{"id":2817,"date":"2018-09-26T12:25:29","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T00:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/?p=2817"},"modified":"2019-05-19T15:05:16","modified_gmt":"2019-05-19T03:05:16","slug":"un-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/2018\/09\/un-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"UN Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the priorities New Zealand signalled when running for a seat at the UN security council was reform by way of trying to\u00a0restrict or eliminate the veto power<\/a>\u00a0held by permanent members.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Ardern is at the UN now and has given\u00a0her first speech to the General Assembly<\/a>\u00a0at the\u00a0Nelson Mandela Peace Summit. In her speech, she said that “we must pursue equal rights for all.” This is a noble goal and is part of the ideology that founded the United Nations and\u00a0remains part of its purpose<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rt Hon Ms Ardern has also signalled that she will be using her time at the UN to talk about reform of the security council veto – a tool she said has “made a mockery of what the UN stand for<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

There should be little doubt that the veto has been used by permanent members to\u00a0shamefully excuse Syrian use of chemical weapons<\/a>, for example. It should also come as no surprise that the veto is most often by the USA\u00a0to block resolutions against Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The reason the latter shouldn’t be surprising is because of the\u00a0disproportionate number of resolutions against Israel at the UN<\/a>\u00a0and the Security Council is no different – the Security Council can’t even bring itself to be balanced and\u00a0condemn an internationally designated terror group<\/a>\u00a0that is waging war against Israel.<\/p>\n

With thirty-two Arab\/Islamic nations at the UN not recognising Israel as a legitimate state and with many others joining the disproportionate criticism, it falls to the few democratic nations around the table to stand up to the bullies.<\/p>\n

For this reason, it would make sense for New Zealand to voice displeasure about the lack of equal treatment of Israel at the UN. That would include not only acknowledging the disproportionate number of resolutions against Israel and\u00a0maybe abstaining or voting against some of them<\/a>\u00a0to “walk the talk”, but also to\u00a0acknowledge the role that UNWRA plays in perpetuating the conflict<\/a>, especially since New Zealand contributes.<\/p>\n

If New Zealand truly cares about “equal rights”, rather than focusing only on the veto powers perhaps we could address more egregious examples of unfairness that actually make the UN a joke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the priorities New Zealand signalled when running for a seat at the UN security council was reform by way of trying to\u00a0restrict or eliminate the veto power\u00a0held by permanent members. Prime Minister Ardern is at the UN now and has given\u00a0her first speech to the General Assembly\u00a0at the\u00a0Nelson Mandela Peace Summit. In her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2817"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4306,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions\/4306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}