Is anyone on this forum in a better position than the Secretary-General of the UN to analyze, for example, the impact of Israel’s actions on future, unrelated conflicts?
I would guess yes? The Secretary-General of the UN is subject to a lot of political pressures. Many UN members are enemies of Israel—e.g. Iran, which chaired a UN human rights meeting just last month, has pledged to destroy Israel. UN aid workers in Gaza collaborate with Hamas, including allowing Hamas to operate inside UN buildings. And one of the major drivers of the conflict is the UN policy towards palestinian refugees, which has encouraged revanchism over integration for decades, unlike their policy towards other descendants of refugees. Given these political pressures, and the lack of positive incentive for accuracy, I would actually expect him to be unusually bad at analyzing the situation. I think this is verified by the very anomalous way the UN treats Israel, like repeatedly condemning Israel while neglecting far worse offenders, and being strangely reticent to criticize Hamas’ use of rape against civilians.
I don’t see any obvious reason to think enemies of Israel are more influential on the UN Secretary-General than allies. The US is on the security council and is the most powerful country in the world, and Iran is not. Although I guess for UN stuff that depends on majority vote (I am not expert to know what does and doesn’t) it is plausible that most developing countries see the conflict through an anti-colonial, and hence anti-Israel lens. But Israel is certainly not friendless in international institutions: most of the power in the world is either friendly (US, Europe) or probably doesn’t really care much (China, Japan).
Thanks for asking this, it’s an interesting question. I don’t feel confident in my answer, but my best guess is some combination of:
The countries you list as Israel supporters have many issues they care about at the UN. The US cares about North Korea, Taiwan, nuclear proliferation, climate change, refugees, women’s education, polio, piracy, Ukraine… In contrast, the enemies of Israel typically have fewer issues they care as much about, so their attention is more concentrated.
The more pro-Israel countries are not anti-palestine; both the US and Europe are major donors to both the West Bank and Gaza, and they often try to influence Israeli policy to be more considerate of Palestinian welfare. In contrast many of the enemies of Israel range from actively desiring the murder of jews to simple indifference to Israeli welfare.
You’re right that this isn’t a fully convincing argument. I’m significantly more confident in the problem of UN bias, which I think can be observed reasonably directly, than my diagnosis of the causes.
Please explain how a 120-fold difference in population sizes between groups wouldn’t yield any bias in the global influence those groups would tend to have at the United Nations?
I didn’t vote on your post, but I could imagine disagree voting to indicate disagreement with the implication that Muslims are fundamentally ‘enemies of Israel’.
Your first comment claims that the 120 fold difference in population makes Israel’s enemies more influential than its allies at the UN (which I disagree with), which is different to claiming that the disproportionate populations have “some” effect over the UN (which I agree with).
Religions are not represented at the UN, countries are, and the major forces influencing the UN in favour of Israel are the US and the UK, which are mostly not made up of Jews, and the main force influencing the UN against Israel is China, which is largely not made up of Muslims.
In other words, power struggles at the UN on Israel-Palestine are not really a power struggle between Jews and Muslims, and like lots of other geopolitics things are more of a power struggle between the USA and China.
And one of the major drivers of the conflict is the UN policy towards palestinian refugees, which has encouraged revanchism over integration for decades, unlike their policy towards other descendants of refugees.
Many policies that seek to hold states accountable for committing atrocities can be accused of encouraging revanchism. Nonetheless, the international community should probably coordinate to prevent states from doing things like conquering land and then effectively throwing hundreds of thousands of natives outside their new borders (causing them to be stateless), killing those who try to return, destroying/stealing almost all of their property without providing any compensation, etc.
I think this is verified by the very anomalous way the UN treats Israel, like repeatedly condemning Israel while neglecting far worse offenders,
Can you give an example of a state that was clearly a “worse offender” than Israel and yet was clearly treated less severely by the UN?
Can you give an example of a state that was clearly a “worse offender” than Israel and yet was clearly treated less severely by the UN?
I’m not fact-checking anything, but I’d bet both Russia and China are worse offenders who are treated better.
Although to be clear, I think the “UN bias against Israel” argument, while true, is almost always irrelevant to the discussion, maybe even including this instance. The relevant question is whether the UN General Secretary has the necessary information to know better than you or I do. And I’d answer that with a “maybe”.
