Observers in the international relations field assume that the main reason behind the current international turmoil is the unprecedented decline in the role of the United Nations. The UN failed to achieve any progress to resolve many international conflicts in various parts of the world.
The failure of the United Nations resulted in undermining the global order. The UN has become a place where world leaders meet annually or on separate occasions, shake hands and express views without contributing any real progress towards solving the international issues.
The world has been turned into a state of chaos. International resolutions are ignored by some countries that flout international legitimacy. In this regard there are two clear examples. On one hand, Israel ignores the UN’s resolutions on its occupation of Arab territory since 1948. It continues to threaten Arab territories, and it has recently launched an air strike on Syrian territory. The Israelis were angry that their fighter aircrafts were intercepted by Al-Assad’s Air Defence. Israel warned that it would completely destroy Al-Assad’s defence force if it attempts to prevent its jets from hitting targets in other sovereign countries.
The second case is Iran, which violates the sovereignty of several Arab states, namely Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Iran is proud of its ‘occupation’ of the capitals of these countries and seeks to occupy the fourth capital which is Sanaa, the capital of Yemen.
The United Nations did not react to that. However, The UN demonstrates double standards when it strongly rejects the report by the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission in Western Asia (ESCWA) that described Israel as a racist State.
This report concluded that Israel uses racial discrimination to controls the Palestinians. Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs described UN’s report as an anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda, while the United States condemned the report. Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the United Nations, stated that the Commission published the report without any permission from the UN Secretariat.
After intense pressure to withdraw the report, the Executive Secretary of ESCWA, Rima Khalaf, resigned. The report was removed from the UN website.
Rima Khalaf said that the report was prepared at the request of Member States in the ESCWA, which includes 18 Arab countries. This was the first time that an international report, issued by an agency of the UN, contains a charge against Israel.
I do not want to focus on the content of the report or the charge against one of the member States of the UN, but the United Nations stood up to defend its position under Israeli and US pressures. Everyone was concerned of the charge ESCWA made against Israel but there were not any investigations to find out the grounds of this charge or violations and practices in the report making that led to charging Israel.
Notwithstanding, the selectivity of the United Nations to support Israel and ignore fair and legitimate demands of other countries makes things worse. The UN, which is in charge of guaranteeing international justice and the application of principles of international law, is received with widespread frustration and despair by States and peoples whose legitimate rights have been overlooked. Terrorist organizations seize this opportunity to promote frustration and mobilize the youth. Religion is falsely assumed to be an origin of terrorism and promoting violence.
Many people are asking: If the United Nations and affiliate agencies do get angry sometimes, why do they accept the violation of the international law by States like Israel?
How can Israel blame the United Nations? Israel was the major factor in undermining UN’s credibility and influence in the region and the world.
For many years, a subject of debate was the reform of the United Nations and the voting system of the Security Council that still operates according to Post-WWII power relations, yet no serious international intention to reform the UN was expressed. The major powers believe empowering other countries is not to their interest, whereas the rest of the States could not impose the will to reform on the international community. The United Nations remains a club for debate and recriminations without any real role in achieving international security and stability.
