Opinion | Ruthless and lawless: Beastly Netanyahu on a deadly rampage
By Philip Yeung, university teacher
PKY480@gmail.com
Israel has gone stark raving mad. Within 48 hours, its tanks twice blasted the headquarters and compound of the UN's peace-keeping forces in Lebanon where 410 Chinese soldiers are on active duty. Two UN peacekeepers were injured, with security cameras, smashed, presumably, to destroy evidence of its illegal acts. UN troops were ordered not to return fire but to seek refuge in bunkers. Netanyahu, lying through his teeth, flatly denied these attacks. Instead, he warned the UN Secretary General to immediately evacuate the peacekeeping forces from Lebanon, "to keep them out of harm's way". Yes, you have got it right, Israel is issuing orders to the UN, not vice versa.
This is utter humiliation for the UN. It has never been reduced to such a state of helplessness. Netanyahu is at his Machiavellian best: negotiating from a position of strength. First, physically attack, intimidate, and then demand capitulation. He talks with his fist. If this is the typical Jewish approach, it is not winning Israel any friends.
Netanyahu has boxed the UN Secretary General into a corner: if he yields to Israel's demand, he looks impotent; if he refuses, he risks the safety of UN's peacekeepers.
But Netanyahu may have overplayed his hand. The backlash is instantaneous. This gangster behavior was denounced by 40 UN member states which send soldiers to the peacekeeping missions. Israel just shrugs it off.
No country, not even the US, dares to brazenly open fire on UN peacekeepers. No country has ever physically intimidated the UN into submission. This moment, when Israel tells the world it is above international laws, will live in infamy.
It is blindingly obvious that Netanyahu holds the UN in contempt and considers it a hostile agency, and thus a legitimate military target. In the past year, UN aid convoys have been attacked and robbed in broad daylight. They are now forbidden to cross into Gaza where nearly a million people are facing death by starvation. To date, over 200 UN personnel have been killed by Israeli soldiers. A blood debt on Netanyahu's head. No one is safe. The UN insignia is no protection against Israeli bombs and bullets. UN personnel can't count on their neutrality to keep them safe. Last week, Israel declared the UN Secretary General himself a diplomatic outcast. Another humiliation, another first in history.
Determined to let nothing stand between its military objectives, Israel will reduce Lebanon to another Gaza. Non-Jewish lives don't matter. Israel's guns and bombs will do the talking.
Such utter arrogance and aggression against the UN by a member state is unprecedented. Israel has effectively castrated the UN.
If the UN blinks first and withdraws its forces, its credibility is kaput. It ceases to be a functioning international governing body. Facing this existential crisis, the Secretary General must call an emergency session to expel Israel from the UN, slap sanctions and penalties on Netanyahu and his clique, and let the chips fall where they may. This pariah state and its war criminal leader mustn't get away scot-free.
By his beastly behavior, Netanyahu is giving foreign governments retroactive justification for their past atrocities against the Jewish people. The military gains on the ground do not remove the stigma of Israel as a bully and a killing machine. An inglorious chapter for "God's chosen people".
The question hovering over us is: What gives Israel the audacity to openly defy the UN and attack its personnel? The answer: America. Israel knows that tied to the US umbilical cord, it will never be disowned by its American godfather. Its brinkmanship is anchored by this certainty. It can thumb its nose at the world with impunity. After all, it is under the protective umbrella of the world's most powerful nation.
But there is a price to pay. Biden's failure to curb Israeli atrocities may come back to bite his administration and the Harris candidacy. The world holds the US partially accountable for Netanyahu's crimes against humanity.
The US, soon sending more missiles to Israel, is being sucked into a wider regional conflict, with Israel now in a six-nation fight. If he remains unleashed, Netanyahu will drag America into another quagmire.
Thanks to Israel, American sermons about human rights are now just hypocrisies. The US stinks to high heavens with its shameful double standards, as it finds itself ankle-deep in the new killing fields of the 21st century.
The UN is powerless to house-train this savage rottweiler. The Israeli tail is wagging the American dog.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
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