Is it naive to have faith in the UN?
In the Netherlands there's a weekly talk show called "Buitenhof". It's broadcast live on Sundays between 12:10 and 13:10 local time. The target audience are intellectuals.
One of the items on Sunday May 4 was a debate between Liesbeth Zegveld (her first name is pronounced as "Leesbet", more about her in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liesbeth_Zegveld) and Arnon Grünberg, a well known writer with Jewish roots (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnon_Grunberg).
An excerpt of the heavy and somewhat emotional debate can be seen (and heard) in https://youtube.com/shorts/-pCyIUXFh4I - but it's in Dutch (the full item can be seen in https://youtube.com/watch?v=-wO0SxviMxo).
In https://infosec.exchange/@ErikvanStraten/114467505060678344 I promised @orladediez to write a translation.
I did my best to translate, without biases, said excerpt to English (please correct me if I made any mistakes). LZ stands for Liesbeth Zegveld, AG for Arnon Grünberg.
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LZ: In that case, was the foundation of the UN, in response to WWII, naive?
Is the General Assembly naive?
Where 190 states discuss matters together to formulate with an answer?
AG: we can also determine that the idea of the UN is great, but there's theory and practice.
Being that the UN was uncapable of preventing what happened in Yugoslavia, what happened in Cambodia, what happened in Ruanda.
Actually the UN, with all its resolutions, is powerless w.r.t. the war between Russia and Ukraine, the UN was powerless w.r.t. the mass-slaughter in Syria and also in Iraq.
These are just a few examples.
LZ: Still we live in relative peace in the Netherlands.
AG: Agreed, but that's not just thanks to the UN...
LZ: that is in part thanks to the UN. It is, in part, thanks to the forum we have in New York to talk to each other. If we stop talking, and we talk to Israel...
AG: I'm not saying that the UN should be dismantled.
The moderator interrupts and asks LZ to continue.
LZ: talking to each other, finding words, and have meetings for it, the General Assembly.
A kind of democracy where we all come together, and do not bow for the powertalk of three countries, but together with the 190 other countries say "we do not accept this".
What have we been doing last week at the ICJ, with all those countries. 45 countries took the opportunity to speak out. Not the least. Poland among others. They say, we stand here, thanks to the foundation of the UN, and we can have our voice heard here at the ICJ.
If you stop believing in that, then the coherence, the connection between all of us, is gone. And we are a small country, we also rely on it.
I'm not saying that we can stop Israel. I say, make use of the system we've established and decorated after WWII. In which we've invested *a lot*, and has helped us a lot.
Support it.
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The hash tags below are mine (Erik). P.S. my grandfather was Jew who survived WWII, his family was murdered by Nazis.
#FrancescaAlbaneseIsRight #ICJisRight #ICCisRight #Buitenhof #BuitenhofTV #ArnonGrunberg #TwanHuys #LiesbethZegveld
