response which is of interest to me as a subject of study -- so this is likely to develop into a good contest, though of-course I have no intention of winning in such arguments. I am waiting for others to comment on that forum.

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On another site somebody has posted a lot of material about the UN. I have posted my experiences in Iraq about the UN. Those interested in knowing about my UN experiences can see http://www.solopassion.com/node/7451

The OP's posts on the same forum are here http://www.solopassion.com/node/7296

The OP has given the usual type of sarcastic response which is of interest to me as a subject of study -- so this is likely to develop into a good contest, though of-course I have no intention of winning in such arguments. I am waiting for others to comment on that forum.

If the U.N. as an organization is the perpetrator of evil doings, then the U.S. should not be a member of it, contribute to it or enable it any any way. If the U.S. joined in good faith and it was later revealed that the U.N. is up to no good, then the only reasonable course of action is for the U.S. to resign from the U.N. and stop supporting it financially and by word/deed.

Bob Kolker

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  • 4 months later...

Should we continue to support Israel, a country that only exists because of UN decision?

The only aid they should get is to protect them from nations who threaten them. They do not deserve any other kind of support. Furthermore, we should require that they not squander the money by scaling back their own funding of their military. Their violations of rights in that region does not deserve support, and we should be careful not to inadvertently enable them.

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The only aid they should get is to protect them from nations who threaten them. They do not deserve any other kind of support.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you don't understand what the question "Should we continue to support Israel?" means. Support includes substantial support (money, weapons, food, technology) and political support. "We" can include "The US government" as well as "Every other rational being on the planet". I agree that the extent of US government physical support should be limited, but there is no reason to limit political support, nor is there any reason to limit (cast aspersions on, negatively judge) individual support for Israel. The moral responsibility for rights violations rests with Hamas and Hezbollah, not with Israel. This is a general principle: the moral responsibility for the initiation of force lies with the initiator of force, not with the government that retaliates against the aggressors.
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Should we continue to support Israel, a country that only exists because of UN decision?

Utter tosh.

Israel exists because of the hard-work, struggle, determination and sheer bloody-mindedness of the Zionist movements, the settlers, the Haganah as well as the Irgun and Lehi. When the British army left in 1948, Israel was a de facto state irrespective of any UN decision - international acceptance was simply an acknowledement of reality.

As I refuse to believe that an intelligent person could hold that Israel would not have come into existence without the UN, I can only conclude that your statement was simple-minded, anti-Israeli rhetoric and that it is not worth my time or effort trying to educate you.

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Utter tosh.

Israel exists because of the hard-work, struggle, determination and sheer bloody-mindedness of the Zionist movements, the settlers, the Haganah as well as the Irgun and Lehi. When the British army left in 1948, Israel was a de facto state irrespective of any UN decision - international acceptance was simply an acknowledement of reality.

As I refuse to believe that an intelligent person could hold that Israel would not have come into existence without the UN, I can only conclude that your statement was simple-minded, anti-Israeli rhetoric and that it is not worth my time or effort trying to educate you.

No need for that, that is a very common misconception, not anti-Israeli rhetoric. I was basically taught in school that the UN made israel to give the jews a place to live after the holocaust.

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No need for that, that is a very common misconception, not anti-Israeli rhetoric. I was basically taught in school that the UN made israel to give the jews a place to live after the holocaust.

The question is not what you were taught, but what you now hold to be true. I trust that, as an intelligent person, you now realise this was a woefully inaccurate representation of the facts. I accept that it is possible for someone to be mistaken if they have not subsequently engaged with the conflict and history of the region, however, the fact that the creation of Israel was brought up by this poster in an unrelated thread indicates more than mere misunderstanding, there is malicious intent towards Israel.

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If the U.N. as an organization is the perpetrator of evil doings, then the U.S. should not be a member of it, contribute to it or enable it any any way. If the U.S. joined in good faith and it was later revealed that the U.N. is up to no good, then the only reasonable course of action is for the U.S. to resign from the U.N. and stop supporting it financially and by word/deed.

Bob Kolker

The ironic part about this problem is that the U.S. is very much one of the biggest power players regarding corruption in the U.N. and that has been very thoroughly documented.

