The history of the United Nations and the State of Israel is intertwined. Shortly after Israel was established in 1948, in accord with the United Nations partition plan calling for a Jewish national state in Palestine, Israel became an official member of the international body. Since that time, however, the United Nations has more often than not demonstrated hostility and belligerency toward Israel, criticizing Israeli policies, singling out Israel for offenses committed by other states, and prohibiting Israel from the full participation enjoyed by other members.

"...the United Nations has more often than not demonstrated hostility and belligerency toward Israel... "

Although this hostility began to wane at the outset of the Israeli-Arab peace process in the early 1990s, today the UN still has not completely normalized its relations with the Jewish state. For example, an Israeli official has never been appointed to a top Secretariat position, and Israelis the only member nation consistently denied admission into a regional group. The Arab states continue to prevent Israeli membership in the Asian Regional Group, Israel's natural geopolitical grouping. As a result, Israel has sought entry into the Western and Others Group, but has not been granted admission there either. Without such membership, Israel cannot be nominated for most important UN positions, such as membership in the Security Council. According to former Israeli representative to the UN Gad Ya'acobi, this "prevents Israel from becoming a legitimate and normal member of the United Nations, to have the right to be elected to positions, and to fully participate in the organization."
 

Historically Arab members of the UN have used the General Assembly (GA) as a forum for isolating and chastising Israel.

"...the United Nations has long been a forum for political attacks against Israel ... "

With support from third-world nations, the Non-Aligned group and others, the Arab states have had little difficulty passing harsh anti-Israel resolutions through the GA. Even today, the strength of these forces in the world body allows them to continue rebuking Israel. This is demonstrated each year at the opening session of the GA when the Arab members challenge the credentials of the Israeli delegation.

For decades, the Security Council has also participated in singling out Israel by passing one-sided resolutions charging Israel with sole responsibility for human rights violations, violence and deportations. On the other hand, Palestinian and other Arab violations and involvement with such incidents are rarely criticized, or even noted by the Council.

Several UN committees and divisions of the Secretariat, which primarily serve the interests of the Arab nations that encouraged their creation in the 1970s, are also extremely critical of Israel. Among these are the Division for Palestinian Rights of the Secretariat, the Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices in the Territories, and the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. Israeli officials have termed these committees "propaganda instruments" of the PLO.

Some UN agencies have also exhibited anti-Israel sentiments. For example, between 1974 and 1987 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) instituted financial sanctions against the Jewish State,

"...this resolution was part of an effort led by a coalition of Arab states ... to delegitimize Israel ... "

passed hundreds of resolutions criticizing Israel’s activities on the West Bank, and denounced Israel’s archeological and restoration efforts in Jerusalem.

Among the most harmful UN anti-Israel resolutions was the notorious resolution equating Zionism with racism, passed in November 1975 by 72 to 35. It said that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination... [and] is a threat to world peace and security." But more than being a response to the ideology of the Jewish state, this resolution was part of an effort led by a coalition of Arab states, and the Soviet Union, to delegitimize Israel and create solidarity against a perceived Western domination. The resolution was finally repealed in 1991, following the Madrid Conference.

Although the United Nations has long been a forum for political attacks against Israel, in the 1960s and 1970s two resolutions were passed which, in later decades, became the cornerstone of Middle East diplomatic efforts. On November 22, 1967, following the Six Day War, the Security Council passed Resolution 242 with the stated intention of providing a solution for the conflict in the Middle East. This resolution called for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied during the Six Day War, in exchange for the "termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."

Similarly, Resolution 338, passed on October 22, 1973, in the midst of the Yom Kippur War, called for the termination of the ongoing armed battle and for negotiations to begin between Israel and her Arab neighbors on the land-for-peace premise of Resolution 242. In calling upon the Arab states to end their war against Israel, and to engage in direct peace talks, an effective framework for the future peace negotiations was produced at the UN.
 

In the early 1990s, with the start of the Madrid and Oslo processes and the end of the Cold War, the UN began to alleviate its trend of hostility toward Israel. The collapse of the Soviet Union, which put an end to the powerful Soviet-Arab coalition, left the Arab member states devoid of the superpower ally needed to maintain their powerful anti-Israel activities.

"In the early 1990's...the UN began to alleviate its trend of hostility toward Israel...and Israel's participation in UN operations also began to increase."

As early as December 1991, just weeks after the conclusion of the historic Madrid conference where Israelis and Arabs sat together for negotiations for the first time, the United Nations took the world by surprise when it finally repealed the infamous "Zionism is racism" resolution. This momentous event sparked a new process of reevaluation at the UN of its traditional and outdated policies on Israel. At that time, former Ambassador Gad Ya’acobi noted that "the obsolete and anachronistic resolutions of the past.. [are] not relevant today, when peace negotiations are in progress."

