UN struggles with itself as Middle East war
fears mount Is the UN too divided to be effective? The setting for this week’s United Nations General Assembly could hardly have been more grim. Many observers this week in New York were adamant that the way the international body will deal with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the tensions in the Middle East will be the make-or-break of whether the institution can survive in the long term. “There is a profound sense of disquiet about how the organisation is headed,” Richard Gowan, UN director of the International Crisis Group, said in a briefing. “From February 2022 until now, we’ve had the perfect geopolitical storm that [caused] why the UN is so divided,” Gowan said. But while Russia’s war on Ukraine was a tough process when it comes to UN diplomacy, “the situation in Gaza has further splintered the UN through much of the last year,” Gowan said. The UN Security Council (UNSC), paralysed by the five veto-wielding powers US, Russia, China, France and UK, has not been successful in efforts to force a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN's top court, and the UN-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) are struggling to enforce court cases against Israel and some of its officials. The UN's main agency for humanitarian support to Palestinians (UNRWA) has struggled with allegations of its Gaza staff being linked to Hamas activity and funding cuts. The UN Security Council emergency session on Friday (27 September), one of the last meetings of the week, warned about the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and highlighted the risk of a regional war due to Israel's bombardment of Lebanon. But while a joint initiative brokered by the United States and France for a 21-day ceasefire to fighting in Lebanon - later joined by the European Union and several Arab states – has so far not caught on, there are some glimmers of hope. The proposal for a halt in fighting, which would have typically required weeks of diplomatic efforts, was put together in UN conference rooms and New York hotel suites in a matter of two days. US President Biden said that a full-scale war is still possible, but added “there is also a chance - we are still in the game to reach an agreement that can fundamentally change the entire region." Another initiative, a new international coalition to seek a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, co-hosted by Saudi Arabia, the EU, Norway and a series of other countries, also gained traction on Thursday (26 September) despite Israel’s absence from the talks. Warnings of world leaders in the chamber this week to avoid a regional escalation sounded hollow as Israeli fighter jets bombarded Hezbollah’s position across Lebanon while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN after rejecting the ceasefire initiative. “The truth is that the [UN] Security Council has systematically failed in relation to the capacity to put an end to the most dramatic conflicts that we face today: Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a recent interview with Al Jazeera. A large number of UN member states are calling for reform of the paralysed body and are asking for an increase in the number of permanent members. According to UN diplomats, this week’s request by Japan, India, Germany, Brazil, and two African countries to become permanent members has started gaining traction but is likely to remain a distant goal for the next years. | 