David Quinn: Thought you'd had your say on women in the home? The UN wants you to think again
The United Nations has asked us to hold another referendum on mothers in the home. To be more precise, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has done so. They did not like the answer we gave last year when we voted by almost three to one to keep the Constitution as it is, so they want us to try again and do better.
Does this remind you of anything? It should. Do you recall when we were asked by the EU to go to the polls again when we rejected the Nice Treaty in 2002 and the Lisbon Treaty in 2008?
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RTÉ News
4 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Israel bypasses UN already struggling for relevance
The relationship between Israel and the United Nations has always been strained. But the war in Gaza has pushed it to breaking point. Now as pressure grows on UN agencies in Gaza, so do fears over the permanent bypassing of the United Nations. Will that deal a blow to the multilateral system, at a time when the UN is already reeling from severe financial crisis, not to mention questions over its very relevance? "Israel's sidelining of UN agencies in Gaza – particularly in the delivery of aid – offers a chilling glimpse of what a world without a functioning United Nations might look like: starving people being shot while queueing for food and malnourished medical staff too weak to treat civilians," Christine Ryan, director of the Prevention of Crimes against Humanity Project at New York's Columbia University, told RTÉ News. For nearly eight decades, the United Nations has been engaged on the issue of Israel and Palestine. After all, it was a UN resolution in 1948 to partition the former British mandate into Jewish and Arab states, that sparked the first Arab-Israeli war. The Security Council, the UN's highest decision-making body, still regularly meets, as it did this week, to discuss the conflict in the Middle East including what is still called "the Palestinian Question". At that meeting, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations confirmed that the head of the UN's humanitarian agency (OCHA) in Gaza and the West Bank would be ejected at the end of this month and the visas of other international staff restricted. "We will no longer allow anti-Israel activity under the guise of humanitarianism," Israel's Ambassador Danny Danon told the Security Council. This appears to be part of a pattern. Last year, Israel accused UNRWA – the UN's Palestinian Refugee agency that has housed, fed and educated Palestinians for the past 70 plus years – of complicity with Hamas and banned it from operating on Israeli soil or having any contact with Israeli officials. The UN's peacekeeping force in Southern Lebanon – UNIFIL – similarly faces deep opposition from Israel's government. The test for the blue-helmets force will come at the end of next month when the UN Security Council is due to renew its mandate. It remains to be seen whether all five permanent members of the body – including Israel's staunchest ally the United States – will vote in favour. In New York, the United States continues to shield Israel from UN action and scrutiny. The acting US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the Security Council that accusations of genocide against Israel made by other council members were "politically motivated and categorically false". "They are part of a deliberate, cynical propaganda campaign as Hamas attempts to win symbolic victories to compensate for total defeat in war," she said. Earlier this month, in an unprecedented move, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio sanctioned the UN's special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese, accusing the independent expert of spewing "antisemitism" and "open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West". That seemed to have a chilling affect. Just a week later, all three members of a UN Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate alleged violations of international law in Israel and Palestine suddenly quit. Their resignations were applauded by the Israeli mission to the UN. And then, there is the deliberate bypassing of UN aid mechanisms in favour of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a US and Israel-backed venture widely condemned by other member states over mass killings of starving Palestinians near aid distribution sites Israel said the GHF was necessary to prevent aid being hijacked by Hamas. UN officials maintain there is no evidence of widespread diversion. But UN-distributed aid has been limited to a trickle, as famine conditions set in. "I think it's important to underscore that the UN and UNRWA in particular, is the only organisation that can deliver services at scale in Gaza," said Ciarán Donnelly, senior vice president of crisis response at International Rescue Committee. "Everything that we do as humanitarian NGOs is incredibly important but ultimately is a complement to the basic services of water, of shelter, of food distribution, as organised by the UN," he told RTÉ News. "So, if the UN isn't able to operate, then it simply makes our job exponentially harder in terms of trying to deliver the impact that we're focused on". UN experts fear the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation could set a precedent for aid distribution not just in the Middle East, but in other parts of the world. This week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he