At a Crossroads
The United Nations is both an arena for the pursuit of justice and a theatre for political manipulation.
On Monday, 27 January 2025—Holocaust Memorial Day—Israel’s President Isaac Herzog delivered a stark warning to the United Nations: the institution stands at a crossroads. Reflecting on his father Chaim Herzog’s legacy, President Herzog invoked a profound familial and national history tied to the UN—a history marked by both triumphs and grave disappointments.
Chaim Herzog, as Israel’s ambassador to the UN, became a defining figure in 1975 when he vehemently opposed the infamous “Zionism is Racism” resolution (UN General Assembly Resolution 3379). In a powerful act of defiance, Herzog tore the resolution apart in his speech, calling it a “lie” and a “desecration of Jewish history.” The resolution was finally repealed in 1991, thanks to relentless efforts led by figures like U.S. Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who called the original resolution an “abomination.” This long battle exemplifies both the UN’s capacity for injustice and its potential for redemption.
President Herzog’s speech underscored the dichotomy at the heart of the United Nations: it is both an arena for the pursuit of justice and a theatre for political manipulation. At its best, the UN represents hope for a more just world, a place where nations unite to prevent atrocities and promote peace. At its worst, it enables hypocrisy, allowing oppressive regimes to exploit its mechanisms while democracies face disproportionate scrutiny.
The UN’s treatment of Israel has long embodied this paradox. While Israel has faced relentless condemnation in UN forums, the same institution has consistently failed to hold accountable some of the world’s worst human rights violators. This moral inconsistency was central to President Herzog’s address, challenging the global community to reconsider the UN’s moral compass.
Yet the UN is not alone—other transnational organizations and non-governmental bodies have also seen their credibility eroded by selective activism and institutional failure. These failures expose a broader crisis of legitimacy among institutions that once commanded trust but are now increasingly viewed as compromised and politically motivated.
The Three Monkeys: Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil
The proverb of the “Three Wise Monkeys” encapsulates wilful ignorance—the refusal to acknowledge uncomfortable truths. This imagery is particularly apt in assessing the responses of major international organizations such as Amnesty International, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to global crises, especially those involving Israel.
- Hear No Evil – Amnesty International, once a beacon of human rights advocacy, has increasingly turned a deaf ear to Israeli suffering while amplifying accusations against the Jewish state. Its selective outrage undermines its credibility, as it routinely ignores incitement, terrorism, and human rights abuses committed by groups openly dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
- See No Evil – The UNHRC, with its numerous agencies and commissions, routinely ignores atrocities committed by autocratic regimes while relentlessly scrutinizing Israel. Rather than being reformed by their inclusion, these regimes use their positions to deflect criticism and entrench their repression. Meanwhile, Israel—the Middle East’s only democracy—faces an obsessive and disproportionate focus, remaining the only country permanently singled out for condemnation while genuine human rights violators go unchecked.
- Speak No Evil – The ICRC, mandated to uphold humanitarian principles, has demonstrated a troubling double standard regarding Israel. While it is quick to criticize Israel’s defensive actions, it remains silent on violations committed by groups like Hamas. This bias is most glaring in the ICRC’s failure to visit the hostages taken intoGaza on 7 October 2023. While it is accepted that Gaza remains a stronghold of violent extremists who revel in their war against the Jewish State, the ICRC’s failure to even attempt a visit is a dereliction of duty. Worse still, its continued silence is a moral abdication, calling into question its judgment, capacity and commitment to its own humanitarian mandate.
This neglect represents a profound moral and operational failure. By not fulfilling its core mandate in these instances, the ICRC’s impartiality and commitment to humanitarian principles are called into question. Organizations with noble missions risk enabling injustice through selective morality. To maintain credibility as impartial defenders of human rights, they must address all violations comprehensively, without bias.
Manifest Failings
Amnesty International has also demonstrated clear bias. In February 2022, it released a report titled “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity,” accusing Israel of apartheid—a claim widely condemned as politically motivated. Israeli officials denounced the report as “false and biased,” while the U.S. State Department dismissed its conclusions as “absurd.” The German Foreign Ministry rejected Amnesty’s use of the term “apartheid”, calling it unhelpful and inflammatory. Rather than applying consistent human rights standards, Amnesty International has increasingly peddled politically motivated narratives, undermining its credibility.
The ICRC, mandated to maintain neutrality in conflicts, has repeatedly been accused of bias regarding Israel and Hamas. During the 2023 Hamas-Israel war, the ICRC faced criticism for disproportionately highlighting the suffering of Gazan civilians while downplaying the plight of Israeli victims. It also failed to secure access to Israeli hostages held by Hamas, violating its own humanitarian mission. If an organization designed to protect civilians in war cannot uphold its own basic principles, it loses the moral authority to operate as a neutral entity.
The UNHRC has a long history of disproportionately targeting Israel while downplaying or ignoring far more egregious human rights abuses. Qatar, despite its seat on the Council, has been condemned for its abuse of migrant workers and suppression of press freedom. Sudan, which held a UNHRC seat from 2021 to 2023 under military rule, continued to commit violent crackdowns on protests and war crimes in Darfur. Kenya, despite its election to the Council, has faced accusations of arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances of government critics. Yet Israel remains the only nation with a permanent agenda item—Agenda Item 7—ensuring it is routinely condemned regardless of actual events on the ground.
