Perhaps in search of a Chanukah and holiday season miracle, JNS asked many of the high-ranking United Nations officials, including those who denounce Israel regularly, if they could spare a few words about something—anything—that Israel is doing right and honorably, in a manner that could be a model for others.
What, do they believe, can Israelis be most proud of their country accomplishing, even amid all of the rest of the criticism that the United Nations has leveled at the Jewish state, JNS asked.
Not a single U.N. official responded with any positive message about Israel, and many did not respond to JNS queries at all.
“It’s quite damning that no one at the United Nations, with offices in 193 countries and 37,000 employees—the world’s largest universal multilateral international organization—has anything positive to say about the only democracy in the Middle East,” Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations in New York, told JNS.
“That says more about the U.N. than it does about Israel,” he said.
The office of António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, did not respond to multiple JNS queries.
A spokesman for Tom Fletcher, the global body’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, did respond. “Unfortunately, we’ll have to pass,” the spokesman told JNS.
The Jewish state has criticized Fletcher extensively for accusing Jerusalem of carrying out a “genocide” in Gaza, and for lying “consistently” about facts on the ground in Gaza.
Jonathan Conricus, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former spokesman for the Israeli military, told JNS that he is not surprised.
“At least the positive thing is that they’re truthful and they’re not hypocritical,” Conricus said. “They can’t stomach bringing themselves to say something positive about Israel.”
“What Israel needs to do, despite all this, is to showcase its great contributions to the world, whether they are cultural, economic, scientific, agriculture, water, medicine,” Conricus told JNS. “This small and embattled country has made a tremendously positive contribution to the world in terms of intellectual property and research and many other things, and that should be highlighted.”
He added that it is “really a very telling, compelling and sad report card” for the global body “that they cannot even bring themselves to pay lip service during the holiday season to say something nice about Israel.”
The spokesman for Fletcher would not say anything positive or encouraging about the Jewish state, though added, “Allow me to send my condolences to you and your readers following the horrific and outrageous killings in Australia over the weekend.”
The office of Volker Türk, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, told JNS that “international human rights law applies to all states and all human beings equally, regardless of citizenship, religion, culture, nationality or ethnicity.”
“This includes people’s right to enjoy and manifest their religion and/or tradition freely,” the office added, in response to the JNS query about whether it could say anything positive about Israel.
Türk’s office also directed JNS to his statement about the Sydney massacre.
A spokesman for Jürg Lauber, president of the U.N. Human Rights Council, responded to a JNS question about any praise of the Jewish state by informing that Lauber’s role “is to ensure that the council’s activities proceed in an efficient and constructive manner, requiring neutrality on his part when it comes to expressing views on specific thematic and country issues.”
JNS found multiple examples of Lauber complimenting other U.N. member states. Less than a month ago, for example, he thanked the “government and people of Micronesia for their warm welcome and longstanding commitment to human rights,” per an official U.N. Human Rights Council social media account.
The office of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, which houses special rapporteurs and what the United Nations considers independent “experts,” did not respond to JNS queries. That office includes Francesca Albanese, who has a long history of denouncing Israel and who has drawn extensive criticism from member states, including Washington.
