Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumWhat about UN crimes?
The YouTube video of Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner hitting a Danish provocateur “peace activist” with the butt of his gun has become world news. To get a better perspective on the true importance of this “affair,” one should compare it with the conduct of soldiers elsewhere in the world.
The best point of reference is the Peacekeeping Forces of the United Nations. This organization issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the non-initiated would expect its soldiers to be “a light unto the nations.”
A video was also released showing four Uruguayan troops in Haiti laughing while allegedly raping an 18 year old Haitian boy. Two Pakistani peacekeepers were recently sentenced for raping a 14 year old Haitian boy. There are also strong claims that fecal waste from UN troops deposited in a river spread cholera bacteria in Haiti which killed more than 6,000 Haitians and infected more than 400,000.
There are older accusations of Italian and Dutch UN soldiers having sex with young prostitutes in Eritrea, some of whom were 10-11 years old. Reports from 2006 mention sexual abuse of girls as young as 13 by UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2007, the Daily Telegraph reported on UN peacekeepers and staff abusing children in southern Sudan. Other reports concerned sexual and other abuse in Burundi, Liberia and Ivory Coast.
It gets worse. More...
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4223342,00.html
[font color = "red"]No wonder the UN Human Rights Council scapegoats Israel and the Jews. I wonder if HRW and Amnesty are aware of all these UN peacekeeper crimes against humanity? I can't find anything from them for some odd reason. [/font]
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oberliner
(58,724 posts)That being said, this isn't really related to I/P.
From Wikipedia:
Peacekeeping child sexual abuse scandal
The peacekeeping child sexual abuse scandal is a series of sexual scandals involving soldiers in United Nations peacekeeping forces found to be abusing underaged girls in developing countries. It has seriously undermined the credibility of peacekeeping missions because soldiers are consequently perceived as doing more harm than good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacekeeping_child_sexual_abuse_scandal
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)so is this on going? have there been similar charges made in Syria? From your link
1996 U.N. study
In the 1996 U.N. study The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, former first lady of Mozambique Graça Machel documented: "In 6 out of 12 country studies on sexual exploitation of children in situations of armed conflict prepared for the present report, the arrival of peacekeeping troops has been associated with a rapid rise in child prostitution." [3]
Eight years later, Gita Sahgal spoke out with regard to the fact that prostitution and sex abuse crops up wherever humanitarian intervention efforts are set up. She observed: "The issue with the UN is that peacekeeping operations unfortunately seem to be doing the same thing that other militaries do. Even the guardians have to be guarded."[4]
Involvement in brothels
There was one highly publicised case where members of the UN peacekeeping force were accused of direct involvement in the procurement of sex slaves for a local brothel in Bosnia.[citation needed] The use of agents for procurement and management of brothels has allowed the military to believe itself shielded from the issue of sexual slavery and human trafficking.[citation needed] Some NATO troops have been linked to prostitution and forced prostitution in Bosnia and Kosovo, as have some UN employees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they were accused of the sexual abuse of underage girls.[5][6]
This page was last modified on 9 October 2011 at 22:47.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1134&pid=9366
Gita Sahgal is quite interesting too
oh and BTW how do stand on charges made by Palestinians that Israeli;s living in the West Bank are washing sewage into their fields or will you only discuss that UN Peacekeepers are 'said' to do it too? 
oberliner
(58,724 posts)UNITED NATIONS — On screen, two senior United Nations officials in Bosnia are arguing about firing Kathy Bolkovac, an American police officer battling to stop peacekeepers from both trafficking in young women and frequenting the brothels where they became indentured prostitutes.
“It is a point of honor for me that the U.N. is not remembered for raping the very people we must protect,” says Madeleine Rees, a spirited human rights advocate played by Vanessa Redgrave.
“Those girls are whores of war,” growls the male bureaucrat heading the United Nations mission. “It happens; I will not dictate for morality.”
Ms. Rees, the director of the human rights office in Sarajevo from 1998 to 2006, said that dispute in the movie “The Whistleblower,” recently released in the United States, was lifted almost verbatim from a running argument she had around 2001.
A decade later, a string of sex scandals from Bosnia to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Haiti involving peacekeeping missions has forced the United Nations to change the way it handles accusations of trafficking, rape and related crimes. But the issue still bedevils the institution — a point underscored by the skirmishing among senior United Nations officials over whether to embrace the movie or try to ignore it.