Agenda Item 7: The UNHRC’s Institutionalized Bias Against Israel
Agenda Item 7 is uniquely dedicated to scrutinizing Israel at every UNHRC session, making it the only country in the world subject to permanent, institutionalized scrutiny. Established in 2006, it mandates that Israel be automatically debated under the heading “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.” This structure presupposes Israeli wrongdoing rather than assessing human rights violations objectively. Meanwhile, all other nations—regardless of their human rights records—are reviewed collectively under Agenda Item 4, shielding serial violators such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela from comparable scrutiny.
This systematic bias has led to an overwhelming number of resolutions condemning Israel, while ignoring severe abuses committed by Palestinian authorities, Hamas, and oppressive regimes worldwide. In October 2022, for example, the UNHRC rejected a proposal to debate China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, despite credible reports of mass internment, forced labour, and repression of Uyghur Muslims. Yet, in the same session, Israel remained a primary target of condemnation. This blatant double standard enables dictatorships and theocratic regimes to escape accountability, while Israel—the Middle East’s only democracy—is relentlessly vilified, regardless of the facts on the ground.
Many democratic nations and legal scholars have condemned Agenda Item 7 as discriminatory and politically motivated. In 2018, the United States and Australia called for its abolition, with U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley denouncing the UNHRC as a “cesspool of political bias.” Canada, Germany, the UK, and the European Union have similarly criticized the Council’s disproportionate focus on Israel, warning that it undermines the credibility of global human rights institutions. The UNHRC claims to defend universal human rights, yet its continued enforcement of Agenda Item 7 exposes a compromised institution, reinforcing diplomatic hostility toward Israel while allowing some of the world’s worst human rights violators to act with impunity.
Withhold Funds: Anticipate the Usual Tricks
Uncritical financial support has corrupted once-respected institutions, shielding them from scrutiny and accountability. Amnesty International, the ICRC, and other global bodies no longer uphold the standards that earned them trust—they have been infiltrated by activists who weaponize their influence for political agendas rather than their original mandates. Instead of neutral arbiters of human rights, they have become vehicles for selective advocacy and agenda-driven litigation. If these institutions refuse to correct course, donor nations must reconsider funding, demand transparency, and enforce accountability.
The Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of Creative Destruction—the dismantling of outdated institutions to make way for progress—is equally relevant to global governance. Stagnant, compromised institutions that resist reform must face obsolescence. The United Nations and its affiliates must recognize that their legitimacy depends not on their history or reputation but on their willingness to evolve—or be replaced. However, these organizations will not relinquish power without resistance.
Malicious compliance—adhering to reform demands while subverting their intent—will be their first line of defense. Expect superficial reforms, bureaucratic smokescreens, and symbolic gestures designed to placate donors while preserving the status quo. Institutions will manufacture crises, claiming that funding reductions will bring catastrophe—a classic Henny Penny “the sky is falling” routine.
Bloated, unaccountable organizations do not collapse when funding is cut—they adapt, streamline, or give way to better alternatives. As pressure for reform mounts, they may introduce committees, oversight panels, and token investigations, creating the illusion of accountability while entrenched ideological biases remain untouched. The strategy is simple: delay, dilute, and deflect.
To break this cycle, real accountability must replace symbolic appeasement. Bureaucrats engaged in malicious compliance must be identified and removed, sending a clear message that obstruction will not be tolerated. Funding must be conditional on measurable benchmarks, external audits, and enforceable consequences for institutions that continue to prioritize politics over their mandates. The world must reject fearmongering and scripted alarmism—international human rights depend not on preserving failed systems, but on their willingness to reform or be replaced.
A Boost to Morale
The failures of these institutions are well-documented, backed by objective evidence of systemic dysfunction. However, this does not mean that everyone within them is complicit. Many dedicated individuals work tirelessly to uphold their missions, only to become disillusioned by a toxic culture where poor leadership enables bad actors to operate with impunity.
Nothing is more damaging to morale than witnessing corruption, bias, and incompetence go unchallenged. When accountability is absent, even the most committed professionals lose faith in the system they once believed in. Organizations do not fail because of the good people within them—they fail when those people are undermined, sidelined, or forced to conform to a broken culture.
The solution is clear: keep the apple, remove the worms—but if the rot runs too deep, replace the apple altogether. Some institutions may be salvageable with strong leadership, decisive action, and the removal of entrenched corruption, allowing the remaining core to flourish once again. Others, however, may be beyond saving, their structures too compromised to function as intended. In such cases, clinging to a diseased apple only prolongs the inevitable decay. Where reform is impossible or resisted, new institutions must emerge—built on the same noble principles, but free from the rot that doomed their predecessors.
At the Crossroads
President Herzog’s warning is clear—the United Nations, along with Amnesty International and the ICRC, stand at a crossroads. Once trusted champions of human rights and global stability, these institutions have, in many cases, devolved into ideological echo chambers, prioritizing political agendas over their founding principles.
The world is watching, and the stakes could not be higher. These institutions have a rare opportunity to reclaim their founding mission, but reform cannot be achieved through superficial adjustments or symbolic gestures. Accountability must come first. If reform fails, it will not merely disappoint member states and donors—it will betray the very ideals of justice, accountability, and global peace that these institutions were created to uphold.
The choice is clear: reform or irrelevance.
Michael Scott CSC is the CEO and Founder of The 2023 Foundation Ltd, a charity dedicated to combating antisemitism and fostering peaceful coexistence. He is not Jewish.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the positions of the Australian Defence Force or the Commonwealth Government of Australia.
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