The Godless U.N.

Jesus and the United Nations

In the theology of many Christian Zionists, the United Nations constitutes the very essence of the anti-Christ. The very embodiment of Satan’s plan to create an Israel-hating, one world, Godless empire bent on the destruction of God’s people and the thwarting of God’s plan of redemption. The United Nations, in their eyes, is run by a combination of atheistic Socialists, Islamic Jihadists (there is really no other kind of Muslim) and anti-Semitic Arabs. The United Nations mandate to help maintain peace, promote democracy and protect the rights of the vulnerable is a sham.

From this, one might imagine that the U.N. Charter is filled with blasphemies and calls for the end of Christianity and the imprisonment of all followers of Jesus, but one would be heartily disappointed to find such overt statements of the United Nation’s true agenda.

The United Nation’s obsession with Israel is proof enough of their Godlessness, or so it is claimed.
The real story of the U.N. is not exciting enough to maintain the interest of Christians who place their trust in Israel’s near divine role in the Christian Zionists version of God’s plan of redemption.

The United Nations was created to replace the failed League of Nations. The U.N. sought to create a world order where conflict, such as had just been experienced in World War II, would not happen again. The U.N. was not naive enough to believe it could stop conflict altogether, but that it could establish a world order where the basic motivations for war would be outlawed in the international community. The United Nations adopted three principles which were meant to prevent expansionism and colonialism: Inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war. Prohibition of the transfer of civilians of the occupying power to the occupied territory. Right of peoples to self determination. These principles are not remotely in conflict with the Gospel of Jesus.

In creating the State of Israel in 1948, the United Nations violated the right of the indigenous peoples of Palestine to self determination. The paradox of an Israel-hating United Nations which broke its own charter to create the state of Israel is not often remarked upon by Christian Zionists. The occupation of the West Bank by Israel in 1967 has violated the other two principles as has been acknowledged by the overwhelming majority of the international community. The regulations spelled out in the Fourth Geneva Convention pertaining to the treatment of civilians in occupied territories by the occupying forces, have been violated by the Zionist State in legions of well documented cases.

No doubt the United Nations obsession with Israel stems from the fact that the U.N. created the problem and hence feels that it is incumbent upon itself to find a solution. Israel’s demand that it is being picked on sounds very much like a student who continually disrupts the class and complains that the teacher “keeps picking on me!” With Israel continuing to violate the resolutions of the U.N., the U.N. has little option but to continue in passing more resolutions against the rebellious Zionist State.

Do Christian Zionists expect the United Nations to create resolutions based on Christian Zionist sectarian and incorrect interpretations of the biblical teaching about the relationship between the Jewish people and the land of Palestine? Normally Christian Zionists are happy to recognise the concept of Separation of Church and State in the national sphere, acknowledging history has clearly shown that such a separation is the healthiest arrangement for both institutions. When it comes to the situation of international law they become somewhat confused. International law can not be separated from religious dogma, they maintain.

The alleged control of the United Nations by Arab and Muslim countries is refuted by a simple look at the voting in the U.N. over resolutions concerning Israel. Only 21 Arab states exist and if we add to these the number of non Arab Islamic countries, we can see that the majority of countries in the United Nations are not Arab/Muslim. In 2002, a General Assembly resolution (‘Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine’) affirming Israel’s right to ‘secure and recognised borders’ as well as the Palestinian people’s right to an ‘independent state’ in the West Bank and Gaza passed 160 to 4. There are well less than 80 Arab/Islamic states in the United Nations. The 4 countries to go against this resolution were Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and the United States of America. The 2002 United Nations voting record on virtually every resolution concerning the Israel-Palestine issue was just as lop sided with the majority of countries supporting the resolutions going against Israel being non Arab/Muslim. The international consensus regarding Israel’s violations of international law has been extremely stable despite large scale geopolitical changes throughout the world in the last fourty years.

University of Cambridge scholar, Marc Weller, has shown that when comparing the case of Israel and the occupied territories with similar situations in Kosovo, East Timor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, occupied Iraq and Kuwait, and Rwanda, Israel has enjoyed a virtual immunity from such measures as arms embargoes and economic sanctions which have been employed by the United Nations against member countries that have violated international law in a manner identical to that of Israel. See Norman Finkelstein’s, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, page xvii, for documentation of this study.

