On October 7, 2023, Hamas (the political and military Islamic Resistance Movement governing the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian territories) attacked Israel, resulting in the deaths of Israelis. Since the October 7 attack, the international community has been divided between those who support Israel’s right to defend itself using the measures it considers effective after Hamas violated international laws and others who believe that the response (military strikes) that Israel is carrying out is excessive. The international community is also divided between those who believe that the attack Hamas carried out was justifiable because it dwells within the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian military and political conflict and others who disagree.

On October 24, 2023, the UN Secretary General suggested during a speech he gave at the UN Security Council on the Israeli-Hamas war that Hamas’s attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” He also added that the “hopes” or “plight” of the Palestinian people “for a political solution have vanished” and that the Palestinian people have been “subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” which has “seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced; and their homes demolished.” Israel was outraged by the UN Secretary General’s comments. The Israeli ambassador to the UN demanded that the UN secretary general step down. The Israeli government banned UN staff from traveling to Israel as well.

I have no way of knowing what the UN Secretary General was trying to convey when he made the aforementioned statements, especially since the majority of the year-end reports that the United Nations system publishes praise how the political, social, economic, and cultural solutions that this intergovernmental organization has provided since it was created in 1945 have made the world much safer. Indeed, the feeling of anger or annoyance that the words that the UN Secretary General was communicating aroused indignation (carried weight) that was not any different than how the Bible describes Jesus acting when he entered into a temple and accused the teachers of the law and the Pharisees of converting the house of God into a den of robbers. [Matthew 21:12-14]

On the other hand, if we compare the moral authority that the UN Secretary General portrayed during his October 24 speech at the UN Security Council on the Israeli-Hamas war to the moral authority he demonstrated on other issues of equal importance, we find that this organization flip-flops and that its authority is not premised on any form of written or unwritten positive laws, principles, or fundamental truths but on his own personal power and conscience and that of his helpers.

For example, in 2013-2015, a UN staff member was working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for UNOPS (a UN agency), and when he refused to go along with the decision of his senior managers to use the UN bank account as a means to launder money, his senior managers asked him to pick between two choices: the first is to transfer temporarily to Sudan or wait in the DRC until his contract expires to go home permanently. In Sudan, this UN staff member committed the same mistake. He refused to prioritize the business interests of the United Nations (as his senior managers were using this legal entity to achieve) over the collective interests of humanity. He refused to accept the request of a DFID (the British government) official in Sudan to violate the UN financial rules and regulations on a project that DFID was financing, and he was negotiating with this agency because this action could destabilize the credibility and security of Great Britain and, in particular, the British Crown. The same UN senior managers devised a plot to accuse him of being a threat to the interests of the United Nations to sideline him and, in this way, keep this business. In the same way the United States started detaining people on the ground of being a threat to its interests following the Sept. 11 attacks and then freeing them at its convenience, the United Nations placed this UN staff member (who is actually a US citizen) on administrative leave on the ground of being a threat to its interests. Next, the United Nations canceled the investigation without telling this UN staff member why he was placed on administrative leave and who filed a complaint against him, which is against UN rules and regulations. To show the ill will of the United Nations, while on administrative leave, the United Nations informed this UN staff member that it was restructuring and ended his contract. When this UN staff member filed an application in the UN courts, the UNOPS senior managers and lawyers offered to regulate his pension and health insurance, pay him a sum of money, and even offer him a two-year retainer contract if he agreed to drop the application he filed. When this UN staff member refused the offer of the UN lawyers because it did not include helping him resume his career development goal of becoming a UN resident representative, which he was working with his senior managers on attaining, he confronted a development that he was not at all expecting. After the UN judges listened to all the background and details of this case, they ganged up with the UN senior managers and UN lawyers and pulled from their bag of rules a technical penalty to dismiss the case of this UN staff member, thus ensuring that the whole world knows about how the United Nations transformed after the victors of WW2 granted this organization the right to be an economic operator. That is to say, a temple that is not any different from the way Jesus found the teachers of the law and the Pharisees had converted the house of God in antiquity into a place to change money and sell doves. The only difference is that instead of the UN executives (UN secretary-general, senior UN managers, UN lawyers, and UN judges) changing money and selling doves at the United Nations, they are using the ideas of equal rights, freedom, democracy, social justice, and so forth as commodities.

Evil does not thrive forever. In 2022, the senior managers of this UN staff member who were injuring with impunity were finally caught. Among the senior managers who were implicated in the 2022 UN corruption scandal is the former minister of defense and justice of Norway, who also served as minister of international development. Every year, the United Nations ranks Norway among the countries that are doing the most to improve human rights, democracy, and social justice around the world!

