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The ‛International Community’ Has No Right to Exist
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, delivers a speech remotely at the UN General Assembly 76th session General Debate in UN General Assembly Hall at the United Nations Headquarters on Friday, September 24, 2021 in New York City. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI Pool via REUTERS
JNS.org – Recent decisions against Israel by the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice, which are clearly intended to rescue Hamas and aid and abet its genocidal war on the Jewish state, can only reinforce a truism often expressed by Israelis: Kol ha’olam negdeinu. “The whole world is against us.”
Israelis have reason enough to feel this way, but it is worth asking whether it’s actually true. What, after all, is the “whole world”?
If the term refers to world popular opinion, then it is almost certainly wrong. It is unlikely that the majority of the world’s 8 billion human beings particularly care about Israel. If they do, it can only be in the most shallow and cursory way.
In another sense, however, Israelis’ angry rumination is quite accurate: What is often called the “international community” is most certainly against Israel.
The phrase “international community” is usually used as shorthand for the entire world. In fact, the international community is an elite, a clique, even something like a religious sect. It is made up of the vanishingly small minority of privileged and powerful people who work at or with an alphabet soup of international organizations and NGOs led by the United Nations.
It is worth emphasizing how small this cabal actually is. The largest international organization—the United Nations—employs some 116,000 people in total. This is approximately half the number employed by Microsoft. Most international organizations, including ostensibly independent NGOs, are much smaller. Even with various envoys and diplomats from each participating country thrown in, it is highly unlikely that the “international community” consists of more than 500,000 people. If, for the sake of argument, we double that number to 1 million, it would constitute only 0.0125% of the global population. This may be a “community” and is certainly “international,” but it is by no means “the world.”
This tiny sect received its privileges via a series of historical anomalies. It was constructed out of the wreckage of World War II when, hoping to prevent a World War III, the victorious Allies formed the United Nations—the brainchild of progressive U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who hoped to realize his predecessor Woodrow Wilson’s failed vision of the League of Nations.
Indeed, for a brief moment before the Cold War began in earnest, there were wild hopes that the United Nations would usher in a new era in human history: Disputes and conflicts would be settled according to international law via what was essentially an enormous debating society/charitable organization. The old imperial rivalries and balance-of-power diplomacy would disappear. War would become a thing of the past. The blessings of liberty and democracy would be bestowed upon the entire human race.
Needless to say, it didn’t happen. History continued on exactly as it had before: The great powers and the balance between them continued to define global affairs, and a third world war was prevented not by the world body but by the atomic bomb. In response, however, the international community that grew up around the United Nations simply pretended this was not the case. Instead, it created a hermetic bubble in which the international community was competent and effective at its job of ensuring peace and dispensing global charity. This should not have been surprising. After all, those involved made good money out of the charade.
This perpetual farce would have been amusing but not disastrous except for the fact that the international community swiftly began to take on a very sinister form. The reasons are well-known. Put simply, most of those who made up the international community represented authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. Thus, the international community inevitably became more and more amenable to authoritarianism and totalitarianism, so long as it was practiced by the right people. Beginning in the 1970s, as terrorism became a major tool of the world’s tyrants, the international community increasingly endorsed the most horrendous atrocities and the organizations that committed them. It was inevitable that this would end in a scramble to rescue a genocidal terrorist organization from near-certain destruction.
The international community, in other words, ceased to be farce and became a weapon—a kind of diplomatic suicide-bomber. For example, it is very doubtful that Hamas would have launched the Oct. 7 attack if it did not think that the international community would rescue it from Israel’s retaliation. We don’t yet know if Hamas was wrong. The blood of a great many people, in other words, is on the international community’s hands.
Clearly, in its current state, the international community has no right to exist. This raises a complex dilemma, however, which is if and how to replace it.
Despite the difficulties, it isn’t hard to see how alternative institutions could be created. For example, the democratic nations and their allies could easily form their own independent alignments like NATO without bankrolling a gang of parasites dedicated to enabling crimes against humanity in the name of human rights.
