From Tony Brenner’s Thoughts on Substack
The United Nations (UN) was founded on truly noble principles but has deviated from those principles in a meaningful way, and nowhere is this more evident than in its treatment of Israel.
So, how and where has the United Nations gone so very wrong? The best way to answer that question is to look at the United Nations treatment of Israel at multiple levels of the organization, and not just one.
Let’s start at the highest level, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The UNGA is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, serving as its main deliberative, policy-making, and representative body. Comprising all 193 member states, each with equal voting rights…
In 2024, the UNGA adopted 17 resolutions condemning Israel. There was a total of 6 resolutions targeting all other countries in the world. Absorb this – Israel alone had nearly 3x’s the number of resolutions condemning it than the rest of the world combined. Even more damning, no other country had more than one resolution denouncing it.
There was a single UNGA resolution condemning the behavior of six other countries: North Korea, Iran, Syria, Myanmar, Russia (for the Ukraine conflict), and the United States (for the Cuba embargo). Sudan, where a true genocide is occurring, didn’t have a single resolution condemning it. Nor did Venezuela despite the human rights abuses in that country under the Madero government. Nor for that matter did China, Cuba, Egypt or any number of other countries, where human rights abuses are rampant.
For the five-year period from 2020 to 2024, the UNGA passed 81 resolutions condemning Israel as compared to 32 resolutions against all other countries. Again, Israel experienced nearly 3x’s the number of resolutions condemning it than the rest of the world combined.
So, let’s get this straight – Russia invades the Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Over the ensuing three years, Russia purposely destroys civilian infrastructures (electricity, water, gas), explicitly targets hospitals, schools and community centers, tortures and executes prisoners of war, and seeks to assassinate field medics. In response to Russian war crimes and the myriad atrocities committed by its soldiers (recall the massacre at Bucha early in the war as just one example), the UNGA passed all of nine resolutions condemning Russia. This pales in comparison to the 81 resolutions condemning Israel over this same time period, even though Israel has been fighting a defensive war after being attacked and seeing its citizens massacred, raped, burnt alive, beheaded, and taken hostage.
How can it possibly make sense that Israel has received 9x’s the resolutions condemning it as compared to those condemning Russia?
Maybe this five-year period was an anomaly? Sadly, no! Over the past 20 years, the UNGA has passed 315 resolutions condemning Israel, as compared to 140 resolutions condemning all other countries in the world combined.
Yet, Israel is a democracy, not an autocratic regime, with a series of checks and balances, and an independent judiciary. Of Israel’s total population of approximately 9.5 million people, 1.7 million (18.1%) are Muslims and another 500,000+ people (5.5%) are other religions (mainly Christians and Druze). All citizens in Israel have equal rights under the law, including the right to vote, the right to serve in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), and equal access to education, healthcare and employment. Yet, Israel remains the focus of the UNGA’s outrage.
So how else does this antisemitism at the United Nations manifest itself? Is it limited to the United Nations General Assembly, admittedly one of the United Nations principal bodies, or is it pervasive through the organization? It’s hard to know where to even begin … there are so many choices!! A good place to start, however, is with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
To join the UNHRC, a country must meet specific criteria and follow a defined election process, as outlined in UN General Assembly Resolution 60/21, which established the council. The criteria for membership on the UNHRC is as follows:
• Commitment to Human Rights: Countries must demonstrate their commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights.
• Adherence to the Highest Standards: Members are expected to uphold the highest standards of human rights both domestically and internationally during their term.
• Voluntary Pledges: Candidate countries are encouraged to submit voluntary pledges outlining their human rights commitments and plans for approval.
• Geographic Representation: Membership is to be divided equitably across five regional groups.
It seems like excellent criteria for membership on the United Nations Human Relations Council, doesn’t it? Yet, over the last 10 years, the following repressive regimes rife with human rights abuses have served on the UNHRC: China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Cuba, Sudan, Egypt, and Iraq to name just some of the human rights stalwarts on the council! To add insult to injury, Iran currently chairs the Asia Pacific Group within the UNHRC. Does anyone in their right mind believe that these countries meet the criteria for UNHRC membership set out above???
The presence of these repressive regimes on the UNHRC, all of whom are major abusers of human rights, speaks to how profoundly broken the United Nations is as an organization, how badly the UN has veered from its founding principles, and how far its integrity has fallen. Making matters worse, these countries didn’t attain membership by simply volunteering to be on the UNHRC. They were all elected to serve by a majority vote (gaining at least 97 out of 193 votes) of the UNGA via a secret ballot. Are you surprised to learn that Israel has never been elected to serve on the UNHRC?
You should also know that there is only one, single permanent item on the agenda of the UNHRC: Agenda Item 7, titled: “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.” It mandates that the UNHRC discusses alleged human rights violations by Israel in the Palestinian territories at every session.
About the author: Tony Brenner, Yale BA (Magna Cum Lauda / Phi Beta Kappa) & Stanford MBA (Arjay Miller Scholar ), spent his career in investment world, leading multiple firms. He currently devotes extensive time to combating antisemitism and pursuing bipartisan solutions.