In fact, the UN Secretary General did not make any efforts aimed at rebuilding the credibility of the United Nations. Sadly, the organization did not reopen and review the cases of UN staff members that the UN senior managers who were involved in the 2022 UN scandal abused, denied rights to, or mistreated to compensate the innocent ones. This UN staff member whose story is depicted in this present work wrote to the United Nations (UNOPS) to request that his case be reopened and reviewed, considering that the individuals who were implicated in the 2022 UN scandal were the same supervisors who ganged up on him between 2013 and 2017 and used their authority to deny him rights and get their way despite the resistance of others. The reply this former UN staff member got was that “this case was closed from the point of view of the UN.”

Maybe if this former UN staff member knew powerful people or approached powerful international news outlets to exert pressure on the United Nations to reopen and review his case, he would have managed to recuperate his name that the United Nations is still holding on to to this day (because the UN canceled the investigation and did not clear him of the charges or discipline him if he was guilty as accused), but the problem is much more complicated than that. The victors of World War II (WW2) granted privileges and immunities to the international intergovernmental organization named the United Nations. The UN senior managers who were implicated in the UN 2022 corruption scandal were not prosecuted and jailed if found guilty, as happens to people who violate law and order on the outside of the UN fence; the individuals in question were just expelled from the United Nations. If the victors of WW2 do not lift the immunity of the United Nations or revoke the right of the United Nations to provide economic and social solutions, the United Nations would stay trampling with their feet on the power of the families/dynasties who control the United Nations (i.e., the victors of WW2), the UN Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) just as they trampled with their feet on the values of this former UN staff. This is because when this UN staff member refused to prioritize his self-interests as his senior managers were doing and prioritized the values enshrined in the UN Charter and the UDHR, he was putting the best interests of the families/dynasties that control the United Nations (i.e., the western European monarchs and republics) before his own.

As the above shows, the United Nations is not the organization that the founding fathers of the UN created in the aftermath of WW2 and tasked with being “the final development of a full and complete structure of a world order under law” but a legal entity that UN staff members (UN senior managers, UN lawyers, UN judges, and other officials) use to rival and compete to preserve their power, wealth, and status, just as members of Daesh or ISIS do in modern days. The only difference is that the Daesh and ISIS jihadists bunker under the idea of Islam to get their way despite the resistance of others, and the United Nations officials (UN senior managers, UN lawyers, and UN judges) do it in the name of deepening the idea of good (democracy, human rights, social justice, etc.). The earthly principles included in Islam and the principles enshrined in the UN Charter and the UDHR are one and the same.

Can the people of Israel or the people of Palestine find any moral authority in the hallways and meeting rooms of the United Nations, an international intergovernmental organization, when the individuals who are supposed to administer their pleas or rights at this global council are simultaneously competing with them for power, wealth, and status? In other words, United Nations officials can never be in favor of the Israelis managing to form Greater Israel because such an outcome will stop them from having a role to play in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Likewise, United Nations officials can never be in favor of the Palestinians forming an independent state because such a move will stop them from having a role to play if the Palestinians form a state. Can the people of the entire world still find any form of moral authority in this global council after its officials began to buy and sell economic and social solutions, prioritizing greed and desires over truth?

The constant wars that the world is experiencing mean that no government is reaping any benefit from this international intergovernmental organization named the United Nations after the victors of WW2 expanded its operation to include becoming an economic operator, hopefully to accelerate the attainment of the UN goals, but its senior managers abused their authority. Accordingly, can any member of the human family count on the moral authority of UN officials after they become like the teachers of the law and the Pharisees in antiquity, who were preaching about the laws of Moses (i.e., democracy, equal rights, and social justice) while pursuing the realization of the full development of their personality at the same time?

When the families/dynasties that were controlling the Roman Empire let their servants (the people who were preaching about Christianity) in on the business from which they rejuvenated their power (i.e., democracy, equal rights, freedom, and social justice), the poor reverted the families/dynasties that were controlling the Roman Empire to simpler forms, and new families/dynasties started to play their role.

Can the western European monarchs and republics (the victors of WW2) and their global policemen (the United States) manage to stop the intergovernmental organization named the United Nations and the rest of the societies that they freed or vanquished during WW2 from ganging up on them and resizing their power, wealth, and status after they allowed the officials of this global council to convert the premise of this organization into a place that people go to learn how to become a criminal instead of a place that people go to be trained on how to better observe the standards or norms that the founding fathers of the UN legitimized in the UN Charter or the UDHR so they can keep their dominant role and ensure lasting peace? Most importantly, can the western European monarchs and republics aspire to build a single political authority for all humanity when the individuals that they need to depend on their wisdom to solve the problems involved in the promotion of international cooperation have converted the United Nations into a den of thieves instead of a place to teach people about how to stay with them (the families/dynasties that control the western European monarchs and republics), thus making it possible that people grant them more powers than others?