was "very disturbed by the undermining of the UN and the relief organisations," and called for the "primacy of the United Nations" to be restored. It's a tall order in the current climate, as the world's major powers sit across from each other at the UN Security Council in scornful disagreement. Diplomatic paralysis in the face of war in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti and elsewhere has raised serious questions about what the UN stands for. Meanwhile, the United States - hitherto global champion of the international rules-based order enshrined in UN multilateralism, since the end of the Second World War - abruptly ditched it in favour of Trump's "America First" foreign policy. The Trump administration pulled out of UN bodies including World Health Organisation, the Human Rights Council and UNESCO, slashed funding to agencies like UNICEF and the World Food Programme and dismissed the values championed by the UN, especially on things like gender and diversity, as "woke". "There's no question about the fact that the UN is being actively undermined," said Anjali Dayal, associate professor at New York's Fordham University, "and is, in a real way, facing an existential crisis". "But I would argue that that's largely financial at the moment," she said. The UN Secretary General António Guterres directed officials to cut the UN workforce by a fifth, while staff at UN agencies have already been laid off in their thousands. Although some UN insiders welcome the financial jolt which they hope may usher in much-needed and long-overdue reform. And it's not just Washington tightening the pursestrings. A pivot to defence spending has prompted Europe to claw back cash from multilateral institutions and international aid. "The UN might not survive the loss of this degree of funding," said Ms Dayal. Indeed, "very senior international officials" speculate that the UN may go the way of the League of Nations – the UN's ill-fated predecessor - according to Richard Gowan, UN Director of the International Crisis Group. But some experts – perhaps the more optimistic among them - believe the current crisis may reinvigorate global commitment to the United Nations. "If you had asked me a few months ago, I would have probably spoken about the UN being at a breaking point," said Ms Ryan. "But the horror wrought by this private aid organisation in place of UN agencies has made the relevance of the UN front of mind," she said. There was "no clearer warning to states, donors and civilians" on why the UN remains critical, she added. On Thursday, the French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognise Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in September – the first G7 country to do so. The fact he chose the UN - and not, say, the Elysée Palace - as the forum for this grand gesture is notable. The UN's annual jamboree will follow the conference on the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, co-chaire by France and Saudi Arabia, due to kick off this Monday. That confab was postponed in June after Israel and the United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites. Israeli government officials have slammed the conference as a "reward for terror," while the United States issued a diplomatic cable to UN member states ahead of the June-scheduled dates, warning them not to attend. But countries appear to be undeterred. 40 government ministers are expected to turn up in New York next week to take part - a sign, perhaps, that the UN is still viewed as relevant in many capitals around the world. Asked how a UN conference had any hope of breathing life into a two-state solution that has failed for decades, is bitterly opposed by the Israeli government and while war continues to rage, a French diplomatic source said: "Sometimes from the darkness, the light can emerge."
The Journal
14 hours ago
- The Journal
Over 220 MPs call for Britain to recognise Palestine as Starmer says this will be 'part of wider plan'
SOME 221 MPS from across different political parties have joined forces to call on the UK Government to recognise a Palestinian state. The MPs have urged the UK Government to take the step ahead of a United Nations conference in New York next week. This follows France's announcement yesterday evening it will formally recognise Palestine at a UN summit in September. France is the biggest and most powerful European country to recognise Palestine. More than 140 countries recognise a Palestinian state, including Ireland, doing so last May . The MPs' letter, co-ordinated by Labour's Sarah Champion, said: 'We are expectant that the outcome of the conference will be the UK Government outlining when and how it will act on its long-standing commitment on a two-state solution; as well as how it will work with international partners to make this a reality.' Parliamentarians from Labour, the Conservatives, Lib Dems, SNP, Greens, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and independents are among those who signed the letter. Champion acknowledged 'recognition alone will not end the suffering in Gaza or the rapid expansion of settlements and settler violence in the West Bank'. But she said it would be an important step on the path towards a two-state solution to end the war. The Labour MP added: 'Recognition would send a powerful symbolic message that we support the rights of the Palestinian people, that they are not alone and they need to maintain hope that there is a route that leads to lasting peace and security for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people.' Ministers have faced growing calls to recognise a Palestinian state immediately amid mounting global anger over the starving population in Gaza. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this evening that such a move needed to be part of the 'pathway' to peace in the Middle East, which he and allies are working towards. 'That pathway will set out the concrete steps needed to turn the ceasefire so desperately needed, into a lasting peace,' Starmer said. He added: 'Recognition of a Palestinian state has to be one of those steps. I am unequivocal about that. Advertisement 'But it must be part of a wider plan which ultimately results in a two-state solution and lasting security for Palestinians and Israelis.' He also said that the 'appalling scenes in Gaza are unrelenting' and added: 'The continued captivity of hostages, the starvation and denial of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, the increasing violence from extremist settler groups, and Israel's disproportionate military escalation in Gaza are all indefensible. In a statement released today alongside the leaders of France and Germany, Starmer urged 'all parties to bring an end to the conflict by reaching an immediate ceasefire'. Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also called for Israel to stop restricting the flow of aid into Gaza. Charities operating in Gaza have said Israel's blockade and ongoing military offensive are pushing people there towards starvation, warning that they are seeing their own workers and Palestinians 'waste away'. Israel says it allows enough aid into the territory and faults delivery efforts by UN agencies, which say they are hindered by Israeli restrictions and the breakdown of security. As he left for Scotland today, US President Donald Trump suggested that Macron's announcement that France would recognise Palestinian statehood was unimportant. 'What he says doesn't matter', Trump told reporters at the White House. Starmer will meet the US president during his five-day private trip to Scotland. US-led peace talks in Qatar were cut short yesterday, with Washington's special envoy Steve Witkoff accusing Hamas of a 'lack of desire to reach a ceasefire'. The deal under discussion is expected to include a 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting truce. Hamas-led militants based in Gaza abducted 251 people in the 7 October attack in 2023 that triggered the war and killed about 1,200 people. Fewer than half of the 50 hostages still in Gaza are believed to be alive. Israel's war in Gaza has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Foreign Affairs Committee expected to recommend services be included in Occupied Territories Bill
The Oireachtas Foreign Affairs committee is expected to recommend that services be included in a ban on trade with illegally occupied territories in Palestine . The committee, which is conducting pre-legislative scrutiny of a Government Bill in this regard, is currently meeting to finalise its report. A draft amendment seen by The Irish Times reads: 'The committee strongly recommends progressing the Bill and that the prohibition of imports from the Occupied Palestinian Territories should be extended to include trade in services, in line with the advisory opinion of the international court of justice and the resolution which Ireland co-sponsored at the United Nations General Assembly '. One committee source said, however, there could be 'caveats' associated with the inclusion. Talks at the Foreign Affairs committee are continuing this afternoon. READ MORE The Government legislation does not envisage the inclusion of services in the Bill, rather confining the contentious legislation to the miniscule trade in goods between Ireland and the occupied territories. The inclusion of services could significantly expand the scope of trade encompassed by the Bill, as well as the complexity of enforcing it. It would also likely lead to an even stronger backlash from Israel as well as the current US administration, and some within the multinational sector as well. The Government is not bound by the report of the committee, and is free to pass the legislation as it sees fit. But the call to include services will add to political pressure on the coalition to do so. Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris has indicated openness to considering a ban on trade in services, if it were legally enforceable. The Government has requested fresh advice on the matter from the attorney general, which is currently awaited. Once pre-legislative scrutiny is complete, the Bill will return to the Dáil and Seanad for the remaining stages in the process. That is not scheduled to happen until after the summer recess, which runs until September. Labour's foreign affairs spokesman Duncan Smith welcomed the expected inclusion of services: 'There is a strong and unequivocal recommendation from the Foreign Affairs committee calling on the Government to expand the scope of the Bill to include services. This is a response to the compelling evidence provided to the committee from multiple witnesses who stated services is included within the overall definition of trade and that it cannot be separated from goods. 'There was cross party support for this position at the committee with members of both Opposition and Government offering draft recommendations to include services. This alone is a testament to the strength of the testimony this committee has heard in recent weeks.'
