Israel Matzav

Of course the UN is silent!

Claudia Rosett decries the UN's silence on Iran. And she knows why the United Nations couldn't care less about what's going on in Iran: Israel cannot be blamed.

Not until June 22 did Ban finally return to the subject of Iran. And even then, Ban did not step forth before the cameras himself. At the regular noon press briefing, Ban's spokeswoman, Michele Montas, delivered a long list of announcements, replete with notices of assorted public service awards, and of the demise of a man who served from 1976 to 1981 as the spokesman for former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim. There was nothing on Iran.

When the announcements finally ended, the first question she got was about the Secretary General's reaction to the latest news on election oddities and murdered protesters in Iran. She replied only that a statement from Ban was in the works, which she hoped would be ready "in a few minutes." To a second question on Iran, she said that time was up, and the briefing was over.

Hours later, Ban's office finally issued the promised response on Iran: a one-paragraph statement, "attributable to the Secretary General." It turned out that while Iran's security forces had been spending day after day beating, shooting and arresting demonstrators, Ban had progressed from keeping an eye on Iran to following the situation with "growing concern," and had become "dismayed" by the violence.

As U.N. diplomat lingo goes, this is phrasing so tepid it could double as old dishwater. Compare it, for instance, to Ban's statement the next day about the rape of some 20 women at Goma's central prison in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This was a horrible event, but was it more horrible, or of greater import, than Iran's government assaulting and slaughtering its own people? In the Congo case--keep your eye on the nuances--Ban was not merely "dismayed." He was "deeply distressed."

Or contrast Ban's lukewarm angle on Iran with his "around-the-clock efforts with world leaders"--as his spokeswoman described it--to produce an immediate ceasefire when Israeli forces went into terrorist-run Gaza last December to try to stop Iranian-backed Hamas from launching rockets into Israel. In that case, Ban declared himself "deeply dismayed," "deeply alarmed," and having demanded, urged and condemned, he finally traveled to Gaza.

There, Ban did not wait for any considered inquiry and analysis to unfold. He let fly, condemning Israel for "excessive" use of force, and pronouncing himself incensed that U.N. buildings had been hit--never mind why. He rolled out for the press such phrases as "outrageous, shocking and alarming," demanded a full investigation and pronounced himself too "appalled" to be able to describe his full feelings.

No such vocabulary or demand has been emanating from Ban's office over the carnage that Iran's government, in order to maintain its monstrously repressive grip, has been inflicting on its own people.

I'm sure you're all not shocked at the UN's silence. I'd suggest withdrawing from the UN (again) but to the Obama administration, the UN is Utopia - a place where every country votes equally and is treated equally (except for Israel) regardless of how it treats its own population.

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:30 PM