https://www.wrmea.org/israel-palestine/u.n.-delegates-endure-one-speech-and-walk-out-on-another.html
Delegates walk out as Prime Minister of Israel Binyamin Netanyahu prepares to speak during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the United Nations headquarters on Sept. 26, 2025, in New York City. World leaders convened for the 80th session of UNGA, with this year’s theme for the annual global meeting being “Better together: 80 years and more for peace development and human rights.” (MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES)
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November/December 2025, pp. 13-15
United Nations Report
By Ian Williams
THE “TRUMP” PEACE PLAN is less than the mixed bag that some Panglossian commentators suggest: it is a string bag with far more holes than fabric. Like all other plans that Israel signs up for, its major premise is to bypass the United Nations and all accepted international norms and treaties to produce a “negotiated” settlement. As we said many years ago when President Bill Clinton called for U.N.-free negotiations between the parties, this is tantamount to a referee who is overtly taking sides, putting a toddler in the dojo with a champion Sumo wrestler, while saying let the best man win. In short, it is based on lies.
President Donald Trump has once again negotiated with himself and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to produce the alleged Gaza settlement. Netanyahu got his way in the end by getting Trump to rewrite the deal that the Arab monarchs had agreed to even while alleging that it had their approval, but even then the Israeli prime minister was clearly surprised that, as a sop to the autocratic Gulf states, Trump had the temerity to demand Israel stop bombing. After all, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has money, but when did it last gift-wrap a Boeing for the president, or offer such lucrative financial possibilities to the extended Trump family?
Even the sheikhs have to pay some regard to their domestic constituencies, and it is clear that none of the Gulf states can officially countenance overt Israeli annexation of Gaza and the West Bank with the consequent ethnic cleansing. So the annexation plans are put on hold for the Gulf while the smiting continues for the rabid and bloodthirsty Israeli electorate.
Despite his initial shock, the Israeli PM soon recovered his sang-froid (it means “cold blood,” remember) and adopted the oldest Israeli tactic—feign agreement and continue bombing.
For the credulous of the world, they have even excavated the maggoty cadaver of the Quartet, charging its last head, Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister and joint author of the lies that started the Iraq War, with supervising the Trump-Netanyahu New Deal. The so-called U.N. Quartet, dead but not yet officially buried, had been contrived to wrap what Kofi Annan called the “unique legitimizing power” of the U.N. around the Israeli wish list.
Showing what they are dodging by excluding U.N. involvement, former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Trump’s plan “manifestly breaches” last year’s International Court of Justice legal opinion that Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is unlawful and should end unconditionally. Unsurprisingly she also noted the complete absence of Palestinian representation in the looters’ cabal proposed to “rebuild” Gaza. Avoiding the cliche of “needless to say,” in fact we do need to say that some explicit mention of which countries have demolished Gaza might have lent some perspective.
But one can almost understand why people might want to discount the U.N. seeing the debilitating result of the interaction between the malign neglect of its founding member and the relative quiescence of its senior leadership. As it hits its 80th anniversary, President Trump’s infantile and petulant speech to the U.N. General Assembly ignored almost every major issue on its global agenda. Presented with the opportunity to present a vision to the world, no matter how skewed, he chose instead to ventilate a string of petty personal grievances and perceived slights, confirming that his vision of the world is, at best, myopic and narcissistic.
His demand for the Nobel Peace Prize would almost be reassuring if it implied any sensitivity to global opinion, but of course it was no more than a bullying hissy fit. Obama, the first Black president, got a peace prize, so Trump wants one too and he will throw his toys out of the crib if he doesn’t get one.
By stolidly sitting it out in the auditorium, delegates showed how far the global community is from mustering a serious challenge to the U.S. It is sad testimony to the enduring hegemony of the U.S. that delegates did not walk out (in droves) as they later did for Netanyahu. However, enduring the speech should not be confused with applause or approbation. Delegates who had made the ultimate sacrifice for their countries by sitting through the speech afterward made odious comparisons with the Trumpathon: Chavez smelling lingering evil on the podium, Fidel Castro’s marathons and Muammar Qaddafi’s fancy-costumed polemic. But at least all these in their own distinctive ways addressed subjects and themes more relevant to the U.N. than Trump’s autistic self-indulgence. A geopolitical highlight was the leaders of Albania and Azerbaijan overheard mockingly congratulating each other on ending the war between them that only Trump knew was being fought.
