In 2005, I co-chaired a 12-member bipartisan task force with former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to look at reforming the United Nations. We called for the abolition of the current UN Human Rights Commission and the establishment of a new Human Rights Council composed of democracies and dedicated to monitoring, promoting, and enforcing human rights.
The UN’s one-sided reaction to Hamas’s terrorist assault on Israel – in violation of all international law – reminded me how completely our reform efforts failed. Consider how one-sided and pro-terrorist the United Nations’ actions have been, in spite of the horrific news of the killing (and in some cases beheading) of babies, the massacre of innocent young people at a festival for peace, and the raping of women and desecration of their bodies. Each new horror story emerging from the strip has failed to shake off the anti-Israel bias of the UN leadership.
Nowhere is this callous attitude to the suffering of Jewish civilians more evident than in the outrageous statements by United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who said, “It is important to recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.”
It’s not the only time Guterres has victim-blamed Israel: follow this with his report to the UN Security Council. “The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the level of civilian casualties, and the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods continue to mount and are deeply alarming. I am deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza. Let me be clear: No party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law.”
So, in the opinion of the head of the United Nations, the problem in Gaza is Israel’s “clear violations” despite weeks of Israeli warnings that civilians should leave the combat zone. Israel is clearly making efforts to limit civilian casualties – which are being hindered by Hamas. One expert noted that Hamas’s first act of savagery and barbarism was on October 7, when their attack against Israeli innocents began. But its second act has been forcing the civilian population of Gaza to serve as human shields against the Israeli offensive.
Continuing this one-sided, pro-terrorist bias, the United Nations General Assembly on Friday adopted a major resolution on the Gaza crisis, calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.”
As an example of the depth of the United Nations’ bias against Israel, when Canada offered an amendment to “unequivocally reject and condemn the terrorist attacks by Hamas that took place in Israel starting on 7 October 2023 and the taking of hostages,” it failed to get the two-thirds majority needed to be adopted.
An institution that can’t clearly condemn terrorist attacks and vicious brutality is a deeply corrupted institution.
This was in sharp contrast to our call 18 years ago for the US government to endorse and call upon the UN and its members to, “affirm a responsibility of every sovereign government to protect its own citizenry and those within its borders from genocide, mass killing, and massive and sustained human rights violations.” We called on the General Assembly to adopt a definition of terrorism and pass a comprehensive convention condemning all forms of terrorism.
There were a lot of specific reforms proposed by our commission, and almost none of them could be implemented because of resistance from the United Nations members. This was especially true for several smaller states for whom UN jobs were major patronage opportunities and the UN bureaucracy itself (which was deeply invested in nepotism and corruption).
In 2005, I co-chaired a 12-member bipartisan task force with former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to look at reforming the United Nations. We called for the abolition of the current UN Human Rights Commission and the establishment of a new Human Rights Council composed of democracies and dedicated to monitoring, promoting, and enforcing human rights.
The UN’s one-sided reaction to Hamas’s terrorist assault on Israel – in violation of all international law – reminded me how completely our reform efforts failed. Consider how one-sided and pro-terrorist the United Nations’ actions have been, in spite of the horrific news of the killing (and in some cases beheading) of babies, the massacre of innocent young people at a festival for peace, and the raping of women and desecration of their bodies. Each new horror story emerging from the strip has failed to shake off the anti-Israel bias of the UN leadership.
Nowhere is this callous attitude to the suffering of Jewish civilians more evident than in the outrageous statements by United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who said, “It is important to recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.”
It’s not the only time Guterres has victim-blamed Israel: follow this with his report to the UN Security Council. “The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the level of civilian casualties, and the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods continue to mount and are deeply alarming. I am deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza. Let me be clear: No party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law.”
So, in the opinion of the head of the United Nations, the problem in Gaza is Israel’s “clear violations” despite weeks of Israeli warnings that civilians should leave the combat zone. Israel is clearly making efforts to limit civilian casualties – which are being hindered by Hamas. One expert noted that Hamas’s first act of savagery and barbarism was on October 7, when their attack against Israeli innocents began. But its second act has been forcing the civilian population of Gaza to serve as human shields against the Israeli offensive.
Continuing this one-sided, pro-terrorist bias, the United Nations General Assembly on Friday adopted a major resolution on the Gaza crisis, calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.”
As an example of the depth of the United Nations’ bias against Israel, when Canada offered an amendment to “unequivocally reject and condemn the terrorist attacks by Hamas that took place in Israel starting on 7 October 2023 and the taking of hostages,” it failed to get the two-thirds majority needed to be adopted.
An institution that can’t clearly condemn terrorist attacks and vicious brutality is a deeply corrupted institution.
This was in sharp contrast to our call 18 years ago for the US government to endorse and call upon the UN and its members to, “affirm a responsibility of every sovereign government to protect its own citizenry and those within its borders from genocide, mass killing, and massive and sustained human rights violations.” We called on the General Assembly to adopt a definition of terrorism and pass a comprehensive convention condemning all forms of terrorism.
There were a lot of specific reforms proposed by our commission, and almost none of them could be implemented because of resistance from the United Nations members. This was especially true for several smaller states for whom UN jobs were major patronage opportunities and the UN bureaucracy itself (which was deeply invested in nepotism and corruption).