SAUNDERS: Israel vote proves U.N. as irrelevant as a campus protest

Public opinion on the Oct. 7 attacks that killed 1,200 in Israel has flipped among Gazans, according to a recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. A majority of Gazans now believe the Hamas terror spree was incorrect, Reuters reported last week. That’s a first.

And yet, last week the United Nations approved a non-binding resolution — by a 124-14 vote — that demanded Israel end its “unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory.”

The United States and Israel provided two of the 14 no votes to the Palestinian-drafted measure; 43 countries abstained.

“The United Nothing,” scoffed Andrew Tucker, director general of The Hague Initiative for International Co-operation — thinc — as I sat with Tucker and other thinc staff Thursday.

“Pretty much everything that the U.N. has ever done on Israel is non-binding.” Tucker believes the purpose of these U.N. votes is to “win the PR war.”

So while Israel defends its right to exist, the U.N. shows itself to be increasingly irrelevant with non-binding measures to undermine the only democracy in the Middle East.

It’s disappointing to go through the votes of countries that preen about their superior politics — yet their leaders can’t even stand against a resolution that doesn’t do anything.

Canada abstained. The U.K. abstained. Germany abstained. The leaders of these august nations rightly bristled when then-President Donald Trump downplayed the importance of NATO. And here they are, ducking in plain sight.

Australia abstained. Sweden abstained. Switzerland, too. And it’s barely a story.

Iran voted for the resolution — as would be expected, given Tehran’s funding and support for the Oct. 7 massacre.

But Japan voted in favor of the anti-Israel resolution, along with France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Iceland and Spain.

Sad. As Tucker noted, “The world knows it needs Israel, and yet at the same time, there’s a diplomatic war against Israel.”

It’s as if there are two homes in America for magical thinking on the Middle East: U.N. Plaza and college campuses.

“It feeds into antisemitism on the campuses,” Tucker said of the U.N. vote. Activists who toss out phrases like “genocide” and “apartheid” will have a new talking point: “illegal occupation.”

Olimpia Galiberti, a researcher with thinc, sees TikTok’s hand in campus protests that support boycotting, divesting and sanctioning Israel. Students who get their “news” from social media don’t know much about Israel’s history or its vital role in checking Iran.

So kudos to the 12 countries that voted with Israel and the U.S.: Argentina, Czech Republic, Fiji, Hungary, Malawi, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tonga and Tuvalu.

They’re hardly the big names in Turtle Bay, and yet they’ve shown the common sense lacking among the pecksniffs of London, Paris and Berlin.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.