On October 7, 2023, like many around the world, I awoke to news of the horrific attacks perpetrated by Hamas against more than 1,200 innocent Israeli, American and other civilians who that day were doing nothing other than going about their lives. The television newscasts were bone-chilling – pictures of mutilated babies; of fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers slain in front of family members; of peace activists murdered in cold blood; and of the taking of 250 hostages, some of whom more than 20 months on are still being held.
Later that day, the United States called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to address this mass terror attack, the largest murder of Jews since the Holocaust. As the American ambassador to the UN responsible for Security Council matters, I represented the United States at the October 8 emergency meeting and demanded the council issue a statement expressly condemning Hamas for the ruthless terrorist attacks.
Unfortunately, Russia, China and a few other council members refused to endorse such a statement. To put it simply, their refusal to call a spade a spade was abhorrent and incomprehensible. Note: To this day, the Security Council has yet to formally declare Hamas a terrorist group.
Going into the October 8 emergency Security Council meeting, there had rightfully been much global sympathy for Israel – and certainly an expectation that Israel would have to respond militarily. However, once Israel took measures to defend itself, a right enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter, many nations, most notably from the Global South, condemned Israel’s response as disproportionate and used it as a rallying cry to further isolate Israel in the multilateral system and beyond.
To me and many of my U.S. government colleagues, this was not unexpected. Since joining the UN in 1948, there has been an unfortunate decline in support for Israel at the world body, a decline that began to accelerate following the period of decolonization in the 1960s. Many former colonies wrongly began to view the Israel-Palestinian conflict through the prism of their own struggles against European colonizers, with Israel viewed as a colonizer and the Palestinians as being colonized.
Israel’s relationship with the UN reached a nadir in 1975, when the UN General Assembly passed a highly politicized resolution equating Zionism with racism, a document that was finally revoked by the UNGA in 1991. Regrettably, efforts by the Palestinians and their supporters to isolate Israel at the UN have not abated and in fact have intensified since October 7, 2023.
During my two-plus years in New York as ambassador, I engaged in a great deal of difficult diplomacy on the situation in Gaza and cast the sole veto of two UNSC draft resolutions related to the war, both of which lacked a clear condemnation of Hamas, a direct linkage of a ceasefire to the release of hostages, and a reference to Israel’s Article 51 rights.
Had these texts been adopted by the council, they would not have delivered an immediate ceasefire or a release of the hostages – but certainly would have given Hamas the time and space to rearm. Other council representatives privately agreed but nevertheless felt increasing pressure from their capitals to produce a council document calling for an immediate ceasefire.
