Dafur

I think Dafur is a case where the existence of the UN is actually making things worse. They have to not only decide not to do anything about it--something which nations have had no trouble doing from time immemorial--they have to actually deny the reality by claiming that it is not a genocide. Their obligations under the UN charter would require them to do something if they admitted that http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,14658,1279835,00.html. It is similar to what happened in Rwanda where the Clinton administration found it necessary to not simply ignore the situation but to actively suppress the news.

Of course the other reason that Europeans want to deny what is going on there is that there is no way to plausibly blame it on the Jews. If you can't blame it on Israel (or at least the US) then you have to hold Arabs responsible for their actions. That could set an even worse things. It would mean Arab governments would actually have to be promoted to the status of autonomous moral agents in European thought--rather than just the mechanism by which the crimes of the US and Israel are translated into the natural consequences of oppression such as terrorism and hatred for the West. The whole basis for Europe's self-esteem would be threatened. Their policy of treating the root causes of terrorism by supporting Arab 'moderates' such as Arafat would come into question. Paying money to people that spontaneously commit acts of violence against you out of the frustrations of poverty and injustice is enlighted, paying money to people that decide to commit acts of violence is cowardess.

A system of self-deception elaborate enough to justify appeasing a group as vile and as weak as the Arabs can hardly be jeopardized for the sake of 30,000 odd Arabs. Imagine if 30,000 defenseless Arabs had been killed by Israel. Can you imagine the grandees of the UN worrying about being portrayed as imperialists for intervening on behalf of the victims against Israel?