A playground for the vile and dangerous

SEARCHING for truth at the United Nations is like looking for kernels of wheat in a mountain of horse dung.

From the unscientific blather about global warming from our own Kevin Rudd and meaningless posturing by Barack Obama to Libya’s President for Life and Eternity Muammar Gaddafi and his Iranian colleague-in-evil President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the nuggets are rare and, when they fall, they do so largely unheard.

In the ridiculous non-judgmental process of giving all national leaders - dictators and democratically-elected figures alike - some freakish semblance of equal moral stature, the UN’s unelected bureaucracy provides a ritual soap box for the grotesqueries of the world to parade their fantasies.

But Rudd’s boring lecture was not in the same league as the performances delivered by Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad, two monsters of truly global scale.

Their ravings would constitute hate-speech in a number of Western nations but are sanctified within the confines of the UN as a demonstration of the organisation’s commitment to freedom of expression. A freedom of expression which is not enjoyed by the populations of most of its member states from Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

The biggest lie is that promoted most vigorously by Ahmadinejad: That the Holocaust did not occur.

Australia’s delegation took the principled position and walked out but a number of other nations remained to hear this lunatic repeat his libel.

To his enormous credit, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a compelling rebuttal that demolished the Iranian’s vile invective with clear logic backed by indisputable facts.

He pointed out that Israel was founded by the UN nearly 62 years ago in recognition of the right of the Jews, an ancient people with a history stretching back some 3500 years, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.

Directly addressing Ahmadinejad’s lie, Netanyahu produced a copy of documents prepared by senior Nazi officials in 1942 which detailed plans to exterminate the Jewish people.

There is no question about the authenticity of those documents.

He then produced a copy of the construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. One million Jews were murdered there.

Again, there is no question about the authenticity of the documentation.

And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis, he asked? Are those tattoos a lie?

Netanyahu noted that a third of all Jews perished at the hands of the Nazis and that, among many Jewish families, his own was affected.

He praised the member nations who refused to listen to Ahmadinejad’s lies and commended them for standing up for moral clarity, saying they brought honour to their countries.

But he was scathing about those who gave the Holocaust-denier a hearing, saying: “Have you no shame? Have you no decency?

“A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!” he said.

“Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You’re wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.”

Netanyahu said the current Iranian regime was fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that had in the past 30 years swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims.

“It has callously slaughtered Muslims and Christians, Jews and Hindus and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times,” he said.

“Wherever they can, they impose a backward society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed a true believer is brutally subjugated.”

The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death.

The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress and strengths of the 21st century.

The allure of freedom, power of technology, reach of communications should surely win the day.

But, he pointed out, the most urgent challenge facing the UN was to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The big question is whether the member states of the UN are up to that challenge, is the international community prepared to confront a despotism that terrorises its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Unfortunately, there is no moral clarity at the UN, as Netanyahu says, the jury is still out and recent signs are not encouraging.