United Nations Archives - Page 15 of 16

January 3, 2014 By Olivier Melnick 2 Comments

“Shadows of Shoah” delivers Truth with Dignity!

I met professional photographer Perry Trotter a few years ago in California and we instantly became friends. I was very impressed with his creative talent, but what affected me the most, was Perry’s genuine love for Israel and the Jewish people. Perry is not Jewish and in a constantly growing anti-Semitic world, a real friend of the Jews is a rare find.
That is why when Perry first talked to me about project Shadows of Shoah, I was very curious at first, but quickly my curiosity turned into a deep respect for such a project. The more I got involved with Shadows of Shoah, the more touched I became by Perry and Sheree Trotter’s work on the Holocaust. They present truth, light and hope, and they do it with dignity, as each story is one of a unique individual and not another sad statistic. They help us to remember the 6,000,000 as real people; something that much of the Holocaust work to date hasn’t always been very successful at.
Shadows of Shoah is a beacon of truth. In a world where the Jewish people are a constant target, it is so encouraging to see and hear the truth about the Holocaust. The lie being sold to the world is that the Holocaust was grossly exaggerated and in some cases completely invented. In all cases, the number 6,000,000 is never agreed upon. Holocaust deniers and historical revisionists alike would love to see the “Jewish Catastrophe” disappear from history books all together, and they could succeed if postmodern tolerance and political correctness win the battle. This is why projects like Shadows of Shoah are so critical.
Shadows of Shoah presents the truth about the Holocaust. It is neither dramatized nor romanticized. The stories come from first-person interviews with survivors of the Shoah across the world. Considering the fact that fewer and fewer survivors are still alive today, there is a sense of urgency in the Trotters’ work. As first-hand witnesses continue to disappear, the “Catastrophe” runs a greater risk of falling into oblivion.
As you view the many testimonies filmed by Perry and scripted by Sheree (Perry’s wife) from personal interviews with the survivors, the simplicity of the presentation brings out the profound reality of the Shoah. Each survivor has his/her own ordeal to recall and relive in front of the camera and they do it with difficulty but with dignity.
It gives the audience a sense of hope based on mankind’s resilience. These people who came out of the Shoah as survivors are still with us, telling their story and letting us know that after they survived the horrors of the camps, they chose to live and to share. Perry and Sheree have become catalysts for such a cause. They bring truth, light and hope into a world that too often lacks all three.

On January 27, 2014, the United Nations will commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This date is different from the Jewish commemoration of Yom HaShoah that takes place each spring. It is an event sponsored by the United Nations. I am grateful that the UN would take on such a task on a yearly basis. Over the years, I have lost faith in the ability or even the willingness of the UN to deal with Israel fairly. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s statement about this event says: “Denying historical facts, especially on such an important subject as the Holocaust, is just not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to call for the elimination of any State or people. I would like to see this fundamental principle respected both in rhetoric and in practice by all the members of the international community”. I couldn’t agree more, yet I often feel that a double standard is applied to Israel and such a statement–I am afraid–might just be a string of words empty of any real meaning.
Nevertheless, the Trotters have started a campaign to familiarize people with Shadows of Shoah so they are posting a different 3-minute testimony every other day of January until the 27th. Each story is short but impactful, succinct but life-changing. It is my prayer that many people, starting with my readers, would take the time every other day of January to view these powerful testimonies and share them with many of their friends through emails and social media.
The post-Holocaust Jewish motto of NEVER AGAIN can only be achieved if people like us take the time to show the world that we care. Shadows of Shoah does exactly that, and it accomplishes the task with simplicity, dignity and depth. Perry and Sheree Trotter who identify themselves as Evangelical Christians are post-Holocausts righteous gentiles and I thank God for them.

In all their affliction He was afflicted,

And the angel of His presence saved them;

In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them,

And He lifted them and carried them all the days of old

Isaiah 63:9

November 14, 2013 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

UNESCO: From Peace to Politics to Palestine!

Headquartered in Paris, UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) was born in 1946 out of a need for furthering world peace and security. As indicated in its name, the main goals of UNESCO are achieved through educational, scientific and cultural awareness. Their current motto is building peace in the hearts of men and women.

As one of the many agencies that are linked to the United Nations, UNESCO never intended to be a player in the political arena. On the other hand, the agency has been known to fight racism, prejudice, world hunger, diseases and other worthy humanitarian causes. By its own admitting, UNESCO is known as the “intellectual” agency of the United Nations. Promoting a better world is a noble cause, yet it can only work if it isn’t to benefit one’s agenda at the expense of another country or people group. Much seems to indicate that UNESCO has evolved into more of a political organization and less of an educational branch of the UN. And once again, Israel could suffer from it all.

2011 was a pivotal year for the Palestinian authority, when on November 23rd, UNESCO recognized “the State of Palestine” as one of its members. Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, had been trying to get the United Nations to recognize “Palestine” to no avail.

The Palestinian Authority continues to ache for validation from the global community, and they are making progress. But the problem is that their very existence is founded on a myth. As reported by Mitchell Bard in Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict, here are a few of these many facts:
• There is no Palestinian language, all Palestinian speak Arabic

• There is no Palestinian culture, it is a mix of Jordanian, Syrian, Lebanese and Egyptian culture and in short, it is an Arabic culture.

• There is no Palestinian food, it is Arabic food.

• The Palestinians are NOT descendants from the Canaanites, they are Arabs from Israel’s neighboring countries.

Yet, the whole world including UNESCO is buying the lie about Palestinian legitimacy in the biblical land of Israel given to the Jewish people by God Himself through Abraham (not to mention the fact that the biblical boundaries are so much greater than modern day Israel with or without the “disputed territories”):

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying,“ To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite. (Genesis 15:18-21).

When UNESCO chose to incorporate “Palestine” as one of its member states, it opened the door to further legitimization of the Palestinian myth along with the continued delegitimization of Israel and the Jewish people. As a result of the incorporation of “Palestine”, in a move that I must admit was a bit of a surprise to me, the United States decided to withdraw their funding of UNESCO, that at the time was about 22% of the agency’s budget. Israel followed suit as a gesture of solidarity with the United States. While other countries voted against UNESCO’s incorporation of “Palestine”, only the US and Israel cut their funding. It showed chutzpah and integrity, two very rare virtues in our postmodern and ultra tolerant world.

Earlier this month, during the 37th General Conference of UNESCO, it was announced that Israel and the United States, while still members, have lost their voting rights within the agency because they have not paid their dues for the last two years.

So let me get this right, the only democracy in the Middle East region and a country that has repeatedly come to the rescue of troubled regimes and hurting people groups over the last several decades, are being punished for standing for what is right. In the meantime, the illegitimate child of former PLO chairman Yasir Arafat is given the red carpet treatment! How backward is that?
An agency founded on peace and justice for all is endorsing terrorism and violence and in the process is also helping to rewrite history. On their World Heritage List, UNESCO chooses to list the “Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route” as being in Palestine not Israel. But this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise when we see that since 1978, UNESCO has selected November 29th as “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”.
Many will claim that UNESCO isn’t to be taken too seriously, but I would venture to say that even if this is true, its choice of Palestine as a new member is not the problem but a symptom of a greater problem. With Israel and the United Sates deprived of their voting power, we are a step closer to more anti-Israel sentiment being craftily weaved into the fabric of the agency. Could it be that by helping to legitimize Palestine, UNESCO has become an accomplice to crimes against humanity?
The Islamist world domination agenda continues it slow progress towards a complete hatred of Israel and the Jewish people by more and more people, some of which have never even met a Jewish person in their lifetime. UNESCO is most likely the first of many more agencies that Mahmoud Abbas is targeting for the promotion of Palestine.
I AM AFRAID THAT IT WONT BE LONG BEFORE THE UNITED NATIONS RECOGNIZE PALESTINE AS A BONA FIDE VOTING MEMBER.
In the meantime I applaud the USA and Israel for standing their ground!

August 23, 2013 By Olivier Melnick 6 Comments

The United Nations Against Israel!

In January of 1919, while Europe was re-organizing itself to rebuild over the ashes of the Great War (1914-1918), The United-States, France, Great Britain and Italy gathered in Paris to discuss the aftermath and the fate of the defeated nations. This historic event is remembered as the “Paris Peace Conference” and came just before the “Treaty of Versailles” (June 1919). As a result of the Paris Peace Conference, La Société des Nations or “League of Nations”was born. The Great War of 1914-1918 was also nicknamed the “War to end all wars” and the League of Nations (LON) had diplomatic and peace-keeping aspirations. These somewhat Utopian dreams were quickly thwarted by the LON’s inability to enforce sanctions, having no armed forces of their own. When Hitler decided to pull Germany out of the league after coming to power in 1933, it became painfully obvious that the hopeful conglomerate of 58 countries was pretty much powerless in directing and policing world affairs. While originally but partially successful in some areas, the LON was incapable of preventing World War II and on April 20th 1946, it was officially dissolved.
Around the same time that the LON ceased to exist, another world body was born to replace it, pick-up where they left off and establish a more permanent and peaceful global community. It was in London, in January 1946 that the first meeting of that new body took place when the General Assembly of the United Nations convened. They started with 51 nations in 1946 and are now including 193 nations in 2013.
Of the six main agencies falling under the United Nations (UN) umbrella, the Security Council (UNSC) is the one that deals with resolutions and possible sanctions regarding international security and/or peace. An unbiased approach to world conflicts and political issues is expected from such an agency. According to the UN Security Council’s Charter, it has four purposes:

to maintain international peace and security;
to develop friendly relations among nations;
to cooperate in solving international problems and in promoting respect for human rights;
and to be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations.

Allow me to draw your attention towards the full text of the UNSC charter’s first item on their list of purposes:

To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

This statement of purpose sounds honorable and just on paper but when it comes to the Arab/Israeli conflict, I am afraid that the United Nation Security Council, and the United Nations for that matter are using a whole different set of standards. When they talk about the “suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace”, they rarely if ever are mentioning Hamas (Palestinian Authority) or Hezbollah (Lebanon) constant hammering of Israel with missiles and terrorist attacks. It seems much of the efforts of the UN focus on accusing Israel of the very crimes her enemies are guilty of, and all this while most of the world watches in apathy or even worse; satisfying their antisemitic urge to vilify the Jewish state.

While Syria is crumbling under Assad’s iron fisted regime and chemical weapons and while Christians amongst others are being persecuted and killed in Egypt at an alarming rate, the UN is still concerned about the establishing of a settlement in the “disputed territories” Seriously?

The UN seems to be operating on the premise of resolution 3379 (passed in 1975) stating that “Zionism was equal to Racism”. Even though the resolution was repealed in 1991 (it only took the UN 16 years to repeal it!), it appears that the spirit of that resolution is still the driving force behind the UN’s dealings with the Israel. The following brief video by Anne Bayefsky of the Touro Institute for Human Rights and the Holocaust clearly helps us understand the bias.

It really doesn’t matter which part of the UN agency we are dealing with, the entire organization is corrupt and driven by the agenda of the enemies of Israel.

There should be no doubt in our mind that the United Nations have come a long way since their voting for the establishment of Modern Israel. Even Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s statement of UN Bias against Israel was short lived when he recently declared before a body of Israeli students that: “Unfortunately because of the conflict, Israel has been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias – sometimes even discrimination” at the U.N.

I must admit that such an honest statement from the Secretary General surprised me. I wasn’t surprised though when only days later he contradicted that very statement by saying:
“I don’t think there is discrimination against Israel at the United Nations. The Israeli government maybe raised this issue that there’s some bias against Israel, but Israel is one of the 193 member states. Thus, Israel should have equal rights and opportunities without having any bias, any discrimination. That’s a fundamental principle of the United Nations charter. And thus, Israel should be fully given such rights.”

It is very clear to me and I hope to my readers that the United Nations are indeed united but not against global injustice, violence and hatred. THEY SEEM TO HAVE BECOME THE UNITED NATIONS AGAINST ISRAEL, and based on God’s Word in Zechariah 12:1-9, the enemies of the Jewish people are approaching their day of reckoning:

The burden of the word of the Lord concerning Israel. Thus declares the Lord who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him, “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it. In that day,” declares the Lord, “I will strike every horse with bewilderment and his rider with madness. But I will watch over the house of Judah, while I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. Then the clans of Judah will say in their hearts, ‘A strong support for us are the inhabitants of Jerusalem through the Lord of hosts, their God.’“In that day I will make the clans of Judah like a fire pot among pieces of wood and a flaming torch among sheaves, so they will consume on the right hand and on the left all the surrounding peoples, while the inhabitants of Jerusalem again dwell on their own sites in Jerusalem. The Lord also will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem will not be magnified above Judah. In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them. And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

While God is always called the God of Israel in the Bible and never the God of Palestine, we must always remember that He is the God of all mankind. If Palestinians and other Arab countries have been misled into a now viral hatred of Israel, they are nonetheless human beings that are as lost without Yeshua the Messiah as anybody else might be be.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)

March 8, 2013 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Holocaust Deniers Beware!

Statements like: “I am not so sure that the French Revolution really took place” or “I often wonder if Hiroshima wasn’t an invention to get the attention of the world community”would never be taken seriously by bona fide historians. These are as ludicrous as saying that the Holocaust never happened or that it was hugely exaggerated. Unfortunately, the past seventy years have seen their share of pseudo-historians and Holocaust revisionists as well as deniers. The effort they had to put into erasing such an event from the chronicles of modern history should discourage them but they kept going with their revisionism coupled with various conspiracy theories about the Jews controlling the world banks, governments, media outlets and of course Hollywood.
When we line up the infamous culprits in Holocaust denial, it takes no time to realize that their common denominator is the delegitimization of Israel and complete eradication of worldwide Jewry, a lethal by-product of anti-Semitism.
Take Louis Farrakhan, the leader of Nation of Islam for instance. While he is not much of a role model to the vast majority of Americans, he was recently quoted saying:

“I don’t know how many Jews were killed. I know something happened in Nazi Germany, and if it’s one million, two million, three million; it’s one million, two million, three million too many. But to deny a person the right to challenge your articulation of numbers and to put you in jail if you deny aspects of the Holocaust… You can’t speak about Jews. You can’t criticize Jews. If you do, you’re an anti-Semite.”1

Current president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also on the roaster of Holocaust deniers and revisionists. He has repeatedly made public speeches in the Middle East and to the United Nations where he arrogantly ridiculed the Holocaust while threatening to perpetrate another one on the Jews (but wait, if it never happened, why would there be “another” one?). He was quoted about the Holocaust on CNN saying: “Whatever event has taken place throughout history, or hasn’t taken place, I cannot judge that. Why should I judge that? I say researchers and scholars must be free to conduct research and analysis about any historical event,”

Additionally, he told his own people at Tehran University that:

“The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false … It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim,”

English writer and historian David Irving has devoted most of his adult life to promoting Hitler, the Third Reich and the denigration and denial of the Holocaust. Irving first stated that Hitler knew nothing about the Holocaust. It would be like saying that presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon knew nothing about the Vietnam War. Eventually, Irving went full force into Holocaust denial and even sued Jewish author Deborah Lipstadt who boldly exposed him in her book Denying the Holocaust. After a long battle in court, Irving lost.

Holocaust denial will not stop any time soon. While we must be careful not to abuse the Holocaust and turn every statement containing the words “Jews”, “Israel” or “Holocaust” into reasons to accuse the messengers of anti-Semitism, we must be extremely vigilant, yet ethical as we expose them.

As I write this, we are just about a month away from Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). I have lived with WWII parents in Paris half of my life and have heard numerous times from my mother how she saw the Gestapo snatch her dad from her apartment when she was only 15, to never see him again as he perished in Auschwitz. I am very aware of the reality of the Holocaust and yet, I was taken aback when I just found out the results of a research project headed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

It was about 13 years ago when a team of their researchers started to gather data from about 400 different sources about the Holocaust, Camps and Ghettos of the 30s and 40s. Based on their preliminary studies and available records, they had estimated the number of ghettos, labor camps, concentration camps and extermination camps at about 7,000.

They just published their findings and the numbers are not 7,000 but over 42,500. While I am not even convinced that such a statement is even possible to make, we are now forced to realize that the horrors of the Holocaust just got a lot worse if not in intensity, most definitely in numbers. The researchers are just about to publish data that will put the numbers of all Holocaust victims (Jews, Gypsies, invalids, handicapped, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other minorities) at about 20 million.

This is without a doubt a major slap in the face of revisionists and deniers. It also brings to the forefront of this tragedy of mankind a group that I have long considered as guilty as the perpetrators, and that is the “by-standers”.

I have said before that: A bystander who does nothing only facilitates the work of a perpetrator.

Considering the new findings about the 42,500 camps and ghettos, not only more people had to be well aware of the events but possibly more by-standers might have been more than just watching. In any case and as the evil posse of Holocaust deniers will continue to defy logic and history in their attempt at erasing the Holocaust from our collective memories, we must not be indifferent and we must fight back.

The recent findings by the team from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are a major victory in the battle against Holocaust deniers, but the sad part is that only 70 years after the Holocaust we would even have to fight such a battle!

The road to Auschwitz was built by hate but paved with indifference!

Abraham Joshua Heschel

1. Holy Day of Atonement Keynote Address, Part 2, Mosque Maryam, Chicago, Illinois 10/21/12

December 8, 2012 By Olivier Melnick 5 Comments

Why Is The World Micromanaging Israel?

It is very obvious that when you tell a lie long enough, the masses eventually believe it to be the truth. While in prison for his failed putsch attempt of 1923, Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle) that was later published in 1925 (vol.1) and 1926 (vol.2). So, by the mid-twenties, Hitler was already spreading his vitriol about the Jewish people to a people plagued by an apparently unrecoverable economic crisis. Germany bought the lies, some parts of Europe followed suit and within 10 years the “European Jew” had become the sub-race that HAD to be completely annihilated. Europe had found a scapegoat! Or should I say that Europe had”rediscovered” the same scapegoat of old used throughout history to carry the blame for all the ills of the planet? The lies had become the truth, and the rest remains eternally branded on the Jewish psyche as 6,000,000 Jews perished in the camps.
For a short period after WWII, the subject of antisemitism and the Shoah (Hebrew word for the Holocaust) became highly taboo as a greatly reduced Jewish community of refugees sought to leave Europe and settle in the “Promise Land”. Before long it was 1948 and the modern state of Israel was born, by a miracle of God and through the work of the then still ethical United Nations.
Decades of lies, political manipulation and propaganda led the world to start turning on Israel. The media slowly became one of the strongest ally of the enemies of the Jews (the same media that is apparently “controlled” by the Jews). We must be such a self-destructive people!
Eventually, after a parade of pompous and embarrassing anti-Israel diatribes, on November 29, 2012, exactly 65 years to the day after Israel was re-born as a nation, the UN voted to include Palestine as a non-voting member. The lies had become the truth again and Israel was well on its way to further delegitimization by 179 countries out of 193.
Now that Palestine is being recognized, albeit as a nonmember observer state, the envelope will continue to be pushed further and further. Mahmoud Abbas still vows to destroy Israel and to make Jerusalem the “eternal capital of Palestine”. But the rules have changed now that a precedent has been set. The November UN vote proved that unilateral decisions can be made regardless of any peace negotiations, that is of course only in the case of Israel “the occupier”. With the Oslo Accords now defunct, if not officially, at least in principle, the Palestinian Authority will continue to manipulate the media and the international political community for full membership in the UN. Frankly, I see very few obstacles in the way of that happening soon, as the world appears to be on a mission to micromanage Israel.
Since the November vote, Six European nations have asked Israel to give a clear account for their continued settlements in the “occupied territories”. Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, Germany and Sweden are calling on Israel ambassadors in their respective countries to reconsider Israel’s additional settlements in light of the recent inclusion of Palestine in the UN. This claim (supported by US secretary of State Hillary Clinton) is made because it is believed that Israel’s settlement decision is counterproductive in the area of peacemaking. But wait a minute, is that “peacemaking” with the very people who ignored any dialogue with Israel and went to “daddy UN” to cry for recognition? How fair is that? Oh, I forgot, we’re dealing with Israel, so we don’t have to be fair, we just have to try to run Israel from afar! The lies have become the truth again.
As if this wasn’t enough, apparently emboldened by the recent vote, the UN passed another resolution on December 4th (174/6/6) asking Israel to allow nuclear inspectors in. Currently, Israel has not signed a non-proliferation treaty and it looks like the UN is working towards cornering them to do so. I find this both ironic and tragic when we allow a country like Iran to build a bomb under our nose knowing full well that they intend to use it on Israel and even Americans, and Israel is asked to allow nuclear inspectors in. The enemies are left alone to build a weapon of mass destruction and our only true friend in the middle east is asked to share its nuclear agenda AND arsenal with the world.
Israel has officially been a sovereign state since 1948 and has proven highly capable of running its own affairs as well as defending its borders. They need our support not our finger pointing and ordering around.
Last time the Jews were told what to do, where to go and how to surrender their property about 70 years ago, it didn’t end too well, did it? Not to mention when were told to stay within the Pale of Settlement in eastern Europe and not to mention when Queen Isabella of Spain told us to leave and kept our property, not to mention the Crusades, not to……well you get the idea! I beg the world and the UN to stay out of Israel’s business and quit trying to micromanage Israel lest you end up mismanaging them!

I WILL BLESS THOSE WHO BLESS YOU AND I WILL CURSE HIM WHO CURSES YOU – GENESIS 12:3

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