The U.S. tried and failed to stymie criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza at the UN this quarter. After U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley failed (5/31) to gather enough support at the Security Council for a statement condemning Hamas’s rocket attacks, she vetoed (6/1) a Kuwaiti-backed resolution condemning Israel’s use of force against Palestinian civilians. The UNGA then adopted (6/13) a similar, Palestinian-backed resolution condemning Israel’s use of “excessive force” in quelling the ongoing protests in Gaza, with 120 votes in favor, 45 abstaining, and 8 opposed. Before the UNGA vote, Haley circulated an amendment to the draft resolution that would have condemned Hamas for its rocket fire and alleged diversion of humanitarian resources to its security apparatus, but again she failed to gather enough support.
UNHCR
On 5/18, the UNHRC convened to debate Israel’s assault on protesters gathering along the border fence on 5/14. Despite objections from the U.S. and Australia, the UNHRC approved a Pakistani proposal to establish an independent commission of inquiry to look into Israel’s use of deadly force to quell the protests, and to report back by 3/2019. Twenty-nine countries voted in favor of the proposal, which also condemned the “indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force,” while 14 abstained and only the U.S. and Australia voted against it.
A month after the vote, at the 38th session of the UNHRC in Geneva, UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson announced (6/18) that, beginning in 2019, the UK planned to vote against all resolutions introduced under Agenda Item 7, the UNHRC’s dedicated and permanent mandate for issues relating to the PalestinianIsraeli conflict. “We share the view that a dedicated agenda item focused solely on Israel and the oPt is disproportionate and damaging to the cause of peace,”Johnson said, aligning the UK with the Trump administration’s position on the UNHRC. The day after Johnson’s comments, Haley announced (6/19) that the U.S. was going one step further and formally withdrawing from the UNHRC. “Earlier this year, as it has in previous years, the UNHRC passed five resolutions against Israel, more than it passed against North Korea, Iran, and Syria combined,” she said (see JPS 47 [4] for a breakdown of those five resolutions). “This disproportionate focus and unending hostility toward Israel is clear proof that the [UNHRC] is motivated by political bias.”
UNESCO
The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee postponed, for a second time, a vote on two resolutions related to the old cities of Jerusalem and Hebron on 6/26, prompting Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, to suggest that the Israeli government reconsider its pledge to withdraw from UNESCO by the end of 2018. “I was the first to recommend leaving the organization after the U.S. announced its withdrawal [on 10/12/2017], but now Israel must not ignore the new spirit emanating from UNESCO, and we need to reevaluate, in full coordination with the U.S., the question of leaving,” he said. Netanyahu then called UNESCO’s Director-General Audrey Azoulay to thank her for the postponement and praise her for the fact that UNESCO had not passed any resolutions he deemed anti-Israel for a year. According to a senior Israeli diplomat (8/8), Azoulay invited Netanyahu to meet at some point in 9/2018 to discuss whether or not Israel would consider delaying or reversing its plan to withdraw from UNESCO. “Obviously, we welcome any constructive efforts in our foreign relations,” ShamaHacohen said of the invitation. “But the issue is complicated.”
UNRWA
UNRWA was scrambling this quarter to address the massive budget shortfall caused by Trump’s 1/16/2018 decision to slash U.S. support for the agency. By 6/2018, the U.S. had only disbursed $60 million to UNRWA (compared with $364 million in 2017), and the agency was “weeks away from painful cuts to its emergency assistance for Gaza and elsewhere in the region,” according to UN special coordinator Mladenov. UNRWA commissioner general Pierre Krähenbühl attempted to raise the minimum $250 million necessary to maintain basic services at the agency’s annual donors conference in New York on 6/25, but he was unsuccessful. UNRWA then laid off (7/26) 145 employees in the West Bank and 113 in Gaza. Another 584 full-time employees were offered part-time positions. Without any major new donor support, UN officials said (8/15) that it was unlikely that UNRWA schools across the Middle East would be able to open on time in 9/2018. “We are running on empty,” said (8/15) an UNRWA spokesperson. “We simply don’t have enough money to pay 22,000 teachers who in 711 schools provide a daily education for over half a million children.”
Although UNRWA was unable to secure enough new donor support to mitigate the $250 million shortfall, the agency did announce a number of new donations throughout the quarter. Most significantly, Qatar agreed to pledge $50 million to sustain UNRWA’s education services across the Middle East on 5/16. “This agreement aims to ensure that the provision of basic services to Palestinian refugees is not interrupted,” explained the director-general of the Qatar Fund for Development, Khalifa Bin Jassim Al-Kuwari. Separately, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation decided to establish a “Waqf Fund” to ensure “consistent and sustainable funding” for UNRWA at its summit in Istanbul on 5/18. Islamic Relief USA contributed $2.4 million to support 3,000 refugees in Gaza on 5/24. The Big Heart Foundation, a United Arab Emirates-based charity, gave $100,000 for UNRWA to provide health services in Gaza on 7/2. Austria contributed (8/10) €1 million (approximately $1.157 million) to support UNRWA’s activities in the oPt. Finally, China and Germany pledged (8/8) $2.35 million and €8.4 million (approximately $9.84 million), respectively, in additional funds for UNRWA’s food aid program in Gaza.