Democracies Must Stand Up To End U.N. Farce

"On Friday... Rima Khalaf resigned. Khalaf was the Executive Secretary of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), one of many seemingly innocuously titled U.N. agencies that on closer inspection, is anything but.

I was the first to call for her dismissal, back in 2014 when she published a report comparing Israel to Nazi Germany-an inherently anti-Semitic position. Never mind that Israel is the only state in the Middle East where the equal democratic rights of minority citizens are enshrined and protected by the rule of law. Or that next door in Syria, genocidal slaughter at the hands of the Assad regime was already long underway. Israel's identity as a Jewish State is the real threat, Khalaf told us.

For years, she used her agency as a vehicle to ram into Israel's legitimacy, demonizing the Jewish state and pumping anti-Israeli pollution into the U.N.'s atmosphere. The U.N. provided an environment for such lies to fester. Ban Ki Moon was largely silent in the face of them, even when he knew they were absurd. This year, Khalaf struck again, with a report slandering Israel as an 'apartheid state.'...

No U.N. agency embodies its failings more than the paradoxically titled U.N. Human Rights Council...UNHRC adopted 42 resolutions under Agenda Item Seven, which deals solely with Israel, and only 58 resolutions under Agenda Item Four, which deals with the rest of the world...

One resignation will not bring lasting progress to the U.N. One powerful statement from the U.S. will not alone reform the Human Rights Council. Rima Khalaf was not a bad apple-there are more in the barrel-like Leila Zerrougui, Under-Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, who turns a blind eye to Assad's barrel bombs while condemning Israel's attempts to defend itself. Or Christopher Gunness, Chief Spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), whose schools have been used by Hamas to store weapons.

At the Human Rights Council, other democratic states ... can join the U.S. in leading from the front. European members of the Council, including major powers like the U.K. and Germany, should defend their stated values of fair play with renewed confidence. They too should take a stand against the flagrant and institutionalized racism and discrimination towards the Jewish state laid bare by Agenda Item Seven.

For too long, democracies have gone along with what they knew to be a farce. Only if we are honest, courageous and determined in calling out this abomination, will the world get international institutions that are credible, dependable and fit for purpose. It is time for democracies to stand up. It is time for change."