Those who have followed the UN’s attitude toward Israel have become accustomed to the spectacle of representatives of the world’s most brutal tyrannies gathering to condemn the Jewish state for imaginary human-right abuses. Thus, true to form, the supposedly apolitical World Health Organization (WHO) recently issued a routine condemnation of Israel, sponsored by such states as Cuba and Pakistan. But the WHO’s hypocrisy doesn’t stop there, as David Adesnik writes:

In an uncontested vote, the Syrian government . . . won a seat on the executive board of the World Health Organization, which reported last fall that it had documented 494 attacks on healthcare facilities in Syria, mainly in areas under assault by Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

A seat on the executive board provides Syria with a vote on two pivotal matters. The first is the nomination of the director general. The second is the appointment of the WHO’s six regional directors.

For Syria, the choice of regional director for the eastern Mediterranean is key to insulating the Assad regime from accountability for its diversion of humanitarian assistance delivered by the WHO. At the height of the war, Assad’s forces regularly stripped medical aid from UN convoys headed for areas under rebel control, a violation of international humanitarian law. “Sterilization equipment [was] withheld, forcing surgeons to reuse surgical items without sterilization between operations,” wrote the physician and public-health advocate Annie Sparrow. The WHO even spent millions subsidizing Ministry of Defense blood transfusion programs, despite Syrian forces’ record of atrocities.

Along with other UN agencies, the WHO effectively resigned itself to such arrangements.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.