Calls are growing for the UN Security Council to be reformed after the US became the only member to use its veto power to block a Gaza ceasefire resolution, a move welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The UN chief says he will keep pushing for peace.
Nothing changed on the UNSC when Russia vetoed the resolution to leave Ukraine.
I’m not educated enough to say which is a “worse” violation of the principles the UN stands for, but I’ll go out on a limb and say nothing will change this time, either.
Yes, the whole idea of countries being able to veto UN resolutions are leading to exactly this, Russia vetoing all resolutions condemning their aggression in Ukraine and the US vetoing all resolutions concerning Israel.
I’m not sure how a resolution condemning anything is helpful, and I don’t know why Israel and Hamas need the UN for a cease fire.
The “resolution” the UN needs to come to here, in my opinion, is to put the whole area (Israel and Palestine) under UN control until something equitable can be worked out.
UN control is notorious for not working out well, and liking children too much.
Not working out well compared to what’s happening now? And you think children are being protected from anything now?
No, of course not. There is just a very poor reputation for UN Peace keeping forces, so giving them martial law in one of the most contested places in the world might not end any better.
Who’s to say the call for reform is only motivated by the most recent ridiculous veto?
I’m not educated enough to say which is a “worse” violation of the principles the UN stands for, but I’ll go out on a limb and say nothing will change this time, either.
Russia wants to annex a country. Israel is fighting a terrorist group. Russia is worse.
Russia wants to annex a country. Israel is fighting a terrorist group.
Isreal has been slowly annexing bits of Palestine for decades. Those terrorists are the latest reaction to that.
Not that their violence against Israel is a good thing - far from it, but it’s also not surprising.
Isreal has been slowly annexing bits of Palestine for decades.
They literally haven’t. Gaza’s borders are unchanged.
And what do you call the Israeli “settlements”?
I’d call them not in Gaza…
Israeli settlements are literally built on Israeli land. East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights were won in the Six Day War.
So… If Russia “wins” parts of Ukrainian territory, it’s all valid?
The 6 Day War was a bit more complicated than a blatant land grab
In a realpolitik sense, yeah probably. That’s why Ukraine needs to win. Nothing is going to happen to Russia if they crush Ukraine underfoot. Do you really believe something is?
More to the point, though, the Six Day War was a defensive war by Israel in which other countries willfully abdicated territory for Israel’s security purposes. It was not a war of annexation, so the two are completely different things.
Note these settlements are on the other side of the Israeli border after the 1967 war, making a large percentage of the West Bank de facto Israeli territory. And it continues to shrink.
Russia wants to annex a country. Israel is
fightinga terrorist group.
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Russia is committing genocide. They’re both evil. Israel has been doing it for longer and is better at it.
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Putin wants to russify ukraine, destroying their heritage and culture. That sounds like genocide to me, dawg
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You need to read the final prohibited act, Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
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Fucking liar.
Article two. Read it, and go silent until you grow a brain, a conscience, or both.
Russia explicitly, openly, and repeatedly states that they desire elimination of Ukrainian nation. Their official stance, repeated by their president and all the state media is that Ukraine and Ukrainians either don’t exist or are a “historical mistake”. Whether they target the entire nation or just the parts they can reach is of no import for the definition of genocide.
In fact, Russia ticks off all five definitions in article two and least points a), c), and d) of article three in Ukraine alone.
I think it’s a valid point that Russia’s actions aren’t driven by racism anywhere as much as Israel’s actions, which in turns gets reflected in the proportion of the civilian population killed by both: Israel already killed way more Palestinian civilians in 2 months as a proportion of the 5 million population, than Russia killed Ukranians civilians in 2 years as a proportion of a population of 40 million.
This doesn’t excuse Russian actions or make them any less evil, it just shows how Israel is managing to act significantly more evil even than even the people who perpetrated the Bucha and Mariupoli massacres.
Fascists when they have the freedom to do what they want are always evil and it shouldn’t be that contentious that the more racist they are, the more evil they act.
It’s weird that some here insist on taking the point being made as being “Russia is not evil” rather than being that “Israel manages to be even more evil than Russia”.
Racism has nothing to do with casualty numbers discrepancy. Gaza Strip is a densely populated area.
Genocide is not a competition, it’s a crime against humanity. I don’t care whether Israel or Russia does it better, I care that both state actors are reveling in it.
