Banned from the U.N.
Until a couple of weeks ago, my fellow Toronto native, Anne Bayefsky was an accredited observer at the U.N.
Then, on Thursday November 5, she was expelled and her accreditation stripped. Bayefsky’s expulsion was triggered by a two-minute speech at the U.N. in which she criticized a General Assembly resolution which endorsed the controversial Goldstone Report that examined last January’s war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas. In her short talk, Bayefsky noted that the resolution, while criticizing Israel, didn’t even mention Hamas which had been firing missiles at Israeli cities. She declared, “This is a resolution that purports to be even-handed; it is anything but.”
The U.N. claims that Bayefsky’s credentials were removed because she had violated U.N. procedures by bringing a colleague into the U.N. who did not have the proper badge, and that she had spoken from a spot at the U.N. that is reserved for delegates from member nations, and is not open for use by non-governmental organizations. But Bayefsky was setting no precedent. Observers, such as actress Mia Farrow, had often previously delivered political speeches from the same location.
The U.N.’s version of events is incredible, to put it mildly. Bayefsky has been penalized for her point of view. She says that the U.N.’s chief of security told her that, “The Palestinian Ambassador is very upset by your statement.” Fortunately, she has found powerful supporters in the United States. The U.S. mission to the U.N. has called for the reinstatement of Bayefsky’s credentials, and the Wall Street Journal has editorialized on her behalf .
In Bayefsky’s native Canada, however, the major news organizations have ignored her story. It was not mentioned by The Globe and Mail (Canada’s “national newspaper”); The Toronto Star (the largest circulation newspaper in the country); or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s CBC radio or television news, which claim as part of their mandate to cover international news from a Canadian perspective. Only in the conservative National Post did I find any reference to Bayefsky’s expulsion.
Canadian news organizations – like news organizations worldwide – share a strong bias in favor of multilateral organizations like the U.N. News that reflects badly on such organizations like the U.N., like the Bayefsky expulsion, tends to be ignored.
The Bayefsky affair is just one more piece in the mounting pile of evidence that exposes the folly of the Obama Administration’s obsession with multilateralism, and the error of his often stated assertion that anti-Americanism is a consequence of the failure of the preceding Bush Administration’s policies and behavior to comply with internationally accepted standards. Exactly which countries establish and adhere to the international standards that, according to President Obama, the United States doesn’t live up to? The countries whose diplomats denied Anne Bayefsky a place at the U.N.?