The United Nations was established on October 24, 1945.
Palestine was then administered under the internationally sanctioned League of Nations British Mandate. In February 1947, Britain decided to terminate its presence in the Mandate. It turned the issue of Palestine over to the United Nations. Then, in April 1947, the UN set up UNSCOP (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine) to recommend proposals for Palestine’s future. In a failed effort to block UNSCOP’s work before it started, five Arab countries (Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria) called for an immediate UN vote for “the termination of the Mandate over Palestine and the declaration of its independence.” The effort was aimed at preventing the possibility that UNSCOP might call for the establishment of a Jewish state.
Instead, on November 29, 1947, an UNSCOP proposal “to create Arab and Jewish states no later than October 1948 with an economic union and a special regime for Jerusalem to be administered by the United Nations Trusteeship Council” was passed by a majority of UN members. Arab and Muslim states voted to reject the proposal; the US and the USSR voted in favor while Britain abstained.
In May 1948, Israel declared its independence, the first Arab-Israeli war took place in 1948-1949, and, during its course, the UN mediated its conclusion with armistice agreements between Israel and four states (Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria). The UN then passed Resolution 194 in December 1948. It said, “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so, and compensation be paid for the property of those choosing not to return.” The resolution also set up a Conciliation Commission for Palestine aimed at helping the parties achieve a final settlement between them. Refugees did not return and establishing an international regime for Jerusalem as suggested in the 1947 Partition Resolution did not occur. The status and well-being of some 700,000 Palestinian refugees was managed by a newly created organization, UNWRA (United Nations Works Relief Agency). In May 1949, Israel was accepted as a member of the United Nations.
For the next two decades, efforts to moderate, mediate, and monitor the conflict with peacekeepers played out mostly at the United Nations and with UN appointed personnel. After the 1956 Suez War, the United Nations placed troops, UNEF (United Nations Emergency Force), in the Sinai to act as a buffer against a future Arab-Israeli war. However, in May 1967, after Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered the removal of the UNEF troops, UN Secretary General U Thant failed to prevent this from happening, allowing the forces that were placed there to separate Egyptian and Israeli armies to be removed.
After the 1967 War and after prolonged debate about the wording that should be used in a resolution that might be the framework for ending the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the UN Security Council unanimously passed UN Resolution 242. The Resolution called for an unspecified Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the war in exchange for “the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence of all the states in the region.” When UN-sponsored mediation of the conflict that was based on this Resolution failed to gain traction at the end of the 1960s, the United States took over the reins of the conflict’s mediation, eventually to the exclusion of other Great Powers and the UN. When US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Nixon Administration and Carter Administration officials pushed for agreements between Israel and its neighbors in the 1970s, UNSC Resolution 242 was the foundational centerpiece around which progress unfolded. During the Carter administration, four Security Council resolutions were passed where the administration either voted for or abstained condemning Israeli settlement building and naming Jerusalem as ‘occupied.’ No other administration since used the UN to criticize Israel so frequently. When the Oslo Accords (1993) and the Jordanian-Israeli Treaty (1994) were signed, the contents of UNSC Resolution 242 remained the centerpiece for achieving a negotiated settlement.
Over seven decades of the conflict, the UN has convened conferences, passed resolutions, dispatched peace-keepers, and provided the Palestinians and Arab states a frequent podium for vilifying Israel and condemning its policies. In 2024, Palestinian representatives can regularly count on the support of 22 Arab League members and 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to vote in favor of anti-Israeli resolutions. During the Cold War, the Palestinians also counted on support from the Soviet Union, its allies, and many Third World countries. Each September when the UN opens its new sessions, speeches given on behalf of the Palestinians have historically become the perennial location of choice to criticize Israel politicians and policies. Likewise, the 47 member UN Human Rights Council regularly launches verbal attacks on Israel that support boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli policies.
In 1975, the UN easily passed a General Assembly resolution categorizing Zionism as racism. After the end of the Cold War, that resolution was revoked. In addition, the UN called for the establishment of a Palestinian state and for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories. Middle East stationed representatives of UN organizations such as those that work for UNWRA, have historically taken anti-Israeli positions on all matters relating to Israel’s presence in the territories and the management of the borders between the territories and Israel. Since Palestinians have regularly used the UN as a political tool to berate Israel and its main Western supporters, primarily the United States, Israel has avoided the UN as a venue for the conduct of substantive Arab-Israeli negotiations. When Arab-Israeli wars have occurred (1956, 1967, 1973), the first Lebanese War (1982), the four short wars with Hamas (2009, 2012-2013, and 2014), and the Israel-Hizbollah War (2006), the UN obtained cease-fire resolutions each time. Subsequent to these wars, Israel often found itself on the defensive as the UN pushed for Israeli withdrawals, sought to impose solutions, and often established commissions of inquiry aimed at condemning or criticizing Israeli actions. After the outbreak of the October 2023, prolonged Hamas-Israel war, it took the UN 171 days to pass UN Security Council Resolution 2728 (in March 2024), calling for an immediate ceasefire, immediate and unconditional release of (Israeli) hostages, and urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance. The US abstained from this vote. Actual mediation of the conflict almost from the beginning of the conflict rested on the shoulders of the United States and other western and Arab states that tried persistently to bring the war to a cease-fire, tied to hostage release.
The Palestinian Authority created out of the 1993 Oslo Accords have used the diplomatic weight that it is able to muster through the UN in order to diminish Israel stature internationally. The absence of an Arab physical or military option to use against Israel, and the unwillingness of Arab states to create a multi-national force to challenge Israel, makes the UN a most useful venue for sharp exchange against Israel. Equally important, given the ideological and political fragmentation of the Palestinian political community, the UN apparatus provides a common location for internal Palestinian disagreements to be shelved even if temporarily, while Israel is the common focus of antagonism. Given the heavy imbalance against Israel at the UN, it is highly unlikely that it will take on a valued and serious negotiating role in seeking to find a pathway to first establishing trust between the parties in order to move to non-war- trust footings between Israel and the Palestinians. Historically, Israel has always wanted the US to be the central or critically adjacent mediator, bridge-builder, and guarantor of agreements undertaken between Jerusalem and Arab neighbors. In part, the US can promise to provide parties to an agreement with Israel with financial, military, strategic, and economic incentives that can not be provided by the UN.
Ken Stein, September 2024