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Protesting the UN chief’s indirect criticism of Israel, Israel’s UN envoy says ‘the time has come to teach them a lesson’. Israel will refuse visas to United Nations officials, its ambassador to the UN has said, as the country’s spat with the international organisation deepens. Gilad Erdan made the statement on Wednesday, according to Israeli media, as the fallout from the UN chief’s speech at the Security Council the previous day continues. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres indirectly criticised Israel for ordering the evacuation of civilians from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip. He also said Hamas’s attack...

Israel has suspended its multimillion dollar contribution to a number of United Nations bodies and is reevaluating its relationship with the organization, after the UN Security Council passed a resolution on Israeli settlement construction. “I instructed the Foreign Ministry to complete within a month a re-evaluation of all our contacts with the United Nations, including the Israeli funding of UN institutions and the presence of UN representatives in Israel,” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Saturday while addressing the nation. “I have already instructed to stop about 30 million shekels ($7.8 million) in funding to five UN institutions, five bodies,...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel will re-assess its ties with the United Nations following the adoption by the Security Council of a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday. The vote was able to pass the 15-member council on Friday because the United States broke with a long-standing approach of diplomatically shielding Israel and did not wield its veto power as it had on many times before - a decision that Netanyahu called "shameful". "I instructed the Foreign Ministry to complete within a month a re-evaluation of all our contacts with the United...

Kofi Annan Could Have Ordered Peacekeepers to LeaveBy Julie StahlCNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau ChiefJuly 26, 2006 Haifa, Israel (CNSNews.com) - The four United Nations peacekeepers killed in an Israeli attack on their outpost were required to stay at that post "until they were ordered by the [U.N.] secretary general to withdraw," said a member of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization on Wednesday. But the peacekeepers apparently never received such an order, despite the fierce cross-border fighting that erupted in southern Lebanon two weeks ago. The four peacekeepers -- from China, Austria, Canada and Finland -- had taken security precautions and...

If the UN cannot — or will not — distinguish between terrorists who target civilians and a democracy that seeks to stop the terrorism while minimizing civilian casualties, it has become part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. If anyone wonders why the UN has rendered itself worse than irrelevant in the Arab-Israeli conflict, all he or she need do is read UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's July 20 statement. Annan goes to great pains to suggest equal fault and moral equivalence between the rockets of Hezbollah and Hamas that specifically target innocent civilians and the self-defense...

As part of international efforts to end the conflict in southern Lebanon, there has emerged the scheme of a United Nations peacekeeping force to separate the opposing forces. NPR reports that U.N. Secretary General Annan is, predictably, pushing for a robust international force there. But even the White House seems to be considering the idea. “Somehow you’re going to have to provide stability in southern Lebanon,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said last week. “Whether it’s an international stabilization force, whether it is the Lebanese armed forces, all those things are under discussion.” What many seem to forget is that...