Is the United Nations Credible?

On October 7th, Israeli Corporal Noa Marciano was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and taken hostage to Gaza. She was held in the al-Shefa hospital, where she was murdered on November 9th. 

This is the hospital hit by Israeli air strikes on the premise that it housed Hamas’s headquarters – something disputed by generations of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) employees and the United Nations system. 

Israeli forces discovered tunnels beneath the hospital, and weapons caches and other war-making paraphernalia. 

For years, Hamas has been hiding personnel and ordinance in a massive tunnel network that spans the length and breadth of Gaza and reaches into Israel. It has taken tons of concrete and steel to construct and accommodate these tunnels as well as significant time.

Can anyone seriously believe that UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza saw nothing and heard nothing. No questions about the underground construction being carried out under their very feet? No audit of the donor funds and resources being syphoned? Is UNRWA’s deniability for years of Israeli claims in this regard credible?

And now Israel has video proof of complicity between Palestinian doctors in Gaza’s hospitals aiding and abetting the Hamas terrorists and allowing them to hold and murder Israeli hostages in the hospitals. Will the United Nations and its organizations issue condemnations of Hamas, launch investigations, and seek to prosecute those responsible?

There have been accusations that UNRWA schools in refugee camps in Gaza use textbooks that justify hatred of and violence against Israelis and Jews. Rather than force Hamas to engage in good governance and use resources donated by member states to create a viable economy that can bring dignity and peace to Gazans, the UN and its agencies have stood by and watched Hamas use scarce resources to propagate its vision of hatred and violence among Gazan schoolchildren.

These agencies have remained silent as Hamas uses medical and educational facilities to store and launch missiles against Israeli civilian targets and use Gazans as human shields when Israel retaliates.

And their political and official leaders have seen fit to support this illusion of neutrality and benevolence.

When I joined the United Nations as Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General in 2011, I quickly became aware of the anti-Israeli bias within the Secretariat. 

When I visited Gaza with then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2021, I witnessed first-hand the poverty and utter hopelessness of the population. 

From what I saw, the Hamas government didn’t care about creating a viable educational and economic infrastructure where Gazans could develop the necessary skills to build a modern economy and society.

Hamas, supported by the UNRWA, seemed content to keep the people in misery and continue a 75-year-old tradition of Palestinian victimization for its leadership to remain in power and accomplish its radical Islamist goals. 

My question is, can Gazans ever escape despair and hopelessness while Hamas remains on power? Is UNRWA’s aim to create a modern society or simply perpetuate the victimization of Gazans?

Can UN members states that vote on myriad anti-Israeli resolutions in all the Organization’s agencies justify Hamas’s continued existence? 

Many could say that a Hamas government is the will of Gazans, and that the UN must respect this. Indeed, Hamas was elected in a violent election in 2007 and has not held free elections since. 

To treat Hamas as a legitimate government is absurd. For the UN to let it use the Organization as a shield behind which to hide its true intentions leads many to ask what is the exact role of the UN is and whether it is warranted?

Can UN agencies justify repeatedly targeting Israel as a human rights violator when the Syrian dictator Assad has murdered over 200,000 Syrians in a decade of war? When Turkey murders Kurds as a matter of course? When Burmese murder Rohingyas and force them to flee their homes? When Russia continues to bomb civilian targets in Ukraine mercilessly? 

Where is the outrage?

Can UN Women justify its existence when it doesn’t organize global demonstrations against the Iranian security forces that murder Iranian women in the streets for showing their hair or against Hamas for raping, torturing, and murdering Israeli women? 

Can the UN Human Rights Council justify its existence when Iran assumes the Chair?

These are questions that many are asking and are now finding explanations wanting.

People look aghast when American isolationists call for US disengagement from the Organization. 

I too used to be appalled at such a notion.

But now that the double standard of judging Israel differently from the rest of the global community is such a basic element of UN practice at every level, I wonder if the UN remains viable a neutral and effective multilateral instrument.

While a talk shop is useful at times, is that the only aspiration people have for the UN?

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Keep reading: The Clash of Civilizations

Edition: Estefanía Cardeña