They are knowingly chosing to do a blockade of Food, Water and Medicine which they know has little effect on Hamas (who have stores of those things) and massive effect on civilians.
Also it has been leaked that now, when their casualty estimation systems give a high probability that 5 or more innocent victims will be killed as collateral when attacking a target, they go ahead and attack it anyway, when before they didn’t.
They are choosing to kill Palestinian civilians, the very people who members of the Israeli Cabinet describe as “human animals”.
Would you have said “Genocide is not a competition” to dismiss the similar hate-driven indiscriminate killing of civilians because of the etnic group they came from practiced by the early Nazi Germany, or would you recognize that is the type mindless hate is what ends up with things like the Holocaust and that such race-Fascism is an altogether separate category from the opportunistic kind of Fascism practiced in places like Spain and Italy?
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You had two options: read one damn sentence or insist on being a tool.
Of course you chose the latter.
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“Forced assimilation” is one way to commit genocide. Another is through holocaust. The Holocaust happened to be genocide via holocaust. Gaza happens to be genocide via holocaust. The definition of genocide doesn’t require it be committed via holocaust.
Edit: fixed an autoincorrect
Giza happens to be genocide via holocaust. The definition of genocide doesn’t require it be committed via holocaust.
The Pharoah must step in!
And the award for the clueless, most unnecessary joke, goes to you. You do understand that not everything requires a shitty take at humor? Your comment brings nothing to the thread, OP has already fixed their mistake. Why are you here?
I’m here to annoy humorless cunts
and then want to assimilate the Ukrainians into their country
Textbook genocide. The erasure of a group of people is genocide. That can be done by:
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Ethnic cleansing and mass killings (as demonstrated by piles of bodies in Mariupol I believe, as well as mobile crematoriums)
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Kidnapping the group’s children (again, loudly and proudly admitted to by Russia) to deny the future of the group
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Forcible assimilation by preventing the group from practicing it’s culture and identity (as demonstrated by Putin saying Ukraine is actually Russian because it’s historically part of the Russian empire)
There’s one more, that I pray isn’t being used and I think we’d have heard if it was. Rape can be used as a weapon of war to force the group to give birth to your children, and deny their future in that way. To my knowledge Russia does not have a campaign to do so with Ukrainians, thank God.
A lot of the tactics Russia is using aren’t new either, look into Russification by the USSR to Eastern Europe. They would envelop states into the USSR after purposely growing a Russian population there with settlers. This is the big reason why Eastern Europe tends to hate Russia.
as demonstrated by Putin saying Ukraine is actually Russian because it’s historically part of the Russian empire
Funny that he says “Russian Empire”, because Russia hasn’t been an Empire since Tsar Nicholas II. Is he trying to go back to those days, like try to install himself as Tsar?
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Israel wants to kill all the people living on the land and replace them with their own race.
If that was a thing they actually wanted, they’d be doing a really shitty job of it.
Nah they’re doing pretty great at it. Maybe a little too fast this time, normally they’re better at taking the land and killing people slow enough to give the US and other Western allies some plausible deniability, but since no one is stopping them still, you can’t even hold that against them.
Which will be vetoed by all permanent members of the security council.
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If the UN was serious about promoting peace, they’d have occupied Gaza themselves over a decade ago.
This vote, like all votes, is political. It’s not for some higher purpose
Or even better, come up with a solution that’s more than “unconditional ceasfire right now, you figure out the rest”. How is any country supposed to follow that.
Besides, the UN shits on Israel as a pastime, that should be the first thing addressed in a UN reform.
Which is hilarious because this split state was basically created by them. Anyone could see the tensions as a result of it and the only reason that Israel wasn’t pushed out on multiple occasions was they won. They exist because they ignored the UN beyond the initial state creation.
To be fair, it’s the same countries that ignored the UN’s resolution to create the two states and instead went to war against Israel that are also the cause of the constant petty resolutions against Israel. The system was broken from day 1.
The problem in this case is depending on the security council to act on an issue it isn’t designed to address.
The main purpose of the UN is to prevent global war, and the Security Council is the primary way in which that goal is achieved.
In that context, the P5’s veto power makes sense. It prevents resolutions pitting the world against one of the superpowers that can sustain that kind of war.