As a Bible believing, born again Christian I recognise that the United Nations is a fallible, human institution. However I see no reason to cast it into the realm of the anti-Christ and condemn its resolutions as anti-Israel and therefore anti-God. The United Nations created the State of Israel and has never advocated its demise. Its mandates contradict no part of the Gospel of Reconciliation as revealed in scripture.

Neither the United Nations, Islam, Christianity, Marxism or even National Socialism (an early stage of Hitler’s final solution came up with the idea of all the Jews in Europe could be transferred to one place in the world where they could live together away from the rest of the world) has any basic problem with the idea of a state of Israel, where Jews (in any number) can live. The only tradition in the world that forbids Jews to have a State of their own is, ironically, the Jewish tradition itself as articulated in the Oaths of the Talmud. See posting in this blog “Sacred Oaths”.

Craig Nielsen
ACTION FOR PALESTINE

Jerusalem

Jerusalem – the eternal city of Zionism?

It is a matter of history that the Zionists accepted the U.N. Partition plan of 1947 while the Arab states did not. It seems that in hindsight it might have been better for the Palestinian people to have accepted the proposed partition plan since it would have given them a greater amount of land than they could ever possibly hope to get in any two state settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict today. But we could also ask the question. “Would it have made any real difference in the long run?”

Today Israel declares that Jerusalem is the eternal capital city of Israel. Jerusalem is off the table with respect to negotiations pertaining to a peaceful settlement with the Palestinian people. Yet the 1947 Partition plan, agreed to by the Zionists, did not include Jerusalem in the newly proposed Israeli state. Jerusalem was to be a corpus separatum, administered internationally with free access to Muslims, Christians and Jews all whom claimed the city was Holy.

Today we are informed by the Zionists and their supporters that to consider an Israeli state without Jerusalem is impossible even though history informs us that the Zionist have already agreed to an Israeli state that did not include Jerusalem within its borders in recent history. Zionists often claim that Israel is not an expansionist, colonialist state, but the city of Jerusalem bears witness to a different reality that leaves us with only a couple of possible interpretations.

The first is that the Zionist state need not make absolute sovereign demands on the city of Jerusalem (as it did not in 1948) and so control of the city is still on the table with regards to peace process negotiations. If Israel was able to bring itself to accept an Israeli state without Jerusalem within its borders in the recent past, then it can do so in the present. This means that the Arab peace initiative gains ground with respect to plausibility since the only remaining issue in that peace initiative would be the dismantling of the settlements in the West Bank which have been deemed illegal by the U.N. and the overwhelming majority of the International community. If this interpretation is not correct then we are left with the only real alternative.

That alternative interpretation is that the Zionist state of Israel accepted the 1947 partition plan disingenuously in the sense that it only accepted the resolution of the U.N. as an interim measure. The intention all along was to somehow obtain the eternal city by other means. Those other means would obviously require the use of force. In other words, the Zionist State of Israel is an expansionist, colonialist state that always intended to use force as a means to acquire territory regardless of the demands of International law. The state of Israel never intended to share Eretz Israel with anyone regardless of the rulings of the U.N. The rights of the Palestinian people to a national homeland were never recognised by the Zionists from the very beginning. The acceptance of the 1947 Partition plan was a deception in that it made the world community think that Israel was ready to share the land of Palestine when in reality it coveted the land from the beginning. Israel has never wanted peace…it has always wanted greater Israel regardless of the rights of others to self determination in the land they were born in.

I favour the latter interpretation as the one that more closely reflects reality. The secular Zionists heart felt longing for a Holy city, which their secular sensibilities told them was so designated by religious documents that were just myth and legend, does not impress. It is land they wanted, not Holiness. The Wisdom of Solomon dictates that the wise would give up what they love rather than see it destroyed and divided. The Wisdom of Solomon has fallen on deaf Zionist ears. The Holy city of Jerusalem will be filled with violence and injustice by Zionist will, rather than see peace and equality between Jew and non-Jew as the ethical traditions of the Torah demand.

Craig Nielsen

ACTION FOR PALESTINE