The Immorality of the United Nations

By Rafael L. Bardají

The United Nations considers that there is a moral war and

an immoral war. The moral one involves attacking Israel non-stop; what
is clearly immoral is Israel’s defensive reaction. That is the interpretation
and conclusion of last week’s vote rendered by the United Nations Human
Rights Council (UNHRC), condemning Israel for its intervention in Gaza
last year. Previously, the Goldstone Report had denounced the practices of
both contenders, Israel and Hamas, against the governing Laws of War
although the Council – at times presided by the most egregious dictators
on this planet – has preferred to forget all about the Palestinians in order
to direct all its attacks against the Israeli army.

It is the kind of empty talk that pleases and inflames the

passions of the Left’s crybabies. Because, in reality, the military forces of
the West, including Spain’s, could learn a lot about the care that Israel’s
Defense Forces (IDF) put when planning and carrying out operations. One
can indeed assert that the IDF is the most moral army in history. This
assertion is not mine; it is Colonel Richard Kemp, former Commander of
British Forces in Afghanistan, who has categorically stated it so during his
testimony on October 16 (you can watch it now for free on YouTube.)

Now, anyone with some knowledge of history, either wearing

a military uniform or using common sense, knows that war is a complex
phenomenon, plagued by uncertainty and mistakes. For example, Spanish
soldiers killed an Afghan soldier because he came too close; German
soldiers killed several civilians when attempting to destroy some fuel
trucks stolen by insurgents; and the Americans have bombed several
family homes by mistake. Although these mistakes can be very distressing,
they are not war crimes at all. This is particularly the case when these
incidents happen in an environment where insurgents, guerrillas or
terrorists willingly mingle with civilians – also when they use civilians as
shields, or when they launch their attacks from civilian installations,
schools, and hospitals in order to feel safe, to provoke a counterattack and
to exploit the alleged brutality of their opponents through the
manipulation of the media.

Israeli soldiers have been suffering this ordeal for years, but
the powerful NATO allies are now undergoing that same plight in
Afghanistan. In fact, I would dare to say that if our troops had applied the
IDF’s moral code, there would have been fewer errors and civilian
casualties in Afghanistan. Of course, this is clearly something to be kept
under the rug since the politically correct stance is to ignore our own
shortcomings and always blame Israel. The UN’s most deceptive
argument indicates that there were more Palestinian than Israeli
casualties. I cannot express it better than Shimon Peres who said at his
annual conference in Jerusalem, “We suffered fewer casualties because we
protect our people while they take advantage of their people.”

©2009 Translated by Miryam Lindberg