Israel’s former defense minister and top general argues the U.N. distorts facts, applies double standards, and empowers Hamas while ignoring Israel’s humanitarian efforts. For decades, Israel has tried, sometimes against our better instincts, to work with the United Nations. I have personally sat in numerous meetings with U.N. officials, painstakingly negotiating frameworks to ensure humanitarian aid reached civilians in Gaza. I oversaw budgets, coordinated secure passageways for convoys, and approved daily discussions with U.N. representatives about food, medicine, and fuel. We made these efforts not for Hamas’s sake, but because, as Israelis, we recognize the sanctity of human life, even beyond our own side of the battlefield.
Despite these efforts, the very organization we enabled to deliver aid has repeatedly turned against us. Instead of acknowledging Israel’s unprecedented humanitarian measures, the U.N. issued routine condemnations. Their resolutions read less like acts of diplomacy and more like indictments prepared in advance. This is not neutrality. It is hostility, dressed in the language of international law.