As the Middle East peace process got underway and the Israelis and Palestinians signed the historic Declaration of Principles in 1993. there began to be a significant decrease in the number of anti-Israel condemnations at the UN. For the first time the Human Rights Commission condemned anti-Semitism as a form of racism. In 1994, when Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres addressed the General Assembly, only the representatives from Iran did not attend. This contrasted markedly with the roll calls of earlier years when it was common for Arab members to storm out of the GA hall in the presence of an Israeli speaker.

Israel’s participation in UN operations also began to increase. In June 1993, Israel was nominated to its first UN committee, the Committee for Information. In 1994, Israelis were permitted to participate in the UN peacekeeping mission in Angola and to travel to South Africa as part of a UN effort to monitor the country’s first democratic elections. At that time, Israelis also began to be elected to notable UN positions, such as the high administrative tribunal at the Hague, Vice Chair of the World Health Organization’s Executive Committee, and member of the Human Rights Committee.

In addition, efforts were made to amend a number of previously adopted anti-Israel resolutions. In 1992, the GA passed 29 anti-Israel resolutions, but since then seven have been eliminated or consolidated, and four have been redrafted in favor of Israel. In 1995, the GA adopted 18 Middle East resolutions, eight of which have since been reworded to refrain from condemning Israel, and eight more modified otherwise.

As part of this attempt to revise the outdated anti-Israel resolutions, in 1993 the UN amended the group of resolutions, adopted each year by the GA, known as the "Question of Palestine." Among these resolutions is ‘The Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine," which was revised to omit its reference to Jerusalem as occupied territory, as well as its charge against Israeli settlements as illegal obstacles to peace. The resolution entitled "Situation in the Middle East" was revised to omit its condemnation of Israel’s presence in the territories. In 1993, the resolution entitled "Israeli Nuclear Armament," also adopted by the GA annually, was revised to eliminate its severe criticism of Israel. Moreover, between 1993 and 1995 the Security Council never directly condemned Israel. Even in denouncing the Hebron Massacre, it did not directly target Israel. During this period, the Security Council also denounced terrorism against Israel for the first time.

The most central resolution passed during this warming trend toward Israel came on December 14, 1993 when 155 member states endorsed the Israel-Palestinian and the Israel-Jordan agreements and granted "full support for the achievements of the peace process so far." This resolution was the first UN call for Middle East peace that did not criticize Israel. In fact, many viewed this improvement between Israel and the international community as actual UN support for some Israeli government policies. In October 1993, for the first time since 1981, the Arab members of the UN did not challenge Israel’s seat at the General Assembly.
 

In the past 18 months, there has been renewed movement at the UN with Israel again the target of condemnations, and unduly harsh criticism.

At the time of the UN’s 50th anniversary, the organization failed to mention the Holocaust in its World War II resolution. Though the resolution noted that millions had perished in the war, it ignored Israel’s request to include specific reference to the Holocaust and to the destruction of European Jewry.

Recently, the UN has also taken action on a number of other issues related to Israel:

Jerusalem

In December 1995, shortly after the United States Congress passed its "Jerusalem bill," mandating that the United States must move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by 1999, the UN voted 133 to 1 against Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem. The GA resolution said that, ⁰The decision of Israel to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem is illegal... and null and void." Furthermore, it denounced "the transfer of some States of their diplomatic missions to Jerusalem." While Israel was the only nation to vote against this resolution, the United States abstained from the vote, saying that according to the Oslo agreements the issue of Jerusalem is to be determined during the bilateral final status negotiations, that interference by the international community in the peace process is detrimental to its success, and that unilateral condemnations of Israel serve only to exacerbate tensions in the region.

Lebanon

The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon met with leaders of the extremist Shi’ite Muslim organization Hezbollah in March 1996. Hezbollah, created in the early 1980s, aims to establish an Iranian-inspired Islamic state in Lebanon. and states its goal to be the "Struggle against the Jewish state and the Jews’ conspiracy against Islam." It has launched terrorist attacks against Western, Israeli and Jewish targets in Lebanon, Israel and around the world. Discussing the March meeting, UN spokesman Timur Goksel said, "we are putting the UN’s relations with Hezbollah on the right path.... We are friends of the resistance and have lived the experience of the Islamic resistance since it started."

In April 1996, Israel launched a counterattack on the spot from which Hezbollah fighters had fired Katyusha rockets into northern Israel. Tragically, the Israeli missiles missed the Hezbollah position and inadvertently hit the nearby UN base in Qana, Lebanon, killing 100. In response, the GA called for a halt in the Israeli-Lebanese hostilities, condemned Israel alone for the incident, and passed a resolution, 64 to 2, demanding that Israel pay reparations and withdraw from all Lebanese territory (in reference to Israel’s 9-mile security zone in southern Lebanon).. Most members of the GA abstained from this vote, calling the resolution unbalanced. Moreover, at the time of the Qana incident the UN issued a one-sided report which condemned Israel before giving Israeli officials a chance to present their data on the accident. In June 1997, the GA voted 66 to 2 that Israel pay $1.7 million to cover the damages in Qana. No reference was made to the damages Hezbollah caused in northern Israel.