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Utter tosh.

Israel exists because of the hard-work, struggle, determination and sheer bloody-mindedness of the Zionist movements, the settlers, the Haganah as well as the Irgun and Lehi. When the British army left in 1948, Israel was a de facto state irrespective of any UN decision - international acceptance was simply an acknowledement of reality.

As I refuse to believe that an intelligent person could hold that Israel would not have come into existence without the UN, I can only conclude that your statement was simple-minded, anti-Israeli rhetoric and that it is not worth my time or effort trying to educate you.

Oh nice - the argument from intimidation.

When you had questions about gay adoption and gays in the military, as I recall, I didn't accuse you of anti-gay rhetoric, or deliberately insult you. So I ask you not to do the same thing of me. I'd like to hear where exactly I went wrong.

Edited by Black Wolf
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Oh nice - the argument from intimidation.

When you had questions about gay adoption and gays in the military, as I recall, I didn't accuse you of anti-gay rhetoric, or deliberately insult you. So I ask you not to do the same thing of me. I'd like to hear where exactly I went wrong.

The founding of the state of Israel could be told in volumes, it is a fascinating story, but I will be as brief as possible. Israel was founded not on the back of a UN resolution, but on the hard-work and determination of thousands of Jewish immigrants from the 1880s to the 1940s. They turned what was largely a barren, swamp-filled wasteland into a habitable area able to support hundreds of thousands of people migrating from Eastern Europe. The early Zionists settled in land that was not owned by anyone, it was deemed worthless, they transformed it and they then bought land at vastly inflated prices and created many more communities. By 1949, the Jews of Palestine (the name given to the region by the Jews themselves, rather than the arabs) had developed most of the institutions of a state, through the Jewish Agency / Palestine Zionist Executive, they maintained relations with the British (who occupied the area at the time) on behalf of the Jewish community, they had an army (the Haganah) to protect their people from arab attacks and they built schools and hospitals etc (as the occupier with legal mandate, the British were responsible for maintaining general law and order). The UN did vote on a plan to partition the land of Palestine (or rather the 25% of it that hadn't been given to Emir Abullah to form Jordan) creating a Jewish state in the areas were the Jews were a majority and an arab state where they were a majority (the Jews accepted it, the arabs rejected it, but it still passed the UN). That is beside the point though, the fact is that the UN simply acknowledged de jure what was already de facto, the resolution did not create Israel, it simply recognised the reality of a Jewish state. By 1945, there were around 600,000 Jews in the region, this is up from 80,000 in 1922 and as little as 10,000 (mainly in Jerusalem) in the late 1800s, it was not the UN that enabled Jewish migration or the creation of the state of Israel.

If you were genuiely mistaken, then I do apologise, perhaps I jumped to a conclusion too readily. However, the status and origin of the founding of the state of Israel is, at best, tangential to the OP. Why would you bring up Israel in this thread? What was your motivation for doing so?

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It never occured to me that the several people I'm surrounded by who insist that Israel "exists by UN decision" were simply begging the question among like-minded individuals. I asked this because I wasn't sure if there was a dilemma of acknowledging that the UN is evil, and supporting Israel.

I didn't voice my concerns quite clearly, sorry. I'm not against Israel, though, which is why I asked the question. I support Israel, I am against the United Nations.. but I was wondering if there was an inherent contradiction between the two

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It never occured to me that the several people I'm surrounded by who insist that Israel "exists by UN decision" were simply begging the question among like-minded individuals. I asked this because I wasn't sure if there was a dilemma of acknowledging that the UN is evil, and supporting Israel.

I didn't voice my concerns quite clearly, sorry. I'm not against Israel, though, which is why I asked the question. I support Israel, I am against the United Nations.. but I was wondering if there was an inherent contradiction between the two

I see, I do apologise for jumping to conclusions.

There is no contradiction between supporting Israel and opposing the UN - indeed, today, the contradiction is in supporting both. The UN relentlessly criticises of Israel for minor or non-existant crimes whilst ignoring or paying lip-service to the worst rights abusers around the world.

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