The End of the United Nations

An obituary for the United Nations is bound to be premature. The U.N. may never actually die, if only because it is worth more alive than dead to its most powerful members—or rather, member. A case in point: Last November, Donald Trump, who has heaped more contempt on the U.N. than any other U.S. president since its founding, sought the blessing of the Security Council for his personal bid to end the Israel-Hamas war. The council agreed to his Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, 13 votes to none. (China and Russia abstained.) Trump can now claim—and apparently wished to claim—that his Board of Peace, which will direct this ill-fated plan, enjoys U.N. legitimacy even though no other permanent member of the Security Council has agreed to join it.

But just how alive does that make the U.N. and its chief diplomatic instrument today? The Security Council agreed to remove itself from a grave Middle East conflict in favor of a privatized body concocted by a world leader who regularly makes a mockery of the U.N. guiding principles. The plan to which it gave its imprimatur offers no role to Palestinian bodies and no long-term solution Palestinians can accept. It does, however, provide many veto points to Israel, whose actions in Gaza, according to an independent U.N. inquiry, constitute genocide. Only the United States and Israel regarded the plan’s terms as just. Why, then, the vote? Because there was no better choice. As one intensely critical report on the decision noted, “Trump’s plan constituted the only available mechanism for ending the suffering and stabilizing the situation on the ground.”

An obituary for the United Nations is bound to be premature. The U.N. may never actually die, if only because it is worth more alive than dead to its most powerful members—or rather, member. A case in point: Last November, Donald Trump, who has heaped more contempt on the U.N. than any other U.S. president since its founding, sought the blessing of the Security Council for his personal bid to end the Israel-Hamas war. The council agreed to his Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, 13 votes to none. (China and Russia abstained.) Trump can now claim—and apparently wished to claim—that his Board of Peace, which will direct this ill-fated plan, enjoys U.N. legitimacy even though no other permanent member of the Security Council has agreed to join it.