When it comes to the United Nations, Israel needs to take a much more aggressive response. As a preliminary step, and a potential precursor to entirely pulling out of the organization, Israel should immediately and permanently close every single U.N. office operating in the country.
The events of the last month have again exposed that the U.N. is an infested cesspit of Jew-hatred.
Distorting fact, truth and reality, the U.N. secretary-general included the Israeli security forces in a blacklist of bodies and countries guilty of “conflict-related sexual violence.”
The basis for the inclusion was a cacophony of baseless allegations that the U.N. claimed to have “verified,” but provided no proof. That claim was coupled with the allegation that Israeli authorities continue to hold more than 9,000 Palestinians in detention, “including over 4,000 detained without charges or trial or administratively detained, raising concerns of arbitrary detention.”
Never once did it mention the unequivocal fact that the detainees are terrorists, that each is brought before a court, or that thousands of them are convicted offenders.
Placing Israel on the conflict-related sexual violence blacklist, like placing Israel on a similar blacklist for abuse of children in armed conflict, has been a long-time goal of the terrorists and their supporters, including U.N. organizations. In the eyes of the terrorists, the blacklists were some of the most effective vehicles through which they could vilify and delegitimize Israel.
The U.N. actors were more than useful idiots. For decades, the U.N. actively engaged with a host of NGOs, many of which were either fronts for terrorist organizations or, at the very least, had close connections to terrorist organizations. The “evidence” provided by the terrorists was then U.N.-washed and presented to the world as legitimate and reliable information.
Those tried and tested mechanisms, too often ignored by the Israeli authorities, were just exposed by an Israeli governmental report, “Laundering Propaganda: How UN actors manipulated information in the Gaza War” (2023-2025), that demonstrated how U.N. officials, with little basis, or no basis whatsoever, were at the forefront of distorting reality and promoting blood libels against Israel.
From referencing Hamas-reported death tolls, sometimes alleged to be exaggerated, to claims such as 14,000 babies could die in 48 hours, the Israeli report cites these as examples of contentious data used by U.N. agencies against Israel.
The common denominator for the inclusion of Israel on the blacklists and the report of the government was the work done by the U.N. organizations operating in Israel.
22 U.N. organizations operate in Israel
Over 78 years, Israel has hosted a plethora of U.N. organizations. Astoundingly, there are no fewer than 22 U.N. organizations, devoted to the Palestinian cause of destroying Israel, that operate in Israel. Seventeen have a physical presence in Israel, including the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA) and the U.N. Children’s organization, UNICEF.
From its offices in the heart of Jerusalem, OCHA coordinates the other U.N. organizations and leads the unhinged charges against Israel. According to OCHA, it was Israel that bombed Al-Ahli hospital in October 2023, killing 471 Gazans. It is OCHA leading the global campaign to vilify the “violent Israeli settlers.”
In reality, it was a missile fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad that hit Al-Ahli hospital, killing no more than 50 people. The “settler violence,” according to OCHA, includes Jews defending themselves against homicidal terrorists or visits to the Temple Mount. In both instances, it is irrelevant for OCHA if the Jew being attacked or the Jew visiting Judaism’s holiest site is indeed a settler or not. In the eyes of OCHA, similar to the outlook of the other Palestinian terrorists, every Jew living in Israel is a “settler.”
UNICEF is no better. UNICEF was the first U.N. organization to falsely accuse the State of Israel of committing crimes against humanity. The charge was made in the context of a report on the arrest and prosecution of Palestinian minors, including those who murdered Israelis. From UNICEF’s perspective, there is no difference between operating the gas chambers in Auschwitz and prosecuting terrorists such as Murad A-Dayis, the Palestinian minor who murdered Dafna Meir when he stabbed her to death in her home.
In response to the latest decision to blacklist Israel, the government announced that it was cutting all ties with the office of the U.N. secretary-general. While this is, of course, a step in the right direction, it is insufficient.
Government House/the Commissioner’s Palace, situated adjacent to the Haas Promenade and overlooking Jerusalem’s Old City, has been occupied by the U.N. for 78 years. Without any basis whatsoever, the U.N. treats the compound as its fiefdom, even building or placing structures without the necessary building permits.
The compound is host to a number of useless U.N. organizations, such as the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), which, outrageously, supervises the 1948 truce between Israel and its hostile neighbors. Alongside the useless UNTSO sits the personal envoy of the secretary-general on the Middle East conflict.
Israel’s experience in the U.N. is often characterized as that of a battered wife. Intoxicated by the pro-terror Palestinian propaganda, every day the violent U.N. will attack and assault Israel. Every day, Israel will barely escape with its life.
We are proud Jews with 3,700 years of history. The U.N. has regularly failed to support Israel. To date, even after the events of Oct. 7, the U.N. has not designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
If Israel seeks to survive and avoid the inevitable consequences of the U.N. attacks, Israel must take the initiative and fight back.
The first step on the way to survival should be to exorcise the cancerous U.N.-growths. Every U.N. organization should be permanently closed. The offices of OCHA, UNICEF, and all the U.N. organizations that occupy the Commissioner’s Palace should be the first ones closed, and all their U.N. staffers, together with the personal envoy of the secretary-general, should be the first ones expelled.
It is not enough to complain about the U.N. bias. It is not enough to make symbolic decisions to cut ties with the secretary-general, who has long suffered from deep-seated Jew-hatred.
Israel can send aircraft to distant targets; perhaps the time has come to show similar resolve in reconsidering the presence of U.N. organizations in Israel, especially in Jerusalem.
Originally published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
