When David Ben-Gurion, one of Israel’s founding fathers, was warned in 1955 that his plan to seize the Gaza Strip from Egypt would provoke a violent reaction at the United Nations, he mocked the UN, taking advantage of its Hebrew acronym, like “Um-Shmum.”
The phrase came to symbolize Israel’s willingness to defy international organizations when it believes its fundamental interests are at stake.
Nearly 70 years later, Israel faces another wave of condemnation at the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and dozens of countries for its military operation in Gaza, which has killed some 29,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, and left behind part of the territory in ruins.
The enormous increase in global pressure has left the Israeli government and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, deeply isolated, if not yet buckled, largely because they still have the support of their staunchest ally, the United States.
This time, however, Israel faces an unusual break with Washington. The Biden administration is circulating a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council that would warn the Israeli military against carrying out a ground offensive in Rafah, near Egypt, where more than a million Palestinian refugees are sheltered. I would also demand a temporary ceasefire as soon as practical.
“It’s a big problem for the Israeli government because it had previously been able to hide behind U.S. protection,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. “But now Biden is signaling that Netanyahu can no longer take that protection for granted.”
“There is a broader context of condemnation from international public opinion, which is unprecedented in breadth and depth, and which has extended to the United States,” Indyk said. “All of the progressive, young, and Arab American voters in the Democratic Party have been angry and harshly criticized Biden for his support of Israel.”
So far, President Biden has not allowed domestic or international pressure to sway him. On Tuesday, the United States breached a familiar role, invoking its Security Council veto to block a resolution, sponsored by Algeria, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. It was the third time during the Gaza war that the United States vetoed a resolution that put pressure on Israel.
Since the United Nations was created in 1945, three years before the State of Israel, the United States has used its veto more than 40 times to protect Israel from the Security Council. In the UN General Assembly, where Americans are just one more vote, anti-Israel resolutions are commonplace. Last December, the assembly voted 153 to 10, with 23 abstentions, in favor of an immediate ceasefire.
“As far as Israelis are concerned, these organizations are against us,” Michael B. Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, said of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and other bodies. “What they do does not affect us strategically, tactically or operationally.”
But Oren acknowledged that any break with the United States, its largest arms supplier, its powerful political ally and its main international supporter, would be “an entirely different matter.”
While Israel has been under heavy pressure since the early days of its Gaza offensive, the chorus of voices from foreign capitals has become thunderous in recent days. In London, the opposition Labor Party called for an immediate ceasefire on Tuesday, changing its position from that of the ruling Conservative Party, under pressure from its members and other opposition parties.
Even Prince William, the 41-year-old heir to the British throne, called for “an end to the fighting as soon as possible,” a rare intervention in geopolitics by a member of a royal family that normally stays away from such issues. . “Too many people have been killed,” William said in a statement Tuesday.
Perhaps the most striking example of Israel’s isolation is at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where representatives from 52 countries are lining up to offer arguments this week in a case examining the legality of the “occupation, settlement and annexation” of territories. Palestinians by Israel. , including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Most have been scathingly critical of Israel.
South Africa compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to an “extreme form of apartheid.” The South African government has bought a separate court case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
On Wednesday, the United States once again came to Israel’s defense, imploring the court not to rule that Israel must unconditionally withdraw from these territories. A State Department lawyer, Richard C. Visek, argued that this would make a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians even more difficult to reach because it would not take into account Israel’s security.
But the voice of the United States was lonely and only Great Britain offered a similar argument.
“The truth is quite the opposite,” he said. Philippe Arenas, a human rights lawyer who spoke on behalf of the Palestinians. Noting that the court had already confirmed the Palestinian right to self-determination, he said: “The role of this court – of these judges, of you – is to lay down the law: to detail the legal rights and obligations that will allow for a just solution in the future.” .
a fail by the International Court of Justice would be of an advisory nature only, and Israel has refused to attend these proceedings. But Israel’s defiance of international bodies does not mean that it ignores them completely.
Initially, the Israeli government dismissed South Africa’s genocide claim as “despicable and contemptuous.” There were reports that Netanyahu wanted to send Alan M. Dershowitz, the lawyer who defended Donald J. Trump and financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, to present Israel’s case, a choice that some said would have turned the hearing into a circus In the end, he sent in a high-powered legal team, led by a respected Australian-Israeli lawyer, Tal Becker, who argued that South Africa had presented “a radical counterfactual description” of the conflict.
In an interim ruling in early February, the court ordered Israel to prevent and punish public statements that constitute incitement to genocide and to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches Gaza. But he did not agree to a key request from South Africa: that Israel suspend its military campaign.
Even with the United Nations itself, the Israeli impulse to say “Um-Shmum” only goes so far. Israel frequently maneuvers to torpedo or soften Security Council resolutions because it recognizes they could open the door to sanctions.
In December 2016, Israeli officials pressured Trump, who had just been elected president, to pressure outgoing President Barack Obama to veto a Security Council resolution condemning Israel for Jewish settlements in the West Bank. abstained and the resolution approved).
“They understand that you have to keep global opposition at the level of rhetoric,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who now heads the US/Middle East Project, a research group based in London and New York. “This cannot ever be allowed to enter the realm of costs and consequences.”