A UN vote on Palestine underlines America’s weakening clout
“THE RUSSIANS are not the bad guys any more. Now it’s the Americans.” Thus, explains a European diplomat at the UN, the war in Gaza is eclipsing the one in Ukraine. These days many countries are wary of criticising Russia’s aggression. Instead their outrage is directed at Israel and, increasingly, at America for arming and protecting the Jewish state. The accusation of Western double standards, gleefully amplified by Russia and China, resonated across the halls of UN headquarters on September 18th as the General Assembly adopted a far-reaching resolution to exert pressure on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories within a year. It passed with an overwhelming 124 votes in favour to 14 against (and 43 abstentions).
The war is hastening the broader realignment of global forces: America, stretched by multiple crises, is losing its old supremacy. Russia has recovered the military initiative and is determined to disrupt the America-built order. China hopes to refashion it to its liking, convinced of its own inexorable rise. And lesser states seek opportunity in the space created by competition among the big powers.
This new world disorder will be on display as leaders gather in New York this week for the UN’s annual summitry. Much about the talkfest is, inevitably, theatre. The Security Council is increasingly paralysed by the rivalry between the big powers. Even so, the diplomatic battles reflect the shifting power balance of the world beyond, and affect it.
Lawfare and warfare
As Hamas battles Israeli troops in the ruins of Gaza, its rival, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which runs a patchwork of autonomous territories in the West Bank, has been waging a diplomatic and legal fight against Israel in international courts and institutions. Doubling as the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, the PLO may be weak, corrupt and besieged at home. It is nevertheless advancing abroad in the face of opposition from Israel and America.
Palestine is the oldest obsession at the UN. In 1947 the organisation voted to partition the British-ruled territory into a Jewish state, creating Israel; and a Palestinian one, which neither diplomacy nor war has yet been able to establish. Many members regard Palestine as the last great anti-colonial cause; many in Israel see the UN as anti-Israeli, if not antisemitic. The recently departed Israeli ambassador, Gilad Erdan, wore a yellow star, a symbol used by the Nazis to identify Jews, to protest against the UN’s failure to condemn Hamas formally for its attack on October 7th.
One front in the international battle has been the creeping recognition of Palestine as a quasi-state at the UN. It currently ranks as a non-member observer, akin to the Holy See. In May, after America vetoed Palestine’s bid to become a full member, the General Assembly conferred several new privileges on the Palestinians, including the right to submit resolutions.
Another front has been legal. Two recent rulings by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s judicial body, have turbocharged the campaign against Israel. In January an interim ruling appeared to give some credence to South Africa’s submission that Israel was committing acts of genocide (the case is separate from war-crimes accusations against Israeli and Hamas leaders by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court). In July the ICJ issued an advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip—territories it captured in 1967—was illegal.
Using their new privileges, the Palestinians tabled a resolution at the General Assembly, intended to give force to the ruling. It tells Israel to withdraw from all Palestinian land, sea- and air-space; dismantle Jewish settlements; return seized property; and pay reparations. It also calls on countries to create an international register of damages, similar to one being set up by the Council of Europe, a regional group, to prepare Ukrainian claims against Russia. Furthermore, countries are urged to impose arms embargoes on Israel; restrict trade in products from Jewish settlements; and impose travel bans and asset freezes against “natural and legal persons” maintaining Israel’s occupation.
The resolution was passed with the support of Russia and China, but also some American allies, including France and Japan. Israel and its small band of loyal friends—among them America and some Pacific island states—opposed it. Britain, Canada and Australia abstained.
The resolution will not end the bloodletting in Gaza. Nor will it create a Palestinian state. General Assembly texts are not binding on members, and would be vetoed by America if presented to the Security Council. Still, it could encourage more countries to recognise Palestine as a state, as Ireland, Norway and Spain did in May. It could also encourage more arms embargoes against Israel, such as the partial one imposed by Britain this month.
More extreme upheavals are possible. The Palestinians could make another bid for full membership, which America would again veto. The General Assembly might then resort to the nuclear option: stripping Israel of its voting rights in the body, as it did with apartheid-era South Africa in 1974. Such a move would provoke fury from America’s Congress, which could decide to halt its funding for the UN. An existing law already commits Congress to stop payments to any UN body that treats Palestine as a full member. America remains the UN’s biggest contributor, paying for about a third of its spending, counting both mandatory and voluntary contributions.
Palestinian officials say legal and political pressure on Israel is the best alternative to a wider war. For Israel, it is the flip-side of a campaign to delegitimise and ultimately destroy the Jewish state. “The Palestinians work with both arms,” says Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN. “Hamas commits terrorism on the ground. The Palestinian Authority commits diplomatic terrorism.”
American officials, struggling to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, say the Palestinian move is “unhelpful”. They argue a Palestinian state can be created only by agreement with Israel, not by outsiders imposing a settlement. It does not help that the resolution comes ahead of the UN summit and in the final weeks of the American presidential election campaign. But discomfiting America may be precisely the point.
Having thrice vetoed Security Council resolutions demanding a halt to fighting, America in June secured the council’s support for its own three-phase ceasefire plan to stop the war, release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and rebuild Gaza. America hopes there will later be a “credible path” to Palestinian statehood. For months American officials have claimed that the deal is close, yet the fighting goes on. Both Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader hiding in Gaza’s tunnels, seem to think time is on their side. America seems unable or unwilling to impose a ceasefire on Israel; has little purchase on Hamas; and President Joe Biden’s hand is weakening as his term comes to an end.
As for the war in Europe, Ukraine enjoyed Palestine-like levels of support at the General Assembly for the first year of Russia’s all-out invasion, such was the shock at the blatant breach of the UN Charter’s injunction against taking territory by force. Until February 2023 Ukraine won a succession of votes, with more than 140 countries supporting it and no more than seven backing Russia—a rogue’s gallery including Belarus, North Korea and Syria.
By the summer of 2023, as Ukraine’s counter-offensive faltered, support for Ukraine began to fade. Martin Kimani, a recently retired Kenyan ambassador to the UN, now at the Centre on International Co-operation, a think-tank in New York, notes that Russia’s narrative—that the war was provoked by NATO’s eastward expansion—“found a ready ear” among many in the global south, where suspicions of Western imperialism still run deep. The memory of America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 brought charges of hypocrisy. Since the war in Gaza, though, anti-American feeling has intensified. The West stands accused of caring more about carnage inflicted by Russia than by Israel.
On the back foot, Western diplomats these days urge Ukraine not to submit resolutions, fearing they would expose falling support for it. It does not help that Ukraine abstained in a General Assembly vote in May seeking to advance Palestine’s full membership of the UN. Nevertheless, in July Ukraine presented a resolution about the safety of the Russia-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. It passed with 99 votes to nine, but many Arab and Islamic countries abstained.
Forget me not
Though the Security Council holds frequent and competing meetings on Ukraine, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, admits that “We have to fight to keep Ukraine meaningfully on the radar.” Once