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The UN at Work - Dore Gold (Wall Street Journal, 19 January
2005)
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In June 2003, the
Office of the Coordinator of the Activities of the Israel
Defense Forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip asked UNDP to
stop all assistance to the Jenin District Committee because of
its Hamas connection. Israel knew that Hamas operatives ran the
charity; its deputy director had been a member of the Izz ad-Din
al-Qassam Brigades, the elite terrorist unit of Hamas. Timothy
Rothermel, UNDP's special representative in Jerusalem, turned
down the Israeli request.
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Captured documents
also reveal the support provided by the UN Relief and Works
Agency for the "Koran and Sunna Society" of Kalkilya, a group
that defines itself as salafi - it adopts doctrines from
militant Islam. The Society, with six branches in the West Bank,
distributes pamphlets published in Saudi Arabia that are often
written by radical Wahhabi clerics with references to the value
of martyrdom and jihad.
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In October 2004, the
"Arab International Forum for Rehabilitation and Development in
the Occupied Palestinian Territory" held a conference in Beirut
under the auspices of the UN's Economic and Social Commission
for Western Asia (ESCWA). The conference announced a joint
initiative between ESCWA and the "Coalition of Goodness," an
organization led by a spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood,
Sheikh Yusuf Qaradhawi, who a year earlier in Sweden spoke in
favor of suicide operations against Israeli civilians. Two
months before the Beirut conference, he signed a communique
calling on Muslims to support the forces fighting the U.S. in
Iraq.
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Besides getting to
the bottom of the Oil-for-Food scandal, it is equally vital to
get the UN to halt its backing of recognized international
terrorist groups. The Bush administration gave the UN a special
status in the Arab-Israeli peace process by making it part of
the "Quartet." But because of the behavior of its agencies, the
UN should not be granted this diplomatic standing. The UN has a
duty to clean up its act before it asks for the trust of Israel
or any law-abiding member of the international community again.
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