林德宜：美国和以色列：不给力联合国之国

当以色列领导人在加沙进行无情的种族灭绝战争时，全球数百万和平与反战抗议者在各国首都和城镇，包括吉隆坡聚集游行，谴责以色列的战争罪行和杀害超过4万名无辜平民的行为。

除了加沙死亡人数外，如今随著以色列国防军在黎巴嫩开辟了新的杀戮场，我们还必须加上包括在黎巴嫩伤亡的妇女和儿童人数。

以色列总理内塔尼亚胡在此次冲突中，展现的强硬“不妥协”立场和坚持“全面胜利”是史无前例的，甚至连保守的犹太复国主义份子也谴责有关立场，更不用说在联合国体制下，以色列已屡屡违反《联合国宪章》。

这方面的证据可以从一项研究中清楚地看到，该研究涉及联合国成员国在多大程度上遵守联合国所鼓吹的真正的，以国际规则为基础的国际秩序，而非西方定义下，由美国领导人大肆宣扬，并在联合国和其他地缘政治冲突中日益减少的盟友盲目附和下的规则。

谁最不给力联合国

在这项新制定的监测指数下，美国与以色列排名都处于后面，这项指数旨在检验和衡量各国遵守《联合国宪章》及其目标如永续发展的程度——后者也是世界各国面临著关键挑战——也包括了美国。美国和以色列的指数同列在他们经常谴责的世界上最专制和独裁的国家一群。

这样的排位可能会让西方媒体读者感到惊讶，因为西方媒体每天都在宣传美国及其西方盟友是人权、自由和基于规则的国际秩序最强烈捍卫者。

该指数不仅揭示了美国和以色列两国在多大程度上未能维护《联合国宪章》和支持联合国的和平与安全使命，而且还突显了西方一些发达国家在遵守《联合国宪章》原则和价值观方面的低排名；以及在协助世界欠发达国家发展上的不给力。

下表为2024年联合国193个国家多边主义指数排名（部分国家）：

这一指数在媒体报导中被忽略或几乎完全不存在，但需要强调的是，这指数报告并非由联合国成员国所处于的新冷战下智囊团或其他资讯机构研究的成果。

狂热智库

西方媒体和其亚洲盟友，包括中国和印度媒体在内，经常引用的所谓独立智库，拥有著根深蒂固意识形态和议程，就是要确保美国在世界体系中的霸权。他们“精挑细选”各种政治和狭隘定义的“民主”和“人权”等议题，并提供评论和“可引用”的引述，以展现美国及其盟友做为自由、开放、平等和繁荣世界的捍卫者。他们特别锁定了易受骗的年轻读者。

美国战略与国际研究中心、兰德公司、澳洲罗伊研究所、澳洲战略政策研究所等智库在巨额外部资金的支撑下，主要作为散播西方政治偏见和操纵世界的利己主义和机会主义代理人而存在。美国最新一批用于支持反华宣传的财政支持——未来五年内提供16亿美元（68亿令吉）——将确保这些宣传机器超速运转，提供更多亲西方的“学术”研究和叙述，以证明其存在的合理性。

这些美国国务院资助的机构，也应该效仿联合国团队在多边主义指数和其他联合国关切和优先事项方面的工作，哪怕只是为了提供一块遮羞布来分散人们的注意力或掩盖他们的党派作为。

联合国多边主义指数：模拟模型

联合国多边主义指数重点在于六项严格且中立的指标－认可联合国主要条约；在联合国大会中与国际多数一致的投票比例；参与特定的联合国组织和机构；参与冲突和军事行动；使用单方面强制措施；以及对联合国预算和国际团结的贡献——关于该指数及其调查结果的报告是一个完整、独特、及时、准确的模式，最重要的是，就联合国而言，是中立的。还值得注意的是，完整的数据可以网上获得，使其能够让更多民众接触，这包括批评者。

联合国的上述报告最后也提醒说，“民族国家仍然是多边体系的核心，必须有责任维护《联合国宪章》的价值观和原则”。

这是一个值得提醒那些顽固的国家，特别是在指数中排名较低的西方国家之结论。与此同时，该报告值得成为国际上任何关于和平、安全与发展的国际会议和峰会的必读物之一。

林德宜《美国和以色列：不给力联合国之国》原文：US and Israel: Worst Ranking UN Supportive Countries

As Israel’s leaders pursue an unrelenting genocidal war in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of peace and anti- war protestors gathered and marched in the capital and smaller cities around the world, including Kuala Lumpur, to condemn Israel’s war crimes and killings of over 40,000 innocent civilians.

To this number we have to add more casualties including many women and children in Lebanon where a new killing field has been opened up by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). 

Whilst Netanyahu’s hardline ”take no prisoner” position and insistence on “total victory” in the conflict is unprecedented and is condemned even by conservative Zionist circles, it is no surprise in the United Nations system where Israel has been a serial transgressor of the UN Charter during war and peace.

The evidence for this can be clearly seen from a study of the extent to which member countries of the UN are adhering to the true - and not western defined rule-based international order - trumpeted by American leaders, and still slavishly echoed by its diminishing number of allies in the UN and other arenas of geo-political conflict.

Who is Sitting at the Bottom of UN Supportive Countries

Together with Israel at the bottom of a newly devised monitoring index developed to examine and measure the extent to which countries are conforming with the UN Charter as well as its goals such as the Sustainable Development Goals - the latter, a key challenge which all member countries have embraced - is the United States. They are in the company of what they routinely condemn as the most repressive and authoritarian nations in the world.

Such a positioning may appear surprising to readers of western media fed with daily propaganda of how the US and its Western allies are the most fervent protectors of human rights, freedoms and the international rules-based order.

Not only are the positions of the US and Israel revealing of the extent to which the two countries have failed to uphold the UN Charter and support the UN in its mission of peace and security, the index also highlights the low ranking of some of the most developed countries of the west in adherence to the principles and values of the UN Charter; and in supporting the development of the less developed countries of the world.

Select Countries Ranking in UN Multilateralism Index of 193 Countries, 2024 
Country Ranking Score
1 Barbados 92.0
4 Jamaica 88.7.
6 Mongolia 86.3
26 Malaysia 83.1
63 Japan 76.2
108 Singapore 68.5
120 China 66.8
139 India 63.5
157 Australia 59.6
160 United Kingdom 58.9
190 Israel 29.0
193. United States 15.8
Source: https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/chapters/part-3-government-support-to-un-based-multilateralism

What is important to emphasise about this index - cancelled or almost totally absent in media coverage - is that it is not the work of the think tanks or other information agencies that have proliferated during this new cold war period that the UN member countries find themselves in.

Think Tanks Feeding Frenzy

The so-called independent think tanks regularly quoted by western media and Asian allies, including Chinese and Indian media, are entrenched with an ideological agenda to ensure the hegemony of the US in the world system. They cherry pick and provide commentaries and ‘quotable’ quotes on various political and other narrowly defined ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ issues so that the US and its allies appear as the defenders of a free, open, equal and prosperous world. They especially prey on younger readers who are gullible.

Sustained by huge external funding, think tanks such as the US Center for Strategic and International Studies and Rand Corporation, Australia’s Lowry Institute and Australian Strategic Policy Institute and others exist mainly as self interested and opportunistic agents of western political bias and manipulation. The most recent tranche of US financial support passed to support anti China propaganda - US$1.6 billion during the next five years - will ensure that this propaganda machine goes into overdrive to provide more pro-west ‘scholarly’ research and narratives to justify their existence.

These US State Department funded establishments should emulate the UN team in its work on the multilateralism index and other UN mandated concerns and priorities if only to provide a fig leaf to distract from or conceal their partisan body of work.

The UN Multilateralism Index: Model For Emulation

Focusing on six rigorous and neutral indicators - ratification of major UN treaties; percentage of votes aligned with the international majority at the UN General Assembly (UNGA); participation in selected UN organisations and agencies; participation in conflicts and militarization; the use of unilateral coercive measures (UCMs); and contribution to the UN budget and international solidarity - the report on the index and its findings is a model of completeness, uniqueness, timeliness, accuracy, and most important of all, in respect of the UN, neutrality. Noteworthy too is that the full dataset is available online enabling it to reach the larger public, including any critic.

The report concludes with a reminder that “nation-states, which remain at the heart of the multilateral system, must be held accountable for upholding the values and principles of the UN Charter”.

It is a conclusion that recalcitrant countries, especially in the West, ranking low in the index need to be reminded of. Meantime, the report deserves to be part of the essential reading in every forthcoming international conference and summit on peace, security and development.