On Monday, the Israeli foreign ministry sent a formal letter to the United Nations declaring that in three months it will cease all cooperation with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), pursuant to a recent Knesset bill. As Shany Mor pointed out in his October essay, UNRWA—besides actively collaborating with Hamas—makes Hamas’s rule of Gaza possible by freeing it of civilian responsibilities.

Then there’s the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which was tasked with keeping Hizballah away from the Israeli border and did nothing of the sort. Now that its failure has led to war, it shrilly condemns Israel whenever it gets a pretext for doing so. And that’s not to mention the way the UN secretary-general has responded to the war that began last year, or the constant stream of anti-Israel resolutions passed by the UN bodies. Danielle Pletka and Brett Schaefer comment:

A myriad of laws dictate how the executive branch manages America’s relationship with and funding of the United Nations and its specialized agencies. Notwithstanding a web of legislative restrictions and instructions, many involving the Palestinians, terrorism, or instability in the Middle East, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development managed in 2023 to shovel $12.97 billion into the UN system undeterred by the world body’s single-minded targeting of Israel and de-facto support for its adversaries after October 7.

Part of the problem is that UNRWA, like the rest of the UN, does not consider Hamas and Hizballah to be terrorist organizations. This creates a glaring loophole in vetting that the State Department has not addressed effectively. In fact, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has repeatedly certified that UNRWA is following U.S. legal strictures. State’s disingenuousness is why Congress suspended funding to UNRWA earlier this year.

It is against the law to provide any U.S. resources to a terrorist entity, but cynical administrators have used humanitarian exceptions as a blanket excuse for supporting terrorism.

The United States is sending billions annually to the United Nations. The question must be asked: why does the Biden administration fail to exercise its leverage effectively to fight the UN’s institutional anti-Semitism? We have the tools but choose not to use them.

When he called upon Hamas to end the war and release the hostages last week, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was also getting ready for a reshuffle within his regime. On Saturday, he appointed Hussein al-Sheikh deputy president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is intimately tied to the PA itself. Al-Sheikh would therefore succeed Abbas—who is eighty-nine and reportedly in ill health—as head of the PLO if he should die or become incapacitated, and be positioned to succeed him as head of the PA as well.

Al-Sheikh spent eleven years in an Israeli prison and, writes Maurice Hirsch, was involved in planning a 2002 Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed three. Moreover, Hirsch writes, he “does not enjoy broad Palestinian popularity or support.”

Still, by appointing Al-Sheikh, Abbas has taken a step in the internal reforms he inaugurated last year in the hope that he could prove to the Biden administration and other relevant players that the PA was up to the task of governing the Gaza Strip. Neomi Neumann writes:

Abbas’s motivation for reform also appears rooted in the need to meet the expectations of Arab and European donors without compromising his authority. On April 14, the EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas approved a three-year aid package worth 1.6 billion euros, including 620 million euros in direct budget support tied to reforms. Meanwhile, the French president Emmanuel Macron held a call with Abbas [earlier this month] and noted afterward that reforms are essential for the PA to be seen as a viable governing authority for Gaza—a telling remark given reports that Paris may soon recognize “the state of Palestine.”

In some cases, reforms appear targeted at specific regional partners. The idea of appointing a vice-president originated with Saudi Arabia.

In the near term, Abbas’s main goal appears to be preserving Arab and European support ahead of a major international conference in New York this June.