How does the security counsel prevent global war? They’re powerless to do anything to any of the super powers and by proxy also won’t do anything to anyone else either.
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Or the wonky intertwinement is the peace mechanism? How much more bloody would the world have been without it?
That’s the neat part! It doesn’t!
“Global War” isn’t all war on the globe. It’s war that pulls in the whole world. Having 4 of the P5 gang up on the 5th in a military campaign authorized by the UN would very likely result in WWIII.
The veto power prevents the UN from taking military action against a country the interest of countries that can sustain a war against the rest of the world.
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That’s actually pretty impressive if you think about it. We survived the height of the cold war so hopefully we won’t wipe ourselves out now.
we won’t wipe ourselves out now.
We literally can’t. I don’t think there’s a multi-cellular species that would be harder to wipe out than humanity. We live on all contients and enough humans have their own bunkers. Even the 100k nuclear bombs they had in the cold war wouldn’t be remotely sufficient to kill us all. We’d need ** at least** a thousand times that many.
We may however end up bombing us back into the dark ages and the collapsing food supply could kill most humans. I personally don’t think that’s much better than getting wipee out.
American here, I support this call.
I mean, same. The ability of certain blocs to railroad the UN is obscene. We should protect our veto tho
We should protect our veto
The countries that currently have a veto make less sense the way the world is developing.
France and the UK have a veto, but Germany doesn’t? China has a veto but India doesn’t?
I get that it’s based on historic disputes after the war, but it doesn’t fit the current world well.
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I didn’t know India was offered! After some reading (skimming) the US offer in 1950 was to replace China, but Nehru didn’t want to stir up controversy. The Soviet offer in 1955 might not have made any headway, but I’m not sure why that’s the case.
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It’s a fair argument, but at this point, I suspect China would push back given their relationship with India isn’t the best. The major powers also probably don’t want to destabilize South Asia seeing as India’s rival has nukes and would feel extremely threatened. Idk I may be wrong.
If the UN isn’t reformed, there’s nothing stopping these rising states from starting their own UN
from
startingignoring their ownUN
Our veto is the problem here. Vetoes in general are the problem.
Because of “one nation one vote,” it is trivially easy for the more hardcore Muslim bloc or authoritarian nations to shove things through that should absolutely not be shoved through.
And basing it off population would essentially give China and India the power to vote themselves whatever they wanted. It’s the US legislative problem all over again and do we really want one world government in the end?
Yeah, many people fail to realize that the places in the world where individual rights are (mostly) respected are actually few, with only a minor portion of the world population.
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So there were no “calls for reform” after a similar Russian veto about Artsakh in 2020 or recently. If nobody cares about that, then why should I care about anything else really.
There has been “calls for reform” almost every time Russia has vetoed
I haven’t seen any in those cases I mentioned. In others - yeah.
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Not sure how to help you with that one. People call for an end to vetos literally every time it’s used
There shouldn’t be a security council
It’s less a council of nations who actively keep the world secure, but moreso a council to keep the world secure from those nations. The security council is there so the world’s most dangerous countries don’t just go to war, and it makes them maintain a dialogue.
It’s unfortunately functioning as needed. The vetoes may piss others off, but it keeps them at the table. The ability to veto anything is a great incentive to stick around.
How are they supposed to cater to the MIC if some random bunch of countries can cut off their markets like that?
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Israel only exists in its current form because the advocate for the original UN plan was assassinated by a zionist terrorist. Israel was born an enemy of the UN.
How about we disband the Disunited Abominations?
We don’t need UN.
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We could save so much money if we just disbanded the UN.
Th UN gives all countries the ability to have a voice on the world stage, yeah the security council can suck sometimes but not having the UN would be so much worse than having it
I understand this logic and I’ve made this argument in the past. As time goes on, however, I’m coming to the understanding that the major thing the UN actually provides is deniability. It creates an aura of accountability without actually accomplishing it. The pageantry of rhetoric around the UN’s mission would have us believe that merely shining light on the wrongdoing of powerful nations will lead to some kind of justice. It never does. It actually breeds complacency in the same way that ranting about politics online does. You feel like you are changing something, but you aren’t. I think we need something like the UN, but the UN as currently constructed is fatally flawed and may be making things actively worse in some important ways.
A government without an army can’t govern.
Not that I’m in favor of a single government over all humanity. But the UN can’t govern anything because it’s got no teeth.