Moreover, if the international community did not exist, very little would change. The old ways of doing things have persisted and will likely continue to do so. International affairs would go on much as they always have through balance-of-power diplomacy. The only difference would be that the world would be free of much of the terrorism and war that the international community fosters through collaborationism and corruption.
More importantly, perhaps, the world will at last have accepted reality. This is a good thing in and of itself. It is dangerous to live by lies because the results are always incompetence, hypocrisy and ultimately self-destruction. Thus the essential admonition: If something isn’t working, stop doing it.
The international community is not working. Because it is not working, it is killing people. It’s time for those disinclined towards terrorism, genocide and their attendant pathologies to give up on the mad dreams of long-dead progressives. They must finally pull the curtain down on a blood-soaked and very expensive farce that has already gone on for far too long.
The post The ‛International Community’ Has No Right to Exist first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Blinken Lays Out US Hopes for Syria’s Political Transition
A drone view shows Umayyad square in Damascus, after Syrian rebels ousted President Bashar al-Assad, Syria, Dec. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Hassano
The United States on Tuesday laid out its hopes for Syria’s political transition following President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, saying it would recognize a future Syrian government that amounts to a credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian governing body.
It is the clearest definition outlined by Washington since Syria’s opposition militias overthrew Assad in a shockingly fast takeover after 13 years of civil war. Assad and his family fled to Russia.
The Biden administration, along with governments in the region and the West, has been scrambling to find ways to engage with the Syrian rebel groups including leading rebel faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group formerly allied with Al Qaeda and which is designated a terrorist organization by the US, European Union, Turkey, and the UN.
Blinken’s statement did not mention HTS but made repeated emphasis on the need for any future Syrian government to be inclusive and respect the rights of minorities while ensuring that Syria is not used as a base for terrorism.
“This transition process should lead to credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian governance that meets international standards of transparency and accountability, consistent with the principles of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254,” Blinken said.
“The United States will recognize and fully support a future Syria government that results from this process,” he added.
The United States cut diplomatic ties with Syria and shut down its embassy in Damascus in 2012.
Washington in 2013 designated HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani a terrorist, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. It said the Nusra Front, the predecessor of HTS, carried out suicide attacks that killed civilians and espoused a violent sectarian vision.
The transition process and the new Syrian government should also facilitate the flow of humanitarian assistance to all in need, and ensure that any chemical or biological weapons stockpiles are safely destroyed, Blinken added.
US President Joe Biden and his top aides described the moment as a historic opportunity for the Syrian people who have for decades lived under the oppressive rule of Assad but also warned the country faced a period of risk and uncertainty.
Meanwhile, a top White House official said on Tuesday that US troops will be staying in Syria after the fall of Assad as part of a counter-terrorism mission focused on destroying Islamic State terrorists.
“Those troops are there for a very specific and important reason, not as some sort of bargaining chip,” US Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said in an interview at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York.
US troops “have been there now for the better part of a decade or more to fight ISIS … we are still committed to that mission.”
Asked directly whether US troops are staying, Finer said, “Yes.”
Separately, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday that the US has asked HTS to help locate and free missing American journalist Austin Tice as it liberates the country’s prisons in the aftermath of Assad’s overthrow.
Washington is telling all parties in Syria that Tice, who was abducted in Syria in 2012, is a top US priority, Miller told a press briefing.
“In all of our communications with parties that we know talk to HTS, we have sent very clearly the message that as they move through Syria liberating prisons, that our top priority is the return of Austin Tice,” he said.
“We want anyone who’s operating on the ground in Syria to be on the lookout for him, and if they do find him, to return to him to us safely as soon as possible.”
The post Blinken Lays Out US Hopes for Syria’s Political Transition first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran, Russia to Finalize Establishment of ‘International Union Against US Sanctions’
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a cultural forum dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Turkmen poet and philosopher Magtymguly Fragi, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 11, 2024. Photo: Sputnik/Alexander Scherbak/Pool via REUTERS
Iran’s initiative to form an international alliance with Russia against US sanctions will soon be completed, according to an Iranian lawmaker spearheading the effort.
Abbas Goudarzi, a member of Iran’s parliament and the Iran-Russia Parliamentary Friendship Group, provided the update on Monday on the sidelines of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) hosted by Moscow, Iranian media reported on Tuesday.
Goudarzi said the International Union Against US Sanctions aims to “neutralize the oppressive sanctions of the US, to form a new economic world without the US, and to conduct economic relations and trade without relying on the dollar,” according to state-run media outlets.
In his remarks, the Iranian lawmaker also highlighted the importance of Iran and Russia establishing closer ties, in part to confront the US on the global stage. He added that Iran and Russia’s cooperation is growing and that such a relationship is necessary for both countries to combat sanctions imposed on both by several Western countries.
For the past two years, Iran and Russia have been working on a major comprehensive bilateral agreement to strengthen cooperation in a wide array of areas. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in October that the “treaty on a comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and Iran” will include closer defense cooperation.
Officials from both countries have said in recent months that the deal will be signed in the near future without elaborating.
“Economically and culturally, our communications are being strengthened day by day and becoming more robust,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reportedly told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in a meeting in Turkmenistan earlier this year. “The growing trend of cooperation between Iran and Russia, considering the will of the top leaders of both countries, must be accelerated to strengthen these ties.”
Pezeshkian has also committed his country to deeper ties with Russia to counter Western sanctions.
For years, the US and several of its allies, especially in Europe, have imposed sanctions on both Iran and Russia for several reasons, ranging from human rights abuses to aggressive military actions.
In September, for example, the US, Germany, Britain, and France imposed sanctions on Iran for transferring ballistic missiles to Russia for Moscow to use in its ongoing war against Ukraine. Iran denied supplying Russia with the weapons.
The post Iran, Russia to Finalize Establishment of ‘International Union Against US Sanctions’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Pick for Intel Chief, Dodges Press Questions on Controversial Assad Views
Former US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard attends a campaign rally of Donald Trump at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US, Nov. 4, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, faced scrutiny on Monday over her sympathetic views toward Bashar al-Assad, scurrying away from a press gaggle on Capitol Hill after being asked for her views on the Syrian president’s removal from power.
Gabbard, a combat veteran and former US congresswoman from Hawaii, was meeting with senators tasked with voting whether to confirm or deny her nomination to be the country’s top intelligence official. When asked by journalists for her thoughts on the overthrow of the Assad regime, Gabbard glanced up, smiled, and quickly left the room.
Exiting her Senate meeting, however, Gabbard made a brief statement in which she mentioned Syria but not Assad.
“I want to address the issue that’s in the headlines right now: I stand in full support and wholeheartedly agree with the statements that President Trump has made over these last few days with regards to the developments in Syria,” Gabbard said on Monday.
Gabbard has previously been labeled an Assad “apologist” over her repeated refusals to forcefully condemn the Syrian government during the country’s civil war, which began in 2011. Assad has been accused of war crimes during his regime’s brutal crackdown on rebel forces, which ultimately prevailed in toppling him on Sunday. The long-time Syrian ruler was also an ally of Russia and Iran, allowing the latter to use Syrian territory to send weapons to terrorist proxies across the Middle East.
In 2017, Gabbard held a private meeting with Assad in Syria and refused to condemn him afterward, saying that it is “important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we’ve got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we can achieve peace.”
In 2019, while running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Gabbard appeared to again give Assad the benefit of the doubt, saying, “The evidence needs to be gathered and, as I have said before, if there is evidence that he has committed war crimes, he should be prosecuted as such.”
Gabbard has also made controversial comments on Russia, claiming that American and Western “hostility” motivated President Vladimir Putin to annex Crimea. She also repudiated attempts to sanction Russia, stating that “Russian people are a proud people and they don’t want the US and our allies trying to control them and their government.”
Nonetheless, Gabbard has also espoused pro-Israel views. In the year following Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7, she has often defended the Jewish state’s defensive military operations in Gaza and accused pro-Palestinian protesters of being part of a “radical Islamist organization.” She has also criticized a UN resolution which would have called for a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terror group, stating that “we have to be realists about the threat that continues to exist for the people of Israel. So as long as Hamas is in power, the people of Israel will not be secure and cannot live in peace.”
The post Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Pick for Intel Chief, Dodges Press Questions on Controversial Assad Views first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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