Is UN always against us?

The common perception in Israel is that the United Nations is invariably against us. The UN is seen by Israelis as inherently anti-Semitic and filled with hate towards our state. It is certainly true that fierce and even excessive criticism is directed against Israel at the UN, and that much worse human rights abuses by dictatorships are routinely ignored. Nevertheless, Israelis tend to overlook other crucial factors in our relationship with the international body.

Contrary to what some Israelis believe, the UN was not founded for the purpose of harming Israel and the Jewish people, but rather, with the aim of solving humanity’s problems. These days, the UN agenda is preoccupied with helping underdeveloped countries and improving the ecological environment, especially through fighting global warming.

The UN has decided that every developed country must contribute 0.7% of its GNP annually, to help underdeveloped countries where poverty and illiteracy levels are high, life expectancy is low, and diseases like AIDS and Ebola are common.

According to the UN's Human Development Report, most developed countries don't contribute the required 0.7%. In fact, only Norway, Denmark, Luxemburg and Sweden do so. But every developed country does contribute something to this cause - including countries like Portugal and Greece whose GNP is the lowest in the Western world. (Ironically, the least generous country among the developed world’s donors is the United States, which contributes only 0.17% of its GNP to the UN’s anti-poverty fund.)

Israel is the only developed country that doesn't contribute anything at all, even though Israel's GNP is larger than Portugal's and Greece's. Yet the UN has turned a blind eye to Israel’s on this front and allowed it to avoid its obligations without being rebuked.

As part of its campaign against global warming, the UN summoned a meeting in Japan in 1997 in what became known as the Kyoto Protocol and determined that every developed country must cut its emissions to their 1990 levels. Underdeveloped countries, however, were permitted to continue developing without reducing their emissions.

Though the United States and Australia refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, every other country, including Israel, did sign the agreement. However, Israel insisted on being included among the underdeveloped countries – which means, of course, that Israel wouldn’t be required to cut its emissions and could continue to pollute at current levels. Given the pace of Israel’s development, underdeveloped status is hardly appropriate. Yet once again the UN turned a blind eye and allowed Israel to escape its obligation.

However, Israelis ignore these and other examples of UN indulgence of our inappropriate behavior. It is, after all, much more satisfying to complain about the unfairness of the UN, rather than examine our own failures to behave as good world citizens.