America's UN ambassador rips world body's insidious anti-Israel bias

Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, this week sounded an unusually strong—and therefore welcome—warning about the continuing bias against Israel in the corridors of the world body.

On a visit to Israel, Power spoke publicly about the experience of ZAKA, an Israeli humanitarian aid organization, in its efforts to gain accreditation at the U.N. After describing Zaka’s venerable record of assistance — not just in Israel, but in New York after the 9/11 atrocities and in Haiti after the devastating earthquake in 2010 — she pointed out that when, in 2013, the agency applied for accreditation to the U.N.’s NGO committee, it was flatly denied. It took another five attempts before the same committee until the accreditation was granted, thanks to pressure from Power herself along with Israeli diplomats. 

In the same speech, Power reflected that “bias has extended well beyond Israel as a country [to] Israel as an idea.” In particular, she noted the insidious role of the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. Power said, “The only country in the world with a standing agenda item at the Human Rights Council is not North Korea, a totalitarian state that is currently holding an estimated 100,000 people in gulags; not Syria, which has gassed its people—lots of them. It is Israel.” 

It should be remembered that the Human Rights Council was created in 2006 to replace the old Commission on Human Rights. At the time, the outgoing U.N. secretary general, Kofi Annan, expressed hope that the new council would break with the past, by preventing serial human rights abusers from gaining membership as easily as they had with the previous commission, and by shifting away from the excessive focus on Israel. Power’s remarks confirm that this goal has yet to be attained. 

She’s right, too, about the bias in the U.N. against Israel “as an idea.” The roots of the rot go very deep.