In conclusion, it is suggested in the Quran that the teachers of the law and the people who choose to pursue a public career but then refuse to lead by example, thus giving the rest reasons to be bound by their personal power and conscience instead of voluntarily surrendering freedom to the political order, resemble a donkey that carries volumes of books but does not understand what these books contain, because it is only carrying these books using its strength. [Surah Al-Jumu’ah 62-5]

I have no way of knowing if the constant wars that the world has known as of 1945 are due to the victors of WW2 counting on the wisdom of United Nations executives (i.e., the UN Secretary General, UN senior managers, UN lawyers, and UN judges) to help them develop a full and complete structure of a world order under law that behaves in the same way the Quran depicted in Surah Al-Jumu’ah, the leaders who preach one thing and then do another. What I do know is that on October 25, 2023, the UN Secretary General provided a new statement in connection with the speech he made on October 24, 2023, at the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East. In this new statement, the UN Secretary General stated that the ideas he presented the day before were “necessary to set the record straight.”

Once again, I have no way of knowing what records the UN Secretary General was trying to straighten when the organization that he is presiding over is already imbued (infused) with senior UN managers, UN lawyers, and UN judges who are doing things crookedly instead of straight. Any type of moral authority that the United Nations (UN Security General, UN senior managers, UN lawyers, and UN judges) gives on the Israel-Hamas War or any conflict around the world before reopening and reviewing the case of this former UN staff member who was discussed before is hypocrisy.

In fact, the unpreparedness of the UN Security General, UN senior managers, UN lawyers, and UN judges to reopen and to review the case of all the UN staff members whom the UN senior managers who were implicated in the 2022 UN scandals used their power to deny rights can persuade people to wonder whether or not the families/dynasties that control the United Nations are better off depending on “donkeys” to salvage what is left of the international rule-based postwar world order, which they invited all people in the aftermath of WW2 to cooperate to secure, or if they are better off continuing to rely on UN executives who are setting the records crookedly at this legal council and the state of peace and security around the world is a snapshot of the results they achieved so far. In other words, rely on UN executives (UN Secretary General, UN senior managers, UN lawyers, and UN judges) who refuse to demonstrate the same courage that this former UN staff member showed when he had to pick between standing on the side of the values enshrined in the UN Charter and the UDHR and his desires so peace and security can improve.

I have no way of knowing which specific option between the aforementioned two scenarios can help the families/dynasties that control the United Nations rejuvenate their power, wealth, and status and secure the UN goals. What I do know is that if, as most people suggest, donkeys are stubborn, resist taking orders, cannot understand, and refuse to do things they consider unsafe, and their characteristics make them more rebellious than stupid, then we cannot say that donkeys follow their desires or thoughtless wishes as easily as (or at the scale of) the United Nations executives (UN managers, UN lawyers, and UN judges) do, as the constant UN scandals also support. If donkeys are capable of feeling danger faster or much earlier than the UN executives (UN Secretary General, senior UN managers, UN lawyers, and UN judges) that the families/dynasties that control the United Nations are depending on to rejuvenate their power can, this makes donkeys a lot wiser and, henceforth, more useful to the powerful families/dynasties that control the United Nations to end the Israel-Hamas War or help them get their way despite the resistance of others than depending on the crooked way that the United Nations executives are following to secure the same end. This is because prioritizing corruption and disregard does not produce ordered relations, but prioritizing the values enshrined in the UN Charter and the UDHR, as this former UN staff member was doing, can.

If for as long as the families/dynasties that control the United Nations depend on United Nations executives (UN Secretary General, UN senior managers, UN lawyers, and UN judges) who continue doing things crookedly instead of demonstrating the same courage that this former UN staff member whose story was depicted in this work showed, we cannot expect peace and security to improve any time soon. This means that the families/dynasties that control the United Nations could be better off depending on donkeys to produce the ordered relations that they invited people in the aftermath of WW2 to work with them to build. This conclusion is because donkeys have demonstrated that they are capable of remembering places, learning their ways, and bringing their masters from one point to the next. They do not drive crookedly or try to set the records straight when they are carrying loads, pulling carts, or participating in agricultural work. That is to say, donkeys are not like mold, rust, or roses, which grow (or flourish) and then die in the same place.

In addition, if after seventy-five years of the United Nations system providing political, social, and economic solutions to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the executives of this organization have not been able to showcase any solution (even if this solution includes rebuilding a duplicate of the city of Jerusalem) or figured out yet why the families/dynasties that control the United Nations have not resolved the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, then one of two reasons could have provoked the latest Israel-Hamas war of October 7, 2023, sadly. The first is if the families/dynasties that control the United Nations are relying on donkeys at this international organization to rejuvenate their power and keep their dominant role. The second is if the families/dynasties that control the United Nations are relying on the wrong executives (UN secretary-general, UN senior managers, UN lawyers, and UN judges). Since antiquity, no master has managed to avoid having his servants betray him because he allowed them to be bound by his personal power and conscience. Will the families/dynasties that control the United Nations manage to write a different history?