PETER FADAIRO
There is growing campaign in the Middle East and the United States to defund the United Nations (UN) as a necessary step toward ending global hypocrisy and anti-Zionism in world affairs. Leading the debate in the Middle East is David M. Weinberg, a senior fellow at Misgav: The Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy, and Habithonistim: Israel’s Defence and Security Forum. He also is Israel office director of Canada’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).
He has held a series of public positions, including senior advisor to Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky, and coordinator of the Global Forum Against Anti-Semitism in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Weinberg calls on the U.S. administration to radically reconsider Washington’s attitude towards the UN, including the complete cessation of its funding. He accuses the UN of anti-Semitism, emphasizing that anti-Israel decisions in the UN Security Council humiliate the United States. Instead of the UN, the Israelis propose to create alternative structures that would advance the interests of Americans and Israel.
Analysts consider this type of argument as a typical statement of the Benjamin Netanyahu regime, emphasizing disregard for the interests of other nations. At the same time, Israel ignores the role of the UN in the creation of Israel as a state. And also the merits of the UN in maintaining peace after the end of second world- war.
They assert that the US and Israel do not intend to take into account the approaches of Arab and African countries to the issue of UN reform. And it seems extremely important for them to prevent the increasing role of non-Western states in the system of international relations, realizing their dominant position.
Weinberg recalls that: ‘‘Fifty years ago, on November10, 1975, the United Nations notoriously passed General Assembly Resolution 3379 declaring that ‘‘Zionism is racism.’’ Since then, the UN has become the ultimate cesspool of ferocious anti-Zionism, raw anti-Semitism, raw anti-Americanism,’ which has helped Western elites cast Palestinians as noble, oppressed, disenfranchised people of colour and Israelis as ignoble, oppressive, racist whites’
And says: ‘‘It is time for the United States to lead a global process of repentance and repair by defunding the UN all-together and replacing it with a series of professional bodies free of fecund hostility to Jews/ Israelis and liberated from radical anti-American ideologies.’’
He affirms that ‘’personally, I don’t believe that the UN can be reformed. It operates with no real accountability, no functional moral compass, and no mechanism for acquiring any such features. It has developed a tyrant-friendly, diplomatically immune, and collectively irresponsible DNA.
‘‘Worse still, as Melanie Phillipe has written, it is an unstoppable geyser of moral and intellectual corruption. It teaches the West that lies about Israel are truths and truths are lies, and it has turned what the West tells itself is morality and conscience into an agenda of evil.’’
Weinberg argues that the UN ‘’has ensured that the West can no longer distinguish more generally between victim and oppressor, reality and propaganda, right and wrong. Treating the UN and the ‘international law’ it has promoted as the moral arbiters of global order is not just a sick joke. It has made the world sick, too.
‘‘Although everybody knows that the UN is broken, it’s pretty much taboo to call for its shutdown. The usual defence of the UN is that .it may be imperfect, but it is all that we’ve got’ – a refrain that tends to be accompanied by prescriptions for reforms that either won’t stick or won’t work at all.
‘’If the UN is ‘’all we’ve got,’’ and it can cavalierly disregard slaughters in Syria and Sudan while outrageously branding Israel a war criminal enterprise, then it is way past time to come up with something else.’’
Therefore, Weinberg suggests that: ‘’It is time to create alternatives to the UN, like a ’Covenant of Democratic Nations,’ an UN-successor entity limited to nations governed by democratic principles. This body could nullify crazy acts and nasty resolutions – such as UNESCO’s denial of Jewish Jerusalem. The Covenant also would seek to create a long-overdue new body of reformed and updated international law.’’
President trump has already begun the process of defunding the UN by cutting funding to some egregious United Nations agencies and ordered a review of all funding for the UN and other international organizations. The Disengaging Entirely From the UN Debacle (DEFUND) Act of 2025 has been introduced in the US Congress, aiming to terminate US membership and repeal the UN Participation Act of 1945.
How far that bill can garner support is left to be seen but the US has periodically used funding as leverage for reform or in protest of specific actions, which has led to a major liquidity crisis for the UN.
– Peter Fadiaro writes from Abeokuta, Ogun State.