World War I was the war to end wars. However, the flawed peace led to World War II. Men and women of goodwill, who knew the devastation that war brings and the long-term trauma that comes in its tail, dreamt of peace and an organisation which would bring people together—a place where nations can resolve their differences. Human nature being what it is, getting everyone to sign up proved frustratingly difficult.
Eleanor Roosevelt took the delegates to Muir Woods near San Francisco. Star Wars lovers can visualise where they stood by imagining ewoks swinging in the trees. Stand among giant redwoods, and the short term seems less important. The United Nations was born.
It created agencies which have improved life on Earth. Among them is the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). It has helped hundreds of thousands of children in dire circumstances and developed long-term programmes to improve the prospects of the most disadvantaged children.
Similarly, the World Health Organisation is the United Nations agency that connects nations, partners and people to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable—so that everyone everywhere can attain the highest level of health.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) since 1950 has provided vital protection and assistance to refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced and stateless people, many of whom have nobody left to turn to.
What is not to like? If our leaders are sincere about not wanting the conflict raging and spreading in the Middle East, the number one priority is to get behind the United Nations.
The UNRWA has been a lifeline for millions of Palestinians for essential services. After three months of continuous bombardment, more than 25,000 Gazans have been killed. It is estimated that seventy per cent of the dead are women and children.
The destruction of agriculture and infrastructure means the reality of life for the remaining population is beyond most of our imaginations. Lack of water and electricity means showers and toilets don’t function, so disease is rife.
I find it hard to believe that the USA, the UK and some other Western governments are so heartless that they have stopped funding UNRWA, which supplies food to malnourished Gazan children.
I do not doubt that there are some rogue elements in UNRWA. The charges against twelve employees are serious and need investigating. But, if you put it in context, the actions of these governments appear cruel. UNWRA employs 13,000 people to deliver food and water to 1.3 million Gazans.
During the last three months, 150 of them have been killed by Israeli forces. Every country has bent police officers, but we don’t stop funding the police. There are corrupt politicians everywhere, but we don’t stop funding governments. Why this disproportionate reaction to a United Nations agency?
It’s hard not to conclude that Israel is punishing the UN for reporting on what their representatives have witnessed. This hostility to the UN by the Government of Israel is not new. It resents the UN calling out its illegal settlements in the West Bank, the diversion of water, the building of walls to create an apartheid-style separation and more recently, the destruction of half the buildings of Gaza and the displacement of a majority of the population not once but twice.
Gaza is a giant ghetto created by the state of Israel, from which there is no escape; major Western donors are now denying food and water to survivors of the IDF bombardments.
Professor Nick Maynard is an Oxford surgeon who returned from Gaza a few weeks ago. He recounts the overcrowding with patients on the floor and lack of medicines, which means that children have been operated on without anaesthetic and lack of water to scrub up.
The above realities led South Africa to bring a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Is it a coincidence that this attack on the UN follows the report of this UN Agency? What kind of world do our governments want—a world of empires built on violence?
Threatened by climate change and vast inequalities, governments everywhere need to reimagine the ideals with which the UN was founded. Israel’s allies must not just utter smooth words but must exert meaningful pressure on Israel in the way it put pressure on Russia after it invaded Ukraine.
The willingness of the USA and UK to attack Iranian-aided militias while ignoring the invasion of Gaza is hypocritical. I have no sympathy for the Iranian Government, but the USA, aided by the UK, despite its rhetoric, is escalating the conflict.
Iran admits that it arms militias in the Middle East, but the US and the UK arm Israel and its adversary, Saudi Arabia. Saudi citizens were behind 9/11, not Iranians. If we want peace, we have to find peaceful solutions, or we will walk blindfolded into World War III.
The world of 2024 has many competing elements that were at work in 1914. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clarke describes how privileged foreign ministers, diplomats and army commanders led their people into a war in which the estimated number of dead and injured was forty million.
The great powers of Europe didn’t intend this war any more than the competing powers in our world intended to create World War III. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. From Christopher Clarke’s research, it is clear that those early twentieth-century leaders had no idea how they became bogged down in the trenches of France.
We need hope for a better future for our children and grandchildren. We need our home planet not to be based on the idea that ‘Might is Right.’ Where best to start reimagining a peaceful world?
Leaders of the world should stand in Muir Woods among the giant redwoods and stop undermining the only organisation that tries to unite us for peaceful purposes, which will be needed if the world really wants to resolve this conflict.
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