When It Comes to Israel, the UN Stifles All Criticism

On Monday, Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, arrived at its headquarters with a placard bearing a recent quote, from the Facebook page of a teacher at a UN-run school, praising Adolf Hitler. The school in question is one of many operated by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), an organization that perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem, and whose schools are often engines of anti-Semitic and jihadist indoctrination—and, in Gaza, sometimes used by Hamas as human shields. Upon entering, Erdan—who planned to use the poster during his speech to the General Assembly—was told that no such items were allowed on the premises. Benny Avni observes:

The ambassador’s team “was informed that, in accordance with the relevant protocols, . . . the display of placards is not allowed,” says the UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Mr. Dujarric couldn’t cite any written no-placard rule, saying only that it was “established protocol.”

Yet, in a recorded speech to the General Assembly from his Ramallah office on September 24, the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, displayed a placard of a map, purported to document how his “state” (which America, for one, has never recognized as such) has shrank since its mythical “historic Palestine” days, before the establishment of Israel in 1948.

UN officials admit the unwritten “protocol” barring placards at the General Assembly isn’t enforced across the board. “The rules are the rules,” Mr. Dujarric said. . . . Over the years, Israeli diplomats have consistently told me they respect UN rules and protocols and obey them diligently. So either they were unaware of the particular diktat, or the unwritten “protocol” is so obscure and unevenly enforced that it’s not worth the placard it’s written on.

Earlier in Geneva, during a typical Israel-bashing session on Saturday, the UN Human Rights Council’s president, Nazhat Shameem Khan, cut off a speech by [the pro-Israel activist] Hillel Neuer shortly after he started unveiling his organization’s deep investigation into anti-Semitism at UNRWA. . . . Neuer highlighted the same quote, as well as others.

Apparently the UNHRC rules also prohibit discussing the anti-Semitism of UN employees. So far, however, no one has discovered any rules that might discourage anti-Semitic pronouncements in the first place.

Read more at New York Sun

More about: Anti-Semitism, United Nations, UNRWA

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023