Humorous anecdotes aside, we have to consider whether the United Nations has reached its sell-by date after 80 years. Far from being a panacea for the world’s woes, it no longer seems to function even as a placebo, failing to resolve global crises from the Middle East to Myanmar, from Ukraine to Sudan. Famously, the organization was intended, not to take us to Heaven, but to stop us going to Hell. But it has been getting very hot here on the threshold.
Little remarked (because it might have rattled Make America Great Again fans), Trump said, “Our country is behind the United Nations 100 percent. I think the potential of the United Nations is incredible. Really incredible. It can do so much. I’m behind it. I may disagree with it sometimes but I am so behind it.”
Observers have to decide whether this is a shrewd commercial appreciation of the effect on his native New York property portfolio of a U.N. exit from the land that had been made available by an earlier property magnate, William Zeckendorf, arguably because it exponentially increased the value of his neighboring real estate.
But while it is easy to see what the U.S. gets from the U.N. in terms of legitimizing Washington’s whims, we can see why there is increasing consideration of the possible advantages of a U.S.-free U.N. On basic U.N. principles, most members get more than they can give up out of membership. The Uniting for Peace procedure provides a mechanism for what could happen if enough members decided to isolate Israel as their predecessors did South Africa.
Back in 1945, the founders of the organization had a recently reinforced lesson from the failure of the League of Nations. Then, they concluded that if no U.S., then no U.N. On many levels that was certainly true then, not least that Washington paid 50 percent of the budget and put up the cash for headquarters in New York. The new organization had several built-in features whose significance has since changed to the extent that it invites reconsideration.
Famously, the organization was intended, not to take us to Heaven, but to stop us going to Hell. But it has been getting very hot here on the threshold.
The Security Council, based on an overall consensus between its dominant members, was vested with huge powers in the organization, which was not the universal global organization it has become, but was composed of “peace-loving” nations who had been part of the Allied coalition and who were unlikely at that stage to have existential differences with the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States). In the beginning universality of membership was not a principle, and many were excluded, deemed to have shown insufficient affection for peace. Reportedly, the first draft of the U.N. insignia deliberately cut off the cone of Latin America to signal disapproval of Argentina and Chile’s lack of support for the allies. Those with a sense of irony might also remember that Stalin insisted on membership for Belarus and Ukraine, which, 80 years later, Putin claims does not exist!
Around the same time, the General Assembly with some misgivings partitioned Palestine and accepted Israel into membership, following promises to abide by U.N. resolutions—which at that time included accepting the return of Palestinian refugees. That established a pattern of recidivist Israeli pledge breaking that has remained consistent to this day.
The U.N.’s core attraction has been “anti-annexation” insurance for members, outlawing the acquisition of territory by force. This is why so many micro-states rushed to join after the invasion of Kuwait, while George H.W. Bush’s friendship with several of their rulers meant that the U.S. dropped its long-standing opposition to membership for postage stamp states. And we should remember that out of respect for the basic principles of sovereignty, Bush senior stopped Desert Storm at the Iraqi border once Kuwait was cleared of Iraqi invaders. However, he also paved the way to devalue sanctions as a tool by imposing such harsh and anti-humanitarian conditions that countries in the end refused to apply them and are still very reluctant to consider them.
Things have changed. Israel has pushed the bounds of that mutual U.N. Charter non-invasion pact and stretched the “guarantees” to breaking point, as has Putin’s invasion and annexation of Ukrainian territory. Trump has made direct threats to Canada and Denmark/Greenland—both NATO members— and Panama. The U.S. has recognized the annexation of the Golan Heights, accepted Morocco’s claims to Western Sahara and is on the way to blessing the seizure of the West Bank. Ronald Reagan broke international law with the invasion of Grenada and George H. W. Bush did the same in Panama–but both left after effecting regime change (unlike Saddam!).
An ominous cloud on the horizon has been an ingenious attempt to flout several different U.N. mandates in one fell swoop: to transfer the people of Gaza to Western Sahara while cementing Morocco’s illegal annexation of that territory. It seems far-fetched, but look where the hazy hints in the Balfour Declaration have taken us.
U.N. members could vote to refuse credentials to Israel and call for a boycott, but they have not yet screwed their courage to the sticking place. While they will walk out on Netanyahu, they sat through Trump. The jury is actively considering the future of the organization but it is gloomy, as they consider a new Secretary General who they will choose on the basis that he, or she, will be a self-effacing nonentity—another António Guterres in fact.
U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is president of the Foreign Press Association of the U.S. He is the author of U.N.told: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More).