Every year the United Nations holds a General Assembly meeting where the same delegates lecture about the same things. There isn’t much to see – save for one event. Whenever Iranian Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks to the General Assembly, hordes of officials walk out.
This happened in 2009, 2010 and again this year.
Ahmadinejad is known for his unpopular extremist rhetoric and the delegates may have their reasons to walk out on him.
But why don’t they do the same for other leaders?
Politics should be an example of nobility and integrity, but as this event shows, it’s nothing but a circus show filled with hypocrisy.
All 27 members of the European Union as well as American diplomats walked out on Ahmadinejad’s speech because of his offensive remarks.
Ahmadinejad has called 9-11 an American conspiracy and the Holocaust a “myth.” The issue is not that they walked out on him, but the fact he was the sole target. There are many other leaders whose rhetoric is similarly extremist.
There’s John Baird, the Canadian foreign affairs minister, who said, “Just as fascism and communism were the great struggles of previous generations, terrorism is the great struggle of ours . . . Canada will not accept or stay silent while the Jewish state is attacked for defending its territory and its citizens. The Second World War taught us all the tragic price of “going along” just to “get along.”
Essentially, Baird suggests that criticizing Israel is akin to tolerating fascism in the 1930s – which is pretty extremist.
Isn’t there room for a fair-minded review of Israeli policies?
Then there’s the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Back in 2001, before he was the prime minister, he said, “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.”
Benefiting from terror? Really?
And then there’s U.S. President Barack Obama who spent a great deal of time talking about democracy and peace in the Middle East in his address to the General Assembly.
“We have banned those who abuse human rights from travelling to our country, and sanctioned those who trample on human rights abroad. And we will always serve as a voice for those who have been silenced,” he said.
What soon followed showed how hypocritical he was in context.
Obama was seen smiling and shaking hands with Bahraini king Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa that same week.
Didn’t Obama know that Al-Khalifa is a perpetrator of violent human rights abuses and his kingdom is still killing peaceful pro-democracy protestors to this day? Of course, Obama knows what’s going on in Bahrain; he’s just making an absurd abuse of rhetoric!
Yes, Ahmadinejad may not say the smartest things. He is a hard-liner who goes to the General Assembly with the intention of provoking the audience.
But he’s not the only politician to spew extremist ideas or useless rhetoric; he’s just the only one who is shunned because of it.
The delegates are cherry-picking their boycott to delegitimize certain political leaders. Their moral standard is limited to what is politically beneficial to their countries.
In a world of chaos, our leaders should at least have some integrity and be consistent with the boycotts.