The UN: Israel's Other Battlefront

Support for the non-binding resolution calling for a pause in Israel's bombardment of Gaza was overwhelming. With 120 countries voting in favor and only 14 against, the U.N. General Assembly on Friday called for a pause in bringing humanitarian aid to the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped there. 9,000 kilometers from New York, Israeli forces have begun a new phase of their war in the Gaza Strip, with the worst bombing so far. "I strongly reject the UN's despicable call for a ceasefire," Foreign Minister Eli Cohen tweeted.

On Saturday, the secretary general of the international institution, António Guterres, tweeted that after the yes to the resolution he was "encouraged by what appeared to be a growing consensus on the need for at least a humanitarian pause in the Middle East". "Unfortunately, I was instead surprised by an unprecedented escalation in shelling," he added.

I was encouraged by what seemed to be a growing consensus for the need of at least a humanitarian pause in the Middle East.

Regrettably, instead I was surprised by an unprecedented escalation of bombardments, undermining humanitarian objectives.

This situation must be reversed.

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) October 28, 2023

The criticism between Guterres and the Israeli authorities culminated a week of disagreements and rupture between that country and the United Nations. These disagreements began on Tuesday with a speech by the secretary general, and have highlighted the deep divisions in the world order, including within the European Union itself. Divisions that have been going on for a long time, that are becoming more and more serious, that threaten the very functioning of the UN and that the war between Israel and the radical Palestinian militia Hamas has only left even more exposed.

Guterres' speech to open a Security Council session on the conflict was initially only going to be a trademark address of the organization, relatively bland and forgettable. But it unleashed a storm. "Hamas' attacks have not come out of nowhere. The Palestinians have been under suffocating occupation for 56 years, their land has been slowly devoured by settlements, and their hopes for a political solution have been dashed, but their demands cannot justify Hamas attacks or collective punishment of the Palestinian population," the secretary-general said.

The UN chief also denounced the "clear violations of international law found" in Gaza and reiterated his call for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire to remedy epic suffering".

Cohen and Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, immediately called for Guterres' resignation. The permanent representative to the United Nations announced the revocation of visas for officials of the organization: "Because of your words, we will not give visas to UN representatives." The first casualty was the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths. "The time has come to teach them a lesson," the Israeli diplomat stressed.

Israelis were offended by Guterres' statements, according to Richard Gowan, a senior official at the institution for decades and now at the NGO International Crisis Group, which specializes in conflict prevention. Israeli leaders "are convinced from birth that the entire UN system is tilted against them" and criticism from a secretary-general who during his tenure had been "quite pro-Israel" was especially powerful. But also "many diplomats suspect that the Israelis exaggerated their fight with Guterres to distract attention from the criticism they receive at the UN about their campaign in Gaza," he said.

The squabble extended to other member countries of the organization and to other international forums. Spain and Portugal expressed their support for Guterres; British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was critical of the international official. In Brussels, at the European Council, the acting head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, insisted with Ireland on the idea of a humanitarian ceasefire and on demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu respect international law. Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic aligned themselves with Israel. Those same dividing lines were repeated in Friday's vote in New York.

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"The EU's utter failure to coordinate a common position on this vote is in many ways more shameful and serious than the petty showdown over Guterres this week. Guterres presented a clear statement of UN principles, albeit a controversial one. The EU was simply plunged into chaos. We can be critical of the UN, but let's be honest about the fact that the situation in Gaza leaves everyone confused and out of ideas," Gowan said.

The uproar is by no means the first between the UN and Israel. Nor will it be the last. Both entities maintain a relationship that is as intimate as it is schizophrenic. The Jewish state is, precisely, a creation of the United Nations, which in 1947 decided on the partition of a Palestine then under British mandate. The international institution has monitored and protected each and every one of Israel's borders at some point in the history of this state. Communication is constant between the Israeli army and UN authorities in Gaza and the West Bank.

At the same time, the majority in the U.N. General Assembly tends to vote against Israel. This country, in turn, frequently lashes out at the organization to which it owes its legitimacy. It systematically fails to comply with the decisions that affect it. And it has even hit its facilities: during the war against Hezbollah in 2006 it bombed a UN observation post in Khiam, southern Lebanon, killing four international observers. Since the beginning of the current conflict, 57 UN workers have been killed in the Gaza Strip.

In part, this relationship mirrors the deep divisions that weigh down the institution. The Security Council has become a boxing ring in which two blocs, led by the United States and Russia and China, constantly slap each other in the face and almost systematically veto each other's motions for resolutions. Including those presented on the current conflict in the Middle East.

The current diplomatic crisis comes at an already complicated time for the UN over Ukraine. Russia "has gone to great lengths to put pressure on the U.S. around Gaza, because it perceives it as an opportunity for diplomatic revenge for U.S. efforts to isolate it around Ukraine at the United Nations," Gowan said. And at the same time, "numerous non-Western countries that aligned themselves with Washington in favor of Kiev now feel alienated by the Western attitude toward the Palestinians."

Divisions and bureaucratization have been sclerotizing the functioning of the institution. Countries such as Brazil are vocal critics of their inability to renew themselves and represent a world order different from the one that emerged from the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. The permanent members of the Security Council, armed with a tool, the veto, which allows them to block any decision they do not like, resist an expansion of this forum that could dilute their influence as nations. "It is a sclerotic system and hampered by hostile forces," European Council President Charles Michel described it.

"The UN is also facing a number of crises in Africa, such as those in Sudan and the Sahel, where it is struggling to make an impact. There is a sense among many diplomats in New York that the organization is going through a crisis of credibility. The crisis in Gaza simply fuels this gloomy feeling," says the ICG expert.

Guterres admits these criticisms. It plans a Summit on the Future in September next year to address some of the world's most pressing problems, from disarmament to economic development. "The UN still provides critical life-saving aid to people in Palestine, Afghanistan and many other trouble spots. That's irreplaceable," Gowan sums up. "Supporting it is still a moral issue," he concludes.

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