Learn from Bilaam and follow Isaiah: Cancel UN

The UN should be disbanded. At the very least, the US and Israel should withdraw.”

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he release of the first three hostages on Jan. 19 revealed that they were most recently being held not in tunnels, or high-rise buildings or private homes, but rather in United Nations facilities. This includes not only UNRWA facilities but hospitals, schools and official buildings and offices.

While they, like other hostages, were continually moved around and held at times in tunnels, makeshift dungeons and elsewhere, over the last few weeks or months they were in areas that by international law required their release, and those who were in control of those facilities had a legal and moral obligation to come forward and disclose these hostages’ whereabouts. Instead there was and has been silence.

This indicates that the UN has been a co-conspirator in the kidnapping and imprisonment of Israeli, American and other foreign national hostages who were seized during the barbaric Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Furthermore, this explains why the International Red Cross has not done anything to secure information about the hostages’ whereabouts or welfare, or to provide them with food and medicine, because those officials knew they were being held by UN colleagues. This is not just a war crime, it is a moral outrage.

Founded on the heels of World War II to guarantee world peace and stability, the UN has instead been a partner in perpetuating war, kidnapping, extortion, depravity, and torture. And as always the ever present “canary in the coal mine,” the Jew, has been the first casualty.

This must go.

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resident Trump, who has never hidden his disdain for this bloated, bureaucratic, corrupt criminal organization, should withdraw the US representative, cancel America’s UN budget (the US pays over a third of the total UN budget) and throw them out of the United States.

Israel should withdraw as well. Israeli men, women and children have been killed, mutilated, tortured, raped and maimed, and then held hostage for the last 16 months. The UN, which has failed to condemn Hamas, is now shown to have been clearly complicit in the horror.

As the evil Bilaam predicted for us (Bamidbar 23:9), at the End of Days we will be “Am Levadad Yishkon (a people apart)” from the rest of the world. But as Rabi Yochanan tells us in masechet Sanhedrin (105a), the curse that Bilaam was converted to a blessing, and the full end of the verse is: “Hen, am levadad yishkon, u’vagoyim lo yitchashev (Behold! It is a nation that will dwell apart, and among the nations not be counted.”

Earlier in the same masechet Sanhedrin (39 a,b), the same verse is mentioned in a different context. The story is told of an encounter between Rabi Avina and a heretic, a nonbeliever. The heretic quotes the biblical verse (Samuel II, 7:23) “And who is like Your people Israel, one nation in the land?“ And he questions, what’s so special about Israel? In fact, they are just like all the other nations, quoting the verse from Isaiah 40:17, “All the nations are like nothing before Him (G-d)”. You, Israel are just like the rest of us! And Rabi Avina answers him with last words of our verse from Bamidbar, “and among the nations (you, Israel will) not be counted.”

We are the people destined — blessed — to be apart. But apart does not mean unengaged. It means being alone as a united people with our belief in the One True G-d and His holy Torah — welcoming friends, allies, converts, and adherents, yet proud and brave to take up the battle against those who would deprive us of our lives, liberties, beliefs and futures.

We are enjoined to be a “light unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:6), but only if they wish to be “enlightened” and only if we know that the source of our “light” comes from Hashem. The full verse in Isaiah says:

I am Hashem; in the righteousness have I called you and taken hold of your hand; I have protected you and appointed you to bring the people to the covenant, to be a light unto the nations.

The UN sits in its own self-inflicted darkness and corruption. We who seek the light of G-d‘s wisdom, guidance, goodness and power should shun that darkness and the institutions that perpetuate it. The UN must go.

Shabbat Shalom.

Dr. Alan A. Mazurek is a retired neurologist, living in Great Neck, Jerusalem and Florida. He is a former chairman of the ZOA. Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com