If only we had some global communication system that allowed people to post their opinions. Maybe a packet based one.
Are… Are you actually suggesting that “the internet” is a viable substitute for the UN?
Sure. At least I don’t see the internet driving around Mercedes in NYC and parking wherever they want
Yeah, lets replace the UN with a fuckin’ facebook group.
Moms Against Thermonuclear War has been marked as a private community.
I’m trying to find a rational explanation to this whole thread, but I’m still failing.
Leaded gasoline? Leaded pipes? CO poisoning? Anything else?I think just a memo would do the trick. No need to get into all that lead stuff
I wish there was lemmy gold
We already had world leaders tweeting their opinions at other, but they still meet in person to discuss issues and form agreements.
A structured system is necessary when you have meetings with representatives for nearly every person on the planet
And again how is that working?
Instead of replying with that same comment again, why don’t you explain what alternative you have in mind. Don’t just vaguely mention ‘packets’
Oh I am sorry I wasn’t aware that I had to come up with a solution if I point out the current solution isn’t working. Shit. Better say nothing ever again and just keep giving my money to a corrupt institution that fucks up everything it touches. Sorry for pointing out the emperor has no clothing here is free fucking money
That’s kind of the point here
We all agree that the current system has issues.
You’re saying the next move should be to disband it, and others are saying that we need an alternative first. I don’t think anyone here is saying the UN is perfect the way it is
An imperfect system doesn’t mean we need to throw out the whole system. And if we did throw it out, you can’t just not have a replacement for it.
People making posts on the Internet is not equivalent to real people meeting and being forced to at least give an answer.
We can all agree homelessness is a problem, what matters is the solutions to the problem
Some want to house these people, some want to build more homeless shelters, some want dedicated camping sites in the city, some want dedicated camping sites outside the city, some want to simply ban them from existing in a city, etc, etc
If all you do is focus on the problem and not coming up with solutions then the problem will never be solved
This is an example of why coming up with solutions is important when discussing issues
What you need to do is define “working” in order to point out that the current solution isn’t working.
To define “working” you either need to come up with a standard for how such organizations should operate, or barring that name some alternative solution that it can be compared to.
Last I heard we haven’t descended into nuclear war in the last 75 years.
Or having gone into another World War.
Are you familiar with the failure of the League of Nations? I’d look into it if you’re not.
Nuclear war is prevented by nuclear deterrence. Nothing published by the UN has the ability to stop a nation from firing its nuclear weapons at another nation’s cities.
As for world wars, let’s wait a year and see if we’re willing to define this interconnected set of conflicts as a world war.
Could you not say thats because of MAD from nuclear weapons?
No, MAD seems to be a failed philosophy as it assumes that aggressive actions are attributable to clearly defined parties. MAD got shook the fuck up as soon as we realized dirty bombs could exist.
I hope that our long standing mostly peace is due to the UN and media innovations… I cynically suspect that it’s due to neoliberalism and globalization making a grand war too economically costly.
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I used to think the same way. But with UN, at least someone “official” has a responsibility to “raise the voice”. It is better than nothing, I guess.
And how is that going for us? The Middle East doing fine now?
Why do you think it would not be worse without the UN?
Do you think this is the only thing the UN does? Or that everything else it does does not matter?
I think they spend a lot of money and park in handicapped spots.
We got an edgy one here. No one get cut
Got an argument go ahead and make it.
Because your argument of taking up parking spaces is so worth debating lol
You’ve made the same point about parking twice in these comments now, got anything else to add
The UK and the US voluntarily walked in to that. Multiple times. That has less than nothing to do with the UN.
I see. So the UN has had no impact on the region?
Just because it isn’t 100% effective that doesn’t mean it has no impact.
Right just one identical to not existing
You’re welcome to move to Russia any time you want
In the global scheme of things the UN is so fucking cheap. I can’t understand your point at all.
Those parking spaces must be worth thousands of dollars!
Don’t you think it would be possible to just operate it more cheaply?
Or have some conception as to its value? I mean we could save so much money if we never paid for anything. And yet we do pay for things. The question is, why? If we could save money by never paying for anything, why not?
Oh right. Things have value.
Yeah but like, what’s the ‘value’ in their expensive forums? I’m sure there is a lot of fat to trim that only exists so the public servants get to live like kings.
