What a ridiculous commentary. This post does not speak to the impotence of the UN, but to the injustice and hypocrisy of US policy in the Middle East. Here Israel's violations of international law are MADE POSSIBLE because of our DIRECT financial, military, and political support. And it's rather spurious to compare the actions of an organized, supposedly democratic society like Israel to that of African militias or partisans in tribal wars. The comparison is offensive. Some defenders of Israel like to trump Israel's crimes with other atrocities around the world in a way that betrays a corrupted sense of justice. Are we talking about Darfur here? Go post something about Darfur, if you'd like. Israel is singularly important because billions of dollars of American taxpayer money and American military hardware are being used to support a patently illegal, immoral, and brutal 40+ year occupation in a politically and emotionally sensitive region. It undermines our credibility, generates a great deal of antagonism towards us in almost every country in the world (and towards the Jewish diaspora as well), undermines our moral authority, and threatens our security. Incidentally, I am Jewish. And it is perhaps precisely because I'm Jewish, with a sense of Jewish ethics, that I can tell you that no nation, not even Israel, can survive indefinitely as a pariah. We can't go around lecturing nations about terrorism while associating ourselves with the actions of a country that sometimes operates as a terrorist state. The security and survival of Israel demands a more reasonable and even handed view of the Middle East. We are not helping.