The UN have just blacklisted the Israel Defence Force.

Right, so the United Nations have added Israel, or more specifically the Israeli Defence Force, to the global list of offenders who have committed crimes against children, their actions in Gaza for the last 9 months, where 37,000 Palestinians have been killed, mainly consisting of women and children, who make up 70% of the population of Gaza, means this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to them, it certainly doesn’t to the rest of the world as we observe what they’ve done, seen the images of children, images many of us will certainly never forget. But this is of course Israel we’re talking about. Being offended, always portraying themselves as the victim as they do, mean they are affronted, they are offended and nobody quite encapsulated that sentiment more than the UN Ambassador for Israel Gilad Erdan did in an Oscarworthy performance on the phone:
Right, so round of applause for Gilad Erdan there, UN Ambassador for Israel, apparently talking to himself on the phone there given there was no pause for response, but perhaps the person on the other end was just stunned into disbelieving silence on the other end, or were silently trying to suppress their laughter at this man’s ongoing descent into farcical ridiculousness, it’s not the only time he’s embarrassed himself on camera after all, there was the time he took a tiny shredder out and shredded the UN charter, not realising it was effectively what his own nation was doing as UN members in their actions in Gaza, and there are plenty of other examples besides.
The thing is, the silly little man released that piece of video footage himself and if he really was chewing the ear off of someone on the other end of the line, did they know they were being recorded and this was going to be published? Erdan’s childishness is also in equal parts despicable and disgusting, but also completely hypocritical, given that the UN are also going to list Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad alongside Israel and the IDF, so it’s not like the UN are taking sides here, simply on the matter of children being killed, blaming both sides for being dangers to the safety and wellbeing of children and I have no argument with that whatsoever.
As it turns out, that call to Erdan actually happened, though whether it was the call actually recorded on film, I don’t know – does Erdan always film himself on the phone? But a UN official, did, according to UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, ring Erdan and inform him about Israel’s inclusion ‘as a courtesy afforded to every country that are newly listed on the annexe’ of the ‘Children in Armed Conflict’ annual report.
Dujarric also commented on the fact Erdan then published this telephone conversation on social media as:
‘The partial release of that recording on Twitter is shocking and unacceptable and frankly something I've never seen in my 24 years serving this organization.’
Given Erdan is apparently going to be replaced soon, you might not get a repeat, however given that the replacement is apparently a guy called Danny Denon, made famous on our screens when he got his backside handed to him by Sky News anchor Belle Donati back in January, demanded Sky sack her over it, and well, she’s been absent from our screens ever since. She hasn’t even tweeted since January, so has she vanished into the same media lockup Sangita Miska got sent to as well? Just what is happening to mainstream news presenters who challenge Israel?
Anyway, this ‘Children in Armed Conflict’ annual report has not yet been published, it is due to be presented on the 14th of this month to the UN Security Council and then published in the days after, so we’ll soon see who Israel feature alongside, though it’ll be interesting to see if any of the UN Security Council, such as the US, who all eyes will be upon, have issues with Israel’s inclusion and not Hamas’, because that will be seen as blatantly taking sides and not forwarding a peace process at all, but most of all, when the death toll of children specifically sits, according to Al Jazeera, who have quoted the Gaza government media office at 15,571, it will send a message of some lives mattering more than others. In the aftermath of that Israeli attack on the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp last week to rescue 4 hostages, killing over 270 Palestinians as they did so, and reports saying 3 other Israeli hostages died as well, the some lives matter more than others argument is becoming more and more self evident.
Israel are, according to Reuters, apparently getting included on this list of shame as it is often referred to, on the basis of 6 violations specifically against children; killing and maiming, sexual violence, abduction, recruitment and use of children, denial of aid access and attacks on schools and hospitals. What Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are accused of, hasn’t yet been made public.
The list is also divided into two parts, those countries which have implemented child protection measures and those who have not. We also now Israel is in the have not part.
Now I thought as part of my research I’d take a look at the Un Secretary-General’s report from last year, just to get an idea of the countries on the list and discovered that, despite Gilad Erdan’s protestations on the part of Israel, they were on the list last year too. The entry is lengthy, but an excerpt of the first few paragraphs of the entry for Israel and the States of Palestine reads:
‘The United Nations verified 3,133 grave violations against 1,139 Palestinian children (1,057 boys, 82 girls) and 8 Israeli children (5 boys, 3 girls) in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and Israel.
The United Nations verified the recruitment and use of 4 Palestinian children (3 boys, 1 girl) by Israeli forces as human shields and by the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades as combatants in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Two children reported that the Israeli forces had attempted to recruit them as informants.
The United Nations verified the detention of 852 Palestinian children for alleged security offences by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, including 17 held under administrative detention. The United Nations received the testimonies of 82 children who reported ill-treatment by Israeli forces while in detention.’
Now that was just last year, that was published in June of last year of course, it’s annually published in June, so before the events that sparked the last 9 months of significantly increased atrocity, the flattening of the Gaza Strip and all the lives lost in that time. So actually issues pertaining to children at Israeli hands have already been highlighted in a Children in Armed Conflict UN annual report, it is just that this wasn’t deemed sufficient to see them added to the lists at the end of the report, which in 2023 in the worst category, the category we are told Israel is going into, included such groups as the Taliban in Afghanistan, Da’esh in Iraq, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen and the frankly unpronounceable full proper name for the group better known as Boko Haram in both Chad and Nigeria. Great company to be included amongst I’m sure, but with the death toll we’ve seen, the actions of Israel that have led to so much excess loss of life, is it justifiable to not include them here? I don’t think so. Israel are getting the treatment they deserve and if they don’t like it, just like every other country, or group it is up to them to change. Acting like Gilad Erdan though? That’s not a sign it is going to happen.
All of this is coming swiftly on the heels of one of the worst atrocities we’ve seen in these last 9 months of increased conflict, that attack on a refugee camp to rescue a handful of hostages, something Israel has been accused of not caring about and not without foundation, but did so at the cost of hundreds of Palestinian lives AND did so with US assistance, disguising themselves as aid workers to do so, which is itself a war crime. Desperate people starving and they used aid trucks to call as many out as possible, not designed to target Hamas specifically at all, but innocent Palestinians caught up in the middle. Get all the details of that story, Israel’s grotesque conduct being borne out and evidenced before our eyes again in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.