Free Republic

Though only three months have passed since Libya joined the Security Council of the United Nations for a two-year term, the verdict already is in. Libya's membership on the Security Council shames the UN, and severely undermines the council's ability to maintain international peace and security. Put most simply, Libya does not deserve its seat. It has already justified terrorism, accused Israel of genocide, and blocked the council's condemnation of the recent murder of eight young Jerusalem students - this in spite of the Security Council's well-established practice of condemning terrorism wherever and whenever it happens. The truth is no...

Last week, Secretary of State Rice decided to sit on the fence while UN-based anti-Semites build the next forum for demonizing Israel and the United States. Her unscheduled foreign policy vacation is in response to UN planning of "Durban II" - the next installment of the UN "anti-racism" conference that took place in Durban, South Africa, and ended with an ominous demonstration of intolerance three days before 9/11. Preparations for Durban redux, to be held in the first half of 2009, start in earnest this coming April. The purpose of Durban II is "to foster the implementation of the Durban...

The U.S. took a historic step in December by voting against the United Nations budget on the ground that a small portion would pay for a conference destined to become a platform for anti-Semitism and the vilification of Israel. The vote was a powerful moral statement that America wanted no association with a perversion of the world body's mission. Disgracefully, the General Assembly nonetheless bestowed official blessing on the so-called Durban II meeting. And, now, the State Department has abandoned this forthright commitment to fairness and decency. Secretary of State Rice has refused to say what she should say: The...

KOFI Annan's leadership of the UN is under renewed pressure after one of his key advisers admitted to financial links with Tongsun Park, the shadowy South Korean businessman and former playboy spy at the centre of US investigations into Iraq's oil-for-food scandal. Canadian Maurice Strong, a close adviser to Mr Annan and his special envoy to Korea, admitted Mr Park had invested in an energy company he was associated with in 1997 - the first full year of the oil-for-food program - but denied the funding had anything to do with Iraq. In a statement, Mr Strong said he "maintained...

The thin young Asian stood on the platform in the square in New Delhi. His body and face were immobile - marble. He did not say a word, but two men, one on each side of him, talked and waved to the crowd of tens of thousands. The crowd knew the two men were top-ranking politicians, one Chinese, the other Indian, who were political wardens for the man between them, a refugee from China. The Chinese had just conquered Tibet, the young man's native country. But he had escaped across the Himalayan mountains and evaded the Communist soldiers to take...

According to the United Nations Charter, every U.N. member state has ''the inherent right of . . . self-defense if an armed attack occurs against'' it. However, as the discussion in the Security Council this week makes clear, Israel has become the only U.N. member state excluded from the charter's guarantee. This is an age where armed attacks take many forms, including suicide bombing. Wars are fought with combatants who make no effort to distinguish themselves from civilians. Nevertheless, according to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, joining the war against terrorism is a club not open to the Jewish state. In...