Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this week slammed the UN's inability to create a Palestinian State in the same manner that it established the state of Israel in 1948.
"The UN was so strong that, in 1948, it managed to create the State of Israel. In 2023, it fails to create a Palestinian state," Lula said.
Speaking during an official visit to Spain, Lula continued: "We live in the world where the UN Security Council, the permanent members, they are the ones who sell the most weapons in the world, they are the biggest participants in wars in the world."
"When the United States invaded Iraq, there was no discussion in the Security Council. When France and England invaded Libya and when Russia invaded Ukraine, there was no discussion either," he added.
Astonished by the reduced role non-member states play in the international organisation, he asked the UN Security Council not to limit itself to its permanent members. "I am therefore left wondering whether it is up to us, other countries that are not permanent [members] of the UN Security Council, to make a change. Why aren't Brazil, Spain, Japan, Germany, India, Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa [ permanent members]? The winners of the Second World War currently determine that, but the world has changed."
"We need to build a new international mechanism that does things differently. I think it's time for us to start changing things and it's time for us to create a G20 of Peace, which should be the UN," he said.
His calls were slammed by the pro-Israel group, StandWithUs Brasil, who said: "Contrary to what the president of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said, Israel was not created by the United Nations. In 1947, what the UN Partition advocated was the creation of two countries, one for Jews and the other for Arabs. The Jews accepted; the Arabs did not."
"The State of Israel was founded after a war waged by the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq against the Jews."
"As for a State for Palestinians, neither the UN nor other international organisations currently have the role of creating it, unless Palestinians and Israelis themselves come to seal the peace independently," the statement added.
READ: Palestinian groups ask Brazil to denounce Israeli apartheid
Worldly_Activity_dud on May 1st, 2023 at 04:26 UTC »
By Lula's logic, the UN created the state of Turkey
Malthus1 on May 1st, 2023 at 01:06 UTC »
As others have pointed out, the UN did not create Israel. They proposed a partition plan which would have created two states. This plan failed, because while the Israelis accepted it, the Arabs and surrounding Arab states did not - they declared war, and lost.
Israel wasn’t created by the UN, it was created by its population, who fought a successful war.
As an example of UN past strength, this episode doesn’t exactly shine.
Even worse was to come, though. After a war in 1956, and sundry continuing hostilities, the UN placed a peacekeeping force separating Egypt and Israel. In 1967, the President of Egypt, Nasser, believed he had a good shot at defeating Israel for good - so he demanded this force leave, to clear the way for his victorious army (in point of fact, Nasser’s actual motives may have been as much, or more, to demonstrate his authority by making the demand - it isn’t clear whether he thought it would be obeyed). Spinelessly, the UN simply agreed to remove its peacekeeping force - and in the war that resulted, Egypt was once again trounced.
What finally secured peace was not the UN, but a series of deals brokered by the US which saw Israel handing back the land it took in that war (after yet another war in which Egypt was defeated, but after a much harder fight).
What this demonstrated to everyone in the vicinity was not UN potency, but rather the opposite.
CurtisLeow on May 1st, 2023 at 00:57 UTC »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_687
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1441
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1973
The UN explicitly okayed military action against Iraq in the 1990’s, and condemned and sanctioned Iraq regularly. Many argue the 2003 invasion was illegal under international law, but the UN Security Council was absolutely discussing and condemning Iraq up until the invasion. The UN Security Council also explicitly voted for a no fly zone over Libya.