it has apparently surprised many people that the united nations has blatantly showed itself to be a poorly-executed joke of global proportions. this has unfortunately been the case since its predecessor’s inception. the league of nations was a failure for three basic reasons. it was premised on the idea that countries would act to make the world a better place but hadn’t had the opportunity before because of lack of communication. it assumed compromise was the best solution to problems. and it believed peace was always better than war. all three were disastrous errors and combined to cause the outbreak of the second world war and, perhaps more importantly, directly lead to the holocaust.
the united nations was an upgrade only in size. it based itself on the same fundamental failed theories and managed to implement it as badly as could have been imagined. instead of actually having any power on the world stage, it just became a new arena for nations to fight each other and play politics because no nation was willing to give up even a fraction of its own authority. and without having any ability to enforce its decisions it became a meaningless arbiter of decisions nobody really cared about in the first place, mostly there to justify popular opinion and make leaders look good to their publics. beyond that, however, it has demonstrated the problem with representative government in a much more obvious way. when india and china with more than a billion people each and malta and bahrain with less than two million total have the same voice, this isn’t a sensible system. when canada, russia, the united states and china, covering a massive portion of the globe, have the same voice as monaco, lichenstein, grenada and barbados, whose land areas resemble city parks by comparison, it may be time to rethink the idea of hearing balanced voices from around the world. and when only 33 of the 193 members are classified as “full democracies” (pew research center, 2017 if anyone’s curious), considering the united nations a democratic institution is perhaps best thought of as a blatant lie.
that, however, is only the background. this week, the united nations decided it would be a wonderful idea to call on the state of israel to stop attempting to eliminate the terrorists in gaza and allow them to continue to attack and rebuild their forces for their next campaigns of terror. at exactly what point the united nations stopped simply pandering to public opinion but shifted to actively simping terrorists, it is difficult to say. but it’s now clear that’s what’s happening. while unable to actually take a stand in any meaningful way on conflicts in syria, sudan or ukraine, the united nations has instead decided to use its voice to stand up for iranian-backed terrorist regimes.
so i believe it might be good to take a quick look at what the united nations should have said instead of its painfully-ridiculous statement on the middle east.
let’s begin by looking at the goals of the conflict between israel and hamas. after decades of repeated attacks including but by no means restricted to the massacre on october 7, 2023, and based on the statements of hamas leadership (you’re welcome to read their posts and interviews and they’re very proud of these statements so they’re everywhere) that attacks would continue until every last israeli had been killed (the literal definition of genocide, by the way), israeli forces have two very obvious goals. first, to eliminate all terrorist groups targeting israel, beginning with hamas. if anyone has a problem with eliminating terrorists, it might be best to stop here because i’m just assuming we’re all on board with not wanting there to be people out there committing acts of terror. second, to restore the rule of law, freedom and equality over land currently in the hands of terrorists including gaza and the west bank. if it hasn’t already been clear to you from looking at a map (you have looked at a map, right?), “from the river to the sea” refers to the jordan river and the mediterranean sea. the “west bank” is the land on the west bank of the jordan river and gaza is part of the mediterranean coastline. so there are two very clear goals – eliminate the terrorist threat and bring the same freedom, safety and peace to everyone in those areas the rest of israel currently enjoys. these are quite reasonable goals, i believe. i can see how larger goals would be useful once these have been accomplished like eliminating terrorism in the entire region and ensuring the same peace and freedom for everyone but starting only within israel is a good beginning.
of course, war has casualties and those often include civilians. many israelis have been killed by the constant terrorist attacks to the point that an entire defensive shield had to be built to prevent more civilian casualties. if such a thing had been happening anywhere else in the world, the answer would have been immediate retaliatory war but israel was expected to take it and built the iron dome to protect its civilians. but that hasn’t stopped bombs, rockets and mortars, not to mention terrorists in-person, from killing many innocent israelis and tourists of all ethnicities and religions. many arabs have been killed, as have many jews.
but war is sometimes necessary when a group wishes to terrorize. when the nazis wished to eliminate the jews, homosexuals and various other groups and bring its empire around the world, war was necessary to prevent that and millions died in the process. extremist terror groups in the middle east, many who supported the nazis during that war, are now attempting the same thing, to exterminate jews, queers and anyone else who doesn’t follow their fundamentalist and extremist version of islam and conquer the world in a new caliphate. if you believe i am exaggerating their goals, you’re welcome to read their speeches and declarations. and even if they’re using hyperbole, which i assure you they’re not, and only wish to do this in the middle east, if you think that’s acceptable you are just racist, thinking it’s only important if it impacts the white-dominated part of the world. or perhaps you hate jews or queers so much you’re willing to sacrifice all those people to eliminate them. i’m not sure which would be worse but i hope neither of these apply to you.
but many civilians are dying. we have no idea how many because the numbers provided by hamas are obviously not correct – demonstrably false, in fact. they’re not just lying but they’re lying badly. if you look carefully at the numbers, you will discover that despite the majority of those being killed being male, the reported deaths are dramatically skewed to be female deaths. the numbers are also unrealistic in two other ways. one is that, despite different phases of the war, use of different strategies and in different areas, the number of reported dead has remained constant at all times. no deviation for anything. but more importantly there’s just nowhere for that number of dead to be hidden and they’re simply not showing up anywhere. in an area a fraction of the size of a major city, tens of thousands of dead bodies would be readily apparent if they were being killed at anywhere near the rate reported by hamas. of course, the fact that hamas is lying about the war shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone because it’s a terrorist organization. if you think a group will kill, kidnap, rape and commit acts of necrophilia live on camera broadcast to the world but consider lying to be too much of an ethical violation, you may not be thinking all that clearly. not to mention the leaders of hamas literally having admitted to the fact that lying is part of their strategy in their statements to al jazeera (yes, please look them up because there was even another declaration of their willingness to lie to get more support yesterday).
we don’t want there to be endless war in gaza, though, and innocent civilians dying isn’t the goal. so what would be a better solution to this issue? an end to fighting before the terrorists have been eliminated and gaza finally turned into a peaceful place for everyone to live together is out of the question. this solution may not make everyone very happy for ideological reasons but i think it’s far better than anything else that’s been proposed. the goal is to eliminate all terrorists and anyone who supports those terrorists while allowing anyone not supporting terrorism to live. it has been proposed a refugee camp be set up in the desert and gazans be moved there but that is a painfully shortsighted way of dealing with it. not to mention, it reminds me (and should remind everyone else) of internment camps from the world wars. there is no reason to send the population of gaza to a camp in the desert. a far better idea would be to set up a temporary processing facility somewhere near the gaza border where all gazan civilians can be transported. once cleared of terrorist links, they could then be given a choice of destinations. at first, those destinations would likely have to be within israel but other countries could certainly open their borders to those who wished to leave. that certainly shouldn’t be the goal, of course. having the people of gaza live happy lives wherever they wish to live is the goal, not trying to get everyone to leave. but giving people more options has never been a bad thing. and for those who wish to return to gaza after the war, they could be given temporary housing elsewhere until hamas has been neutralized, peace restored and new infrastructure established for safe living to begin. of course, anyone wishing to return to gaza should be given that opportunity whenever they wish but israel is a country where choosing where you want to live is a fundamental right so that’s certainly nothing unusual to guarantee people.
once the civilian population has been temporarily moved out of harm’s way, the resolution of the war would come much more swiftly. the delay has always been attempting to preserve as much civilian life as possible. with no more civilians in the conflict area, no more aid would need to be sent and no restraint would need to be used in eliminating the remaining terrorist threat. with the complete destruction of hamas in gaza, cleanup and reconstruction could begin and anyone wishing to return to gaza at that point could do that. or, of course, they could stay in their new homes.
while this is a specifically gaza-centered idea, something similar would certainly work for the elimination of hamas and other terrorist forces in the west bank once gaza has been dealt with. this would minimize innocent civilian casualties while reducing the length of the conflict. it would also mean information would be much more transparent. if arab gazans were temporarily relocated, it would be impossible for hamas to attempt to lie about their deaths because they simply wouldn’t be in harm’s way.
this would all rely, of course, on the willingness of the civilians of gaza to walk away from the terrorists. i believe the vast majority of gazans wish to have peace and live in harmony with their neighbors. those who wish to stay and support hamas are terrorist supporters while those who choose peace and safety for their families deserve to be safe and protected. the choice is certainly clear and logical for all those who don’t subscribe to a philosophy of wishing to cause death to others.
the united nations, of course, could easily recommend such a solution. i am absolutely not the first to think of this kind of project, though i’m not aware of anyone specifically proposing a more open relocation and more freedom for gazan civilians. i don’t think there’s any need for the creation of new refugee camps. that’s how we got into this mess in the first place in many ways. many arabs live happily in israeli society. there’s no reason the civilians of gaza can’t live peacefully the same way going forward. it just appears they have been stripped of that chance by the forces of terror and hate.
we owe it to the world to try to fix this problem, not by pandering to terrorists and extremists but by trying to promote peace through integration and cooperation while taking a hard stance against the violence and fundamentalist hate of hamas and its supporters.