The Palestinians

On November 27, 1996, the UN issued a report extremely critical of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians. The report came during an extended Israeli military closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which had been implemented several months earlier in reaction to a series of Palestinian suicide bombings that killed 59 people in IsraeL With no consideration of Israel’s real security concerns, the UN report harshly rebuked Israel, demanding that the state stop all violations of human rights by ending its military closure on the territories and releasing Palestinian prisoners.

Moreover, the report was issued shortly after the decision of the newly elected Likud government in Israel to cancel the previous government’s freeze on settlement construction. In this context, the report criticized the expansion of Jewish settlements and unjustly accused Israel of "creeping ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Earlier that year, the United States had blocked another UN resolution which called on Israel to return 131 acres of what it termed "expropriated Arab land."

Peace Process

On December 4, 1996, the GA passed several resolutions regarding Israel and the Middle East peace process. While the main resolution resembled a draft passed in previous years which called for an acceleration in the peace process, in 1996 it was also accompanied by a number of resolutions unduly critical of Israel. One of the resolutions, passed 159 to 2 (only Israel and the U.S. voted negatively), demanded that Israel withdraw from the territories occupied in 1967 and stressed the importance of the realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinians. Another resolution demanded that Israel withdraw from the entire Golan Heights. In response, the United States reprimanded the GA, saying that its interjection into the peace process, and matters that the parties had agreed to discuss during face-to-face negotiations, would only further complicate the situation in the Middle East.

Har Homa

The UN has passed a number of anti-Israel resolutions regarding Israel’s construction project on Har Homa in Jerusalem. On March 12, 1997, the GA passed the first of these resolutions by 130 to 2; again only the United States and Israel voted negatively. The resolution expressed "deep concern at the decision of the Israelis to initiate new settlement activity in the Jebel Abu Ghneim area," using the Arabic name for Har Homa. It also labeled all settlement activity "illegal and a major obstacle to peace," and urged that Israel "refrain from all actions or measures, including settlement activities, which alter the facts on the ground, preempting the final status negotiations, and have negative implications for the Middle East Peace Process." ‘It called for "immediate and full cessation" of the Har Homa housing project and for "all forms of assistance and support for illegal Israeli activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem." In fact, it went so far as to deem all Israeli legislation in Jerusalem invalid, despite the fact that Jerusalem is the sovereign, undivided capital of IsraeL

Several weeks later, in an emergency session convened by the Arab group, the General Assembly again voted, 134 to 3, against Israel’s construction project on Har Homa. This time it recommended ending any support for Israeli settlement activity. In July 1997, at another reconvened emergency session on Har Homa, the GA voted overwhelmingly against the housing project and called on member states to "actively discourage activities which directly contribute to any construction or development of Israeli settlements, including Jerusalem." At that time, the GA also recommended convening a conference to enforce the Fourth Geneva Convention which bars settlement in occupied territories. Additionally, it threatened Israel’s membership in the UN, saying that members, "in order to ensure their rights and benefits from membership, should fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also criticized the housing project at Har Homa as "the final step toward the isolation of Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank." He called it part of Israel’s plan "of fully incorporating East Jerusalem as part of the ‘unified, eternal capital of the State of Israel.’"

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dore Gold countered the GA’s Har Homa resolutions, saying that these types of resolutions send the message that "the United Nations is a convenient and willing forum for bypassing the peace process." He criticized the emergency sessions as "an approach which threatens to turn the clock back decades" and called the report submitted pursuant to the resolution, "hostile and one-sided." United States envoy to the UN Bill Richardson called the Har Homa resolution "a partisan resolution aimed not at building confidence or dialogue, but at confrontation."

Other Incidents

After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to open a new exit to the ancient Hasmonean tunnel in the Old City of Jerusalem, in September 1996, there was an uproar of Palestinian violence and conflict with Israeli forces. In response, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for the tunnel to be closed, insisting that the opening of the new exit had provoked the nearly 70 deaths, and fully blaming IsraeL According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, however, the UN resolution "ignores the campaign of incitement and vilification on the part of the Palestinian Council and several Arab states which engendered the current outbreak of violence."

In Geneva, April 1997, Palestinian observer Nabil Ramlawi told the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that Israelis had injected 300 Palestinian children with the HIV virus during the intifada. Only after several weeks of silence did UN Secretary General Kofi Annan denounce the statement. Ambassador Miroslav Somol, then Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights, never followed through with his promise to officially condemn the statement. In fact, he apologized to ambassador Ramlawi and the Arab Group for "any harm" the controversy may have caused them.