The United Nations Again Reveals Its True Colors Regarding Israel | Opinion

Over the last year, the United Nations failed to bring about the release of Hamas’ hostages from 25 countries, refused to hold Hamas accountable for the most grotesque crimes against humanity—including weaponizing rape—and gave a pass to some of its own employees alleged to have aided Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Now, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has passed a dangerous resolution that fails to acknowledge Hamas’ actions and instead effectively calls on Israel to stop defending itself and its citizens. The resolution, part of a deliberate campaign to isolate and delegitimize Israel, makes unbalanced demands, including that Israel withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza within 12 months.

As global leaders converge in New York for the UNGA meetings, we must ask how we got here—to a world in which the UN is so entrenched in anti-Israel bias that it rewards terrorism and asks a sovereign nation not to defend itself. We must also ask leaders of countries around the world to act independently to pursue justice.

It has been nearly one year since Hamas invaded Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis, wounding 5,400, raping and sexually assaulting untold numbers of women and girls, and kidnapping 250 hostages. Hamas violated the rights of not only Jews and Arab Israelis, but also citizens of 25 countries. More than half of the hostages taken were citizens of countries other than Israel, including the United States, Argentina, Germany, France, Thailand, the Philippines, and more.

UN leaders have slow-walked responses to evidence of crimes against humanity, including the abduction and abuse of civilian hostages and the systematic weaponization of sexual violence. UN leaders, like leaders across the world, have made public calls for the immediate, unconditional release of Hamas’ hostages. But they have done little to expedite and demand the return of the hostages as many are being held in unimaginably inhumane conditions and others have been tragically murdered by Hamas.

While the UN has finally acknowledged the irrefutable evidence of Hamas’ extensive weaponization of rape, it has obfuscated the process for justice and has refused to hold Hamas directly accountable. Instead, UN officials continue to call for the biased, problematic Commission of Inquiry—whose leaders have repeatedly made anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements—to have access to Israeli women who were raped even though this would violate every tenet of trauma-informed care.

At the same time, the UN has been convicted for mishandling investigations into reports that its own employees participated in and, in some cases, aided the Oct. 7 attack. Evidence first emerged in January that at least a dozen United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) employees helped Hamas by storing grenades in their homes, assisting in kidnaping civilians and distributing ammunition to terrorist groups. An additional investigation found serious violations of UNRWA’s neutrality. In the more than nine months since the concern have come to light, the UN has suspended only three employees.

In April, a controversial UN vote, backed by Russia and China, granted representatives from the Palestinian Authority “Permanent Observer State” status and extraordinary privileges to participate in UNGA activities.

Those representatives have now used their new powers to distort the truth and reject peace. On Sept. 18, the UNGA adopted a biased resolution that effectively strips Israel of the right to self-defense in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem—without even mentioning Hamas and its historical and ongoing terrorist attacks against Israel.

This is truly outrageous. The response to terrorism cannot be telling Israel, a sovereign nation and the sole democracy in the Middle East, to stop defending itself in the face of terrorist attacks aimed at its citizens. Israel has a right and a responsibility to defend its citizens.

The UN is blatantly emboldening Hamas and showing other terrorists that it will reward efforts to kill, kidnap, and rape innocent civilians. It is clear that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority—with support from Iran, China and Russia—are not seeking peace. Hamas has rejected ceasefire and hostage release deals, vowed to repeat the Oct. 7 attack and is coordinating with Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah to continue inflicting violence on Israel.

We thank our US leaders for standing up against this dangerous resolution and call on other countries to re-evaluate their support and silence during the vote. The many countries represented by Hamas’ hostages and victims highlights the need for global action. The US Department of Justice recently took a critical stand and charged Hamas leaders with committing acts of terrorism on Oct. 7, including the weaponization of sexual violence. We must ask foreign leaders to follow the United States’ example and take independent actions to hold Hamas accountable.

It is not too late, and we cannot give up. The war between Israel and Hamas will not end until all the hostages are safely released—alive. We continue to call on United Nations leaders to secure the unconditional release of the remaining hostages – citizens of at least five countries—and hold Hamas accountable for its egregious crimes, including conflict-related sexual violence.

Carol Ann Schwartz is the 28th national president of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, the largest Jewish women’s and women’s Zionist organization in the United States with nearly 300,000 members and supporters in America. Hadassah has Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) status at the UN and is a global humanitarian organization with two world-class hospitals in Israel.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.