Replies to post #41023 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[Math Junkie]

What U.N. mandates do you want to see followed by Israel?

[Zeev Hed]

181 was invalidated, with its "international Jerusalem city" not by me, not even by Israel, but by the 1948 invasion of the nascent state, and the world standing by, almost in glee to see that state eradicated. The UN did not step back in with a cease fire until the Arab armies were being defeated on all fronts by a bunch of youngsters sabra and few gangs of concentration camps refugees. 57 years later you do not turn back the wheels of history. Typically, one eats the soup one cooked. Since the UN does not see fits to determine capitals of any other sovereign state, why a special case here? The Israeli have promised to give free access to holy sites to all religions, and they have, when the Jordanian were in control of the old city, they did not. Why give them another chance? The Palestinians have a capital, it is called Amman, why do they need two capitals?

[brainlessone]

ergo when is the arab world going to pay war reparations for the 1948 war and the 60 years of terrorism.


just out of your sense of fairness, dont you think that armies which proclaimed their intention to exterminate every women and child, invaded and then tried to do so, should at least have to pay some thing back for their misdeeds?

[harrypothead]

Scandal: Anti-U.N. Campaign
Newsweek April 26 issue

United Nations officials are reacting with resentment to a campaign by conservative media and pols alleging that top U.N. officials are implicated in a scandal surrounding a U.N.-operated Oil-for-Food Program that sold Iraqi oil and provided "humanitarian" supplies to Saddam Hussein's regime before the U.S. invasion. Some U.N. officials suspect the scandal was drummed up by elements of the current Iraqi Governing Council—including the controversial Ahmad Chalabi—who fear they could lose power if the United States lets a U.N. envoy assemble a new Iraqi authority to assume sovereignty on June 30.

At the heart of the scandal is a list of 270 names of alleged recipients of Saddam-era Oil-for-Food deals that purportedly generated slush funds for Saddam's regime and easy profits for its foreign collaborators. The list includes prominent international politicians and businessmen and makes an apparent reference to Benon Sevan, the U.N. bureaucrat who administered the program. Iraqi Governing Council adviser Claude Hankes-Drielsma told NEWSWEEK the list was compiled by Iraqi officials after the war on instructions of the Council's finance committee, chaired by Chalabi. He said the list is based on prewar documents that current Iraqi government officials found in Iraqi ministries. He said he personally saw prewar documents implying an interest by Sevan in an Oil-for-Food deal involving a company in Panama.

Through U.N. spokesmen, Sevan has denied any corruption. U.N. officials have also denied published innuendos raising questions about an Oil-for-Food monitoring contract involving a Swiss firm that employed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son as a consultant. But some on the list have acknowledged involvement in prewar oil deals. The U.N. said last week that Annan intended to appoint a three-man committee headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve Board chief Paul Volcker to investigate Oil-for-Food irregularities. But Volcker wants the U.N. Security Council to grant his panel tough powers—a demand diplomats say may be hard to meet, since Council members like France, China, Russia and Syria bore heavy responsibility for setting prewar Oil-for-Food rules susceptible to corruption by Saddam.

—Mark Hosenball

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.

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U.N. record in Iraq is strong
By Joy Gordon

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-04-04-oppose_x.htm