The Blogs: Systemic Bias Unveiled: How the UN Failed After 10.7

As for all Israelis, October 7, 2023, is a date forever etched in my memory. On that day, Hamas unleashed a brutal assault, resulting in the indiscriminate murder of 1,200 and the kidnapping of some 250 people. While the sheer brutality shocked Israel and the world, I could not have anticipated how these atrocities would be weaponized to isolate Israel at the United Nations.

With many of Israel’s allies demonstrating deafening silence, some of the world’s most egregious human rights violators, including Iran and Venezuela, joined the Palestinians in framing the attacks as a “natural response” to Israel’s “75-year occupation.” Note the reference is not to the 1967 war that led to Israel’s control over the West Bank and Gaza but to the establishment of Israel in 1948, thereby challenging the legitimacy of Israel’s very existence.

As Israel began its counteroffensive in Gaza, the anti-Israel narrative intensified. Dictatorships hijacked General Assembly discussions to push their extremist agenda. Debates on unrelated topics, such as clean water, disabilities, or children’s rights, were turned into platforms to accuse Israel of every violation imaginable. Even when accusations had no logical link to the topic, these states used every opportunity to demonize Israel and deflect attention from Hamas’s accountability. For example, a discussion on hazardous substances was interrupted by a Palestinian representative to attack Israel over the war.

What was most disheartening was the UN’s failure to remain objective. At a time when professionalism and impartiality were desperately needed, Secretary-General António Guterres suggested a moral equivalency between Hamas’s brutal crimes and Israel’s “choking occupation.” The remark ignored the fact that Israel did not “occupy” Gaza, having withdrawn every soldier and citizen 17 years earlier. Further, this equivalency narrative downplayed Hamas’s barbarity and created a pretext for its violence.

Various UN bodies echoed this dangerous narrative. UN Women, charged with defending women’s rights, failed to condemn Hamas’s sexual atrocities for months. When they finally did, the crimes were contextualized in terms of Palestinian suffering, deflecting attention from the horrific reality. Other UN affiliates followed suit, and “independent experts” and “special rapporteurs” harshly condemned Israel, often ignoring facts and violating their mandates. One notable example was Francesca Albanese, who blamed Israel for genocide, justified terrorism against Israelis, and invoked the anti-Semitic libel of “Israel Lobby” influence after the attacks.

Perhaps the most shocking example came from Craig Mokhiber, a former senior official at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who released a letter blaming Israel for countless atrocities and effectively calling for its dissolution. His actions symbolized the entrenched bias within the UN system. The letter was publicly disseminated and cheered by delegates from Jordan and Egypt.

The diplomatic culture at the UN enabled even more aggressive reprisals against those who stood with Israel. A Zambian delegate offering condolences to the victims of the October 7 attacks faced personal threats. Guatemala faced retaliation from the Arab bloc after voting against a resolution that ignored Hamas’s role in the attacks. The reprisal saw an unrelated Guatemala-initiated resolution challenged unnecessarily. This kind of intimidation discourages many countries from publicly supporting Israel.

Israeli representatives, including myself, faced similar challenges. During a professional discussion, a delegate left in tears after being verbally attacked by counterparts from Cuba and Egypt, accused of supporting “colonialism and genocide.” I, too, encountered a verbal assault from a Syrian delegate for challenging the anti-Israel narrative. These accusations are designed to demonize Israel while diverting attention from these regimes’ abysmal human rights records.

In an ideal world, the UN’s response to Hamas’s attacks would have been swift and precise. Security Council members should have convened an emergency meeting demanding Hamas unconditionally release the hostages, lay down its arms, and surrender. Instead, the UN has allowed Hamas and its supporters to use the organization, which was created to foster peace, as a platform to justify their campaign of terror.

The UN’s response to the October 7 massacre highlights the organization’s failure. Instead of promoting peace and justice, the UN has become a platform for division and conflict. Its inability to remain impartial or address the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas has effectively given it impunity, along with Iran and its other proxies. Perhaps even worse, the UN has given them a megaphone to promote their agenda to destroy Israel. Meanwhile, other pressing global issues, such as Russian aggression in Ukraine, are largely ignored.

Sadly, the only conclusion is that peace cannot be achieved with the UN’s involvement. It is too compromised by systemic bias and an automatic majority unwilling to condemn terrorism against Israel, which it views as the sole cause of regional instability. Unfortunately, the institution created to safeguard global values and discourage warmongering has become part of the problem.