I recently went to the United Nations to watch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu give his annual speech to the General Assembly.
What I saw before the speech even began has persuaded me that the United Nations is no longer merely on life support — it’s clinically dead.
More than half of the delegates to the general assembly walked out the moment Netanyahu was introduced, refusing to listen to Israel’s side of the contested narrative regarding the middle east conflict.
If the United Nations has one legitimate function, it’s certainly to encourage the exchange of views regarding conflicts.
But most of its member nations refuse even to listen to Israel.
Some of them don’t even recognize Israel’s legitimate existence as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Many of these same countries that don’t recognize Israel, do recognize the non-existent state of “Palestine.”
There is nothing logically or historically inconsistent with these positions since many of the countries that recognize Palestine do so in order to deny recognition to Israel.
There is actually very little support for a two-state solution at the general assembly.
Most of those who support Palestine support it as an alternative to Israel, rather than as a country that could live in peace alongside the nation-state of the Jewish people.
Recall that virtually all the nations that walked out on Israel have listened to and cheered some of the most anti-democratic and barbarous regimes in the world including Iran, Sudan, Russia, Belarus, Cuba, China and Venezuela. Many would cheer Hamas. Some would probably cheer Hitler. But Israel and its prime minister?
No way will they even sit respectfully and listen.
Nor was the mass walkout merely a protest, against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Many of these countries routinely walked out on Israel before the Gaza war began.
I know, buses I have coming to the Netanyahu speech since he became prime minister. Friday’s walkout was more extensive but many who participated would likely continue to walk out even if the Gaza war were to end.
Moreover, there are other ways to protest specific polices than by refusing to listen to arguments. There can be and have been resolutions condemning the war against Hamas.
What then is the use of the United Nations?
It used to be known as a meaningless debate society.
Now it’s not even that.
Debate requires listening to all sides of disputes.
Debate cannot be conducted when most of the audience refuses to hear one side.
That’s how it is at the United Nations.
What happened on Friday is only an overt demonstration of what has long been true but covert. In the 1960s, Israel’s representative to the United Nations Abba Eban, quipped that if Algeria presented a resolution that the world was flat and Israel flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 112 to 17 with 35 abstentions.
He could even identify each country’s vote before there was any debate.
The only difference is that back in the 1960s Israel’s enemies would pretend to be considering all sides of the issue. Now there is not even a pretense.
So, what good does the United Nations now do? And if it does some good — which is highly questionable — does the evil it does outweigh that minimal good?
I’m not talking about some of the specialized agencies that deal with aviation, environment, and health.
They can continue to exist independently, even if the United Nations were to be shut down.
Other current UN agencies, such as those dealing with refugees, human rights and justice contribute to the ills of the world rather than solving them.
All in all, what started out as a wonderful experiment in global peacekeeping has turned into a source of bigotry, and incubator for antisemitism and an expensive do-nothing organization which does more harm than good even when it actually tries to do something.
I was a big supporter of the United Nations as a young person.
I consulted with our representative to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg, following the 1967 Mideast (Six Day) War when the security council unanimously approved a resolution designed to end the conflict. Isael accepted that resolution.
All the Arab states rejected it.
For me, watching these bigoted delegates representing hypocritical nations globally, walk out only on the world’s only nation-state of the Jewish people, is the straw changing my view about whether the U.S. should continue its membership in and support of such an organization.
I now believe America does not belong in the United Nations, for the same reason it doesn’t belong to the International Court of Justice (ICC).
I would not be unhappy, if it closed the monument to bigotry, that I can see outside of my window in New York.
I support the legislation proposed by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to get the U.S. out of the UN and to get the UN out of the U.S.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and the author most recently of “The Case for Color Blind Equality in the Age of Identity Politics,” and “The Case for Vaccine Mandates,” Hot Books (2021).? Read more of Alan Dershowitz”s reports — Here.
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