Tension between the Israeli PM and the UN has never been so high, but his behaviour over the Lebanon ceasefire has given him a bigger problem
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has for decades used set-piece speeches to the UN to denounce it. In 2017, he said it had been “the epicentre of global antisemitism” and there was “no limit to the UN’s absurdities when it comes to Israel”, but never have the tensions between him and the body he reviles reached such a pitch.
Since the 7 October massacre by Hamas, Israel has ignored four UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and has not just described the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa as a terrorist state, but launched a campaign to bankrupt it. Arab envoys have walked out when the Israeli ambassador has started to speak.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, now itself a near full member of the UN, told the general assembly in his speech on Thursday that Israel no longer deserved to be a member, since it flouted its resolutions.
It is the UN’s historic role in the birth of the state of Israel, alongside a state for Palestinians, with the partition resolution of November 1947 that makes Israel such a central and difficult issue for the organisation. Having blessed Israel’s creation, by 1975 the UN general assembly was passing a resolution saying Zionism was a form of racism and racial discrimination.
History is catching up with both sides. When the UN’s premier court, the international court of justice, in July found Israel’s extended occupation of the Palestinian territories discriminatory, the UN’s role in the birth of the state of Israel was the cornerstone of its wider judgment.