If Russia and China are worse offenders (which I doubt, if the metric is “atrocities per capita”) and have been treated less severely by the UN, this seems to point at a bias in favor of permanent members of the UN Security Council / superpowers, rather than a bias against Israel in particular.
I would guess yes? The Secretary-General of the UN is subject to a lot of political pressures. Many UN members are enemies of Israel—e.g. Iran, which chaired a UN human rights meeting just last month, has pledged to destroy Israel. UN aid workers in Gaza collaborate with Hamas, including allowing Hamas to operate inside UN buildings. And one of the major drivers of the conflict is the UN policy towards palestinian refugees, which has encouraged revanchism over integration for decades, unlike their policy towards other descendants of refugees. Given these political pressures, and the lack of positive incentive for accuracy, I would actually expect him to be unusually bad at analyzing the situation. I think this is verified by the very anomalous way the UN treats Israel, like repeatedly condemning Israel while neglecting far worse offenders, and being strangely reticent to criticize Hamas’ use of rape against civilians.
edit: typo
I don’t see any obvious reason to think enemies of Israel are more influential on the UN Secretary-General than allies. The US is on the security council and is the most powerful country in the world, and Iran is not. Although I guess for UN stuff that depends on majority vote (I am not expert to know what does and doesn’t) it is plausible that most developing countries see the conflict through an anti-colonial, and hence anti-Israel lens. But Israel is certainly not friendless in international institutions: most of the power in the world is either friendly (US, Europe) or probably doesn’t really care much (China, Japan).
Thanks for asking this, it’s an interesting question. I don’t feel confident in my answer, but my best guess is some combination of:
The countries you list as Israel supporters have many issues they care about at the UN. The US cares about North Korea, Taiwan, nuclear proliferation, climate change, refugees, women’s education, polio, piracy, Ukraine… In contrast, the enemies of Israel typically have fewer issues they care as much about, so their attention is more concentrated.
The more pro-Israel countries are not anti-palestine; both the US and Europe are major donors to both the West Bank and Gaza, and they often try to influence Israeli policy to be more considerate of Palestinian welfare. In contrast many of the enemies of Israel range from actively desiring the murder of jews to simple indifference to Israeli welfare.
You’re right that this isn’t a fully convincing argument. I’m significantly more confident in the problem of UN bias, which I think can be observed reasonably directly, than my diagnosis of the causes.
David—there are 1.9 billion Muslim people in the world, and only 16 million Jewish people in the world. That’s a 120-fold difference.
Of course the ‘enemies of Israel’ are numerically more influential in the UN. This has been obvious for decades.
People who are disagree-voting with me on this:
Please explain how a 120-fold difference in population sizes between groups wouldn’t yield any bias in the global influence those groups would tend to have at the United Nations?
I didn’t vote on your post, but I could imagine disagree voting to indicate disagreement with the implication that Muslims are fundamentally ‘enemies of Israel’.
Your first comment claims that the 120 fold difference in population makes Israel’s enemies more influential than its allies at the UN (which I disagree with), which is different to claiming that the disproportionate populations have “some” effect over the UN (which I agree with).
Religions are not represented at the UN, countries are, and the major forces influencing the UN in favour of Israel are the US and the UK, which are mostly not made up of Jews, and the main force influencing the UN against Israel is China, which is largely not made up of Muslims.
In other words, power struggles at the UN on Israel-Palestine are not really a power struggle between Jews and Muslims, and like lots of other geopolitics things are more of a power struggle between the USA and China.
Many policies that seek to hold states accountable for committing atrocities can be accused of encouraging revanchism. Nonetheless, the international community should probably coordinate to prevent states from doing things like conquering land and then effectively throwing hundreds of thousands of natives outside their new borders (causing them to be stateless), killing those who try to return, destroying/stealing almost all of their property without providing any compensation, etc.
Can you give an example of a state that was clearly a “worse offender” than Israel and yet was clearly treated less severely by the UN?
I’m not fact-checking anything, but I’d bet both Russia and China are worse offenders who are treated better.
Although to be clear, I think the “UN bias against Israel” argument, while true, is almost always irrelevant to the discussion, maybe even including this instance. The relevant question is whether the UN General Secretary has the necessary information to know better than you or I do. And I’d answer that with a “maybe”.
If Russia and China are worse offenders
(which I doubt, if the metric is “atrocities per capita”)and have been treated less severely by the UN, this seems to point at a bias in favor of permanent members of the UN Security Council / superpowers, rather than a bias against Israel in particular.