Despite disagreements between Washington and Jerusalem and tension between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador to the United Nations, told JNS in an extended interview that he has never gotten the sense that Biden would approve an abstention, as former President Barack Obama did, on a Security Council resolution about Israeli settlements in eastern Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.
“No,” Wood said emphatically during a sit-down at UN in New York. “I haven’t seen that at all. The president has been very consistent in terms of our support for Israel across a range of fronts.”
“Are we heading toward a 2016 moment? No,” he told JNS.
Congress has barred funding for the scandal-plagued UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) until at least March, and that ban is widely expected to be extended. President-elect Donald Trump and some of his nominees and allies in Congress have questioned whether US tax dollars should continue to fund the global body.
But as the Biden administration winds down, as does Wood’s tenure in Turtle Bay, the diplomat said that he has no doubt about whether the United Nations can make itself “fit for purpose.”
“Going forward, I’ve come to believe that it is important to maintain the United Nations. If we didn’t have it we’d have to create it, just to have that forum to try to solve problems collectively,” Wood said. “The problem with the United Nations is there is a real stream of antisemitism.”
Both Wood and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, have fought “very hard” against Jew-hatred at the global body, he told JNS. He aims to continue to push the United Nations to reform from the outside after his tenure.
Unlike some of his Israeli counterparts, Wood told JNS that UNRWA is irreplaceable and is the only entity that can carry out its unique mandate. The Jewish state has passed legislation curtailing UNRWA’s presence in Jerusalem and its ability to work in Gaza. Those laws are set to take effect shortly after the Trump administration assumes power.
Regarding Syria, the Security Council had a “productive conversation” behind closed doors and reached an informal consensus about the fall of Bashar Assad, Wood said.
There don’t tend to be such productive closed discussions on sensitive topics, but Syria was an exception, as members of the council felt that the country’s “sovereignty, territorial integrity be respected and that the Syrian people be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.”
Wood’s comment that closed council meetings tend to be less productive contrasts with the theatrical nature of the council’s public meetings, particularly those about Israel and the Palestinians. Critics have increasingly said that the council fails to tackle major challenges, resorting instead to public recriminations of geopolitical rivals, with a West against East divide on full display.
“To be honest with you, the council actually does function,” Wood said. “We do get some things done, but on the bigger issues of peace and security, sometimes it’s difficult because of the divisions of the council.”
Since Oct. 7, Washington has grown increasingly isolated at the council for its refusal to call, as the other 14 members have, for a permanent ceasefire without the condition of Hamas releasing the hostages in Gaza.
The Biden administration has used its veto power, as a permanent member of the council, four times to thwart resolutions that would have ordered an end to the war. It abstained on a resolution in March — to great objection from Jerusalem — calling for a short-term ceasefire and phased-in hostage deal, but that resolution passed without any effect once the Ramadan holiday, upon which it was structured, ended a few weeks later.
“Our support for Israel is ironclad, and that comes across, of course, in our public statements but also in closed consultations,” he said.
“There are countries that try to take advantage of the situation,” he said, referring apparently to Russia and its allies, which consistently attack the United States at the council. “We have said for a long time that the best way to get a ceasefire in Gaza is to make sure that we have a resolution that addresses not only a ceasefire, but hostage release.”
“There are some countries on the council that don’t like that particular framework,” Wood said. “We have insisted.”
“We’ve heard so much about the so-called ‘axis of resistance.’ I think what we’re seeing now is it’s become an axis of impotence,” Wood told JNS.
Wood defended the Biden administration’s position, for which it has been widely criticized, that Israel hasn’t done enough in providing humanitarian aid to Gazan civilians. Wood said that Washington was right to demand in October that the Jewish state make some changes.
“Many will say they didn’t adhere to what we had requested, in particular, specific things that were requested, but I think in its totality, Israel did a lot,” he said. “We’re starting to see an improvement.”