The UN’s anti-Israel resolution is just the latest iteration of its age-old enmity

Another day, another ludicrous attempt by the UN to alienate and malign Israel through duplicity, ill-will and outright anti-Semitism. 

On Monday, the Security Council, which includes such paragons of moral gravitas as dictator-led China and Russia – whose security services this week are reported to have cut off a Moscow terror suspect’s ear and seemingly force-fed it to him – passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire for the duration of Ramadan, which lasts another two weeks, followed by a “permanent ceasefire”. 

No mention of the Hamas atrocities that started the war was made, or demands for Hamas’s surrender – only a box-ticking, secondary reference to the need for the Israeli hostages to be returned. Naturally, the UN’s passion in this matter is orders of magnitude greater than for any other cause – almost since its formation. “This resolution must be implemented. Failure would be unforgivable,” said a passionate Antonio Guterres, the UN’s secretary-general. 

In the weird world of the UN, voices like those of the Algerian ambassador to the UN are taken seriously even where it’s known his country loathes Israel for simply existing. Thus, as was dutifully reported far and wide Amar Bendjama, Algeria’s ambassador to the UN, said: “It is our obligation to put an end to this bloodbath before it is too late. The security council is … finally responding to the calls of the international community.”

The only disappointing aspect of this charade (since everything else was expected) was that the UK – a few months ago boastful of being an ally of Israel – voted for it. Worse, having blocked three previous resolutions demanding a ceasefire (the UN often appears to have little else to do but demand Israel be prevented from defending itself), the US abstained on this one. 

Israel, rightly, was angry, and cancelled a delegation to Washington to discuss alternatives to full-blown invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering (Egypt has refused to open a corridor to safety). The White House said it was “perplexed” by the response. 

Quite why it was is even more perplexing. Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, put it pretty succinctly. “We will operate against Hamas everywhere – including in places where we have not yet been. We have no moral right to stop the war while there are still hostages held in Gaza.” 

Indeed, the global pile-on against Israel, accusing it of “genocide”, “bloodbath”, and a zest for “collective punishment” is just the same old thing: versions of anti-Semitic blood libel, fused with very bad modish ideas about colonialism and so on that further serve as a fig leaf for the urge to legitimise the murder of Jews. 

“Israelis are literally sacrificing their children to protect Palestinians as much as possible, and the *only* strategy of Hamas is to take advantage of this fact. Yet people who were not attacked, and risk nothing, condemn Israel, not Hamas,” wrote the American journalist David Boxenhorn on X. 

The UN is nothing if not a jamboree of those who risk nothing doing their utmost to stop Israel from safely surviving. The mask didn’t slip; it was always hanging off its face, making its reaction to October 7 – which saw most commenting officials, from Guterres to the special rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese, “explain” Hamas’s barbarism with reference to Israeli “occupation”. 

And then there are the UN bodies meant to provide aid to the Palestinians. Chief among them is UNRWA, some of whose staff have in the past few months finally been outed as allegedly complicit in Hamas’s crimes. 

I recently spoke to Hillel Neuer, head of UN Watch, which investigates and makes public the extent of the UN’s foulplay against Israel. He told me the whole “UN refugee agency for the world has less employees [21,000] than UNRWA [30,000] for the Palestinians. And it dooms them into this unproductive existence of being perpetual [victims]. It is completely absurd”.

Worse than absurd are some of its employees. Neuer’s team “just went on Facebook, and we found teachers who self-declared that they worked for UNRWA. And we saw their photos on their page, that they work in an UNRWA school in Gaza. And on Facebook, we discovered that they incite terrorism, they praise jihadi terrorist attacks. They glorify Adolf Hitler. Why are we [the taxpayers of the West] paying for this?” UNRWA states it has suspended some teachers for such conduct.

This is the august UN – the UN whose dozens of Arab members have colluded with their European chums to ensure decades of animus against the Jewish state – whose “resolution” the world, and Israel, is meant to respect. 

Luckily, Israel has no intention of doing so. Which means that the defeat of Hamas, and a prevention of a repeat of October 7, might have a chance.