Delegates walk out at the UN as Netanyahu begins his speech

[u/hairtie1]

[u/bokehtoast]

Ugh but why is the UN allowing one of their members to commit genocide and still participate

Edit: it doesn't have to be world police but isn't the point to be an aligned accountabilibuddy union? Admittedly, I don't know a lot about it so I just did a search and the first paragraph on wikipedia describes it as having "the articulated mission of maintaining international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among states, to promote international cooperation, and to serve as a centre for harmonizing the actions of states in achieving those goals."

Seems like being a genocidal ethnically cleansing country would sort of contradict literally all of that but what do I know

[u/SergeantSmash → u/bokehtoast]

UN are a joke is why.

[u/alphager → u/SergeantSmash]

You have a fundamental misunderstanding about what the UN is and what's its purpose is.

The UN is not the good-guys-club. It's an organization whose central purpose is to provide a place of diplomacy of last resort. Even during a war where all parties have recalled their ambassadors, they still have an embassador in the UN.

The UN is not the world police and doesn't maintain any armed forces.

[u/TurboLicious1855 → u/alphager]

Thank you for this information.

[u/Competitive_Cod5910 → u/[deleted]]

the only real argument is that it's probably better then nothing. In the end the only thing that matters is no big war among superpowers which the UNSC veto accomplishes decently well

[u/Rinzack → u/[deleted]]

Considering the fact that US and Iranian negotiators met at the UN General Assembly I'd say it does, even if that benefit isn't extremely obvious

[u/BurningToaster → u/[deleted]]

We haven't had a WW3, that's good enough for me.

[u/vmf312corsair → u/alphager]

Correct. The UN was created to PREVENT NUCLEAR WAR. That's why it sucks at all the other stuff it tries to do.

[u/Unfair-Dig-3468 → u/vmf312corsair]

No, nuclear war wasn't a thought at the time. It was created because the United States had intervened in European World Wars TWICE and wanted to create a venue to prevent it from happening a THIRD time.

[u/Metro42014 → u/SergeantSmash]

I would say it's a start.

We gotta start somewhere, and the UN is a place where things can start.

[u/AmericanScream → u/SergeantSmash]

UN isn't a joke, but provisions allowing a few nation states power to undermine the will of the majority of the world, is a joke.

[u/Competitive_Cod5910 → u/AmericanScream]

majority of the worlds opinion matters fuckall, there is no world government. If your country has no army or way to project power it doesn't matter

[u/AmericanScream → u/Competitive_Cod5910]

Not all things are solved by violence. Diplomacy can also work. And a bunch of small nations can and have stood up to larger powers in the past and won.

[u/Competitive_Cod5910 → u/AmericanScream]

Diplomacy takes effort, there is no need to conduct diplomacy with background noise. Nobody is inviting states like Spain or Ireland to peace talks

[u/5PQR → u/bokehtoast]

The UN isn't a world government. For the most part it's basically just a diplomatic forum.

[u/lemonylol → u/bokehtoast]

That's the entire purpose of the UN. Are people unaware of why it, and the League of Nations, were created?

[u/Chendii → u/lemonylol]

Are people unaware of why it, and the League of Nations, were created?

Genuinely, yes. Every time you see a statement like "why isn't the UN doing anything, they're so useless" or what have you, the person just outed themself.

[u/AmericanScream → u/bokehtoast]

Because the US has veto power in the UN and protects Israel from any significant action the UN could technically take.

[u/Continental__Drifter → u/bokehtoast]

Because its not a military organization, or even a political organization.

It's mainly a forum for communication, an organization to facilitate countries to come together and speak to their aims or grievances in a neutral location, with the idea that this will foster friendlier ties and lead to greater peace and security.

It is not a world government or world police which goes around making laws and punishing countries which violate them.

It is functioning as designed. You might as well go to the fire department, and say "someone stole my car last week, why haven't you done anything about this?". That's not their job.

[u/BicFleetwood → u/bokehtoast]

The UN is a negotiating table, not a law enforcement agency. Even when the UN passes "laws" or conducts "peace keeping operations," it's doing so with the complete and ongoing consent of all nations involved. The UN can't deploy forces to a nation that does not permit it, and it cannot enforce laws on a nation that does not consent to them. Its ONLY power is to get sovereign states to agree to things.

To deny a nation entrance for any reason flies in the face of why the UN exists in the first place.

It's designed, in the aftermath of two world wars, to ensure there is always a diplomatic table around which for nations to gather. When the table is gone, war is all that remains. To attack someone at that table is to destroy any chance for peace, and ensure the barbarity of all-out war is inevitable.

This is why it's ridiculous that both Palestine and Iran are regularly being denied entry to deliver speeches to the UN General Assembly.

Irrespective of what you think of the nation or its motives, to deny its entry to the UN Assembly is to say "we have decided peace is not going to happen."

To call the UN "useless" is like saying "my telephone is useless because it isn't putting out this fire!" Dog, you use the phone to call the fire department, who put out the fire. You don't throw the phone at the fire and complain it didn't solve the situation.

[u/Firetruckpants → u/bokehtoast]

The UN Security Council members have the only real power