The issue has certainly not gone away. This week, hundreds of Haitians protested in support of an 18-year-old who said he was sexually assaulted by peacekeepers from Uruguay on a United Nations base, eliciting a furious rebuke from Haiti’s president and an apology from Uruguay.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/08nations.html?pagewanted=all
It is usually a good idea to go beyond the confines of Wikipedia.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)The United Nations has focused serious attention on addressing sexual crimes among the more than 120,000 personnel it has deployed in 16 peacekeeping missions globally, including widespread training. But the question that diplomats, advocates and even some United Nations officials ask is why the efforts still lag in terms of investigating accusations and, most important, making sure those who send troops and contractors abroad hold them accountable.
Human rights experts and some member states fault the United Nations for leaving too much of the job of enforcing its “zero tolerance” policy announced in 2003 to the countries contributing troops. Individual cases and any disciplinary action are rarely made public.
“They never come up with actual facts; they never come up with actual cases,” Ms. Bolkovac said.
She won a wrongful dismissal case in 2003 against a subsidiary of Virginia-based DynCorp International, which was contracted by the State Department to provide police officers for the United Nations peacekeeping force in Bosnia. But Ms. Bolkovac says she has never been hired by another peacekeeping mission. (DynCorp issued a statement noting that “The Whistleblower” was a work of fiction and that new owners had since enacted their own zero tolerance policy.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/08nations.html?pagewanted=all
Hopefully that helps you to understand that the issue is ongoing (sadly).
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)If you'd like to have another go, I'd be happy to give it a whirl.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)oh and BTW how you do stand on charges made by Palestinians that Israeli;s living in the West Bank are washing sewage into their fields or will you only discuss that UN Peacekeepers are 'said' to do it too?
oberliner
(58,724 posts)I understand the first part, which I believe is:
Where do you stand on charges made by Palestinians that Israelis living in the West Bank are washing sewage into their fields?
Answer: I am opposed to that.
The second part is what is confusing:
"or will you only discuss that UN Peacekeepers are 'said' to do it too?"
Honestly cannot figure out what you are asking here and don't want to presume which words are missing or misplaced.
shira
(30,109 posts)...under the banner of human rights.
The OP compared the recent Eisner video to incidents that are about a trillion times worse. Eisner has probably received more press and opprobrium from the faux human rights community than all those UN peacekeeping crimes combined.
In addition, it's remarkable that the UN focuses so much energy and resources on Israel, given what they're ultimately responsible for.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)The UN focus on Israel, I think, is a separate issue from the UN's failing with respect to these scandals.
shira
(30,109 posts)...than the UN has.
That shouldn't be possible.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)How do you reconcile the impossible?
shira
(30,109 posts)What would you say is behind all that?
oberliner
(58,724 posts)There some things that are simply way beyond my understanding.
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)Israel' is also drawing the focus away from the abuses themselves. The abuses should be addressed directly, without any deflections either toward focussing on abuses by Israel or toward focussing on unfairness to Israel.
If I thought that the abuses were going unchecked BECAUSE people are too preoccupied with criticizing Israel, I might think differently; but I think they'd be happening regardless.
'it's remarkable that the UN focuses so much energy and resources on Israel, given what they're ultimately responsible for'
I agree on that. I think that the UN is better than nothing, in that having an international organization probably helps to prevent world war; but insofar as enforcing or even practicing human rights, they fail dismally. The UN declaration of human rights is a great document, but sadly is rarely put into practice.
shira
(30,109 posts)Abuses committed there will be addressed far more effectively within Israel than anywhere else.
Why the obsession with Israeli wrongdoing, real or imagined? From the UN, NGO's, 60 minutes, etc.?
Swede
(33,236 posts)nt
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)...for the most part. I'm not even aware of anything from HRW or AI condemning such horrific actions. Which goes to show where their priorities are, but that's another OP...
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)The United Nations may set up a sex abuse blacklist of countries whose peacekeepers will be banned from UN missions, a top official said after two new cases were reported in Haiti.
Investigations have been launched into "grave allegations of sexual and exploitation abuses," the UN mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, said in a statement. UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said the cases involved minors.
The new scandal has erupted barely four months after six Uruguayan troops in MINUSTAH were accused of raping a teenage youth. There have also been accusations against peacekeeping missions in Africa.
"We will continue to take the strictest measures in order to ensure, when needed, that the perpetrators of such acts be sanctioned with the strongest severity," MINUSTAH chief Mariano Fernandez Amunategui said in the statement.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iRBFNUOL3nuxtniKzYEQMDdcLKXg?docId=CNG.b5165c4cb92821da2ef3a12fef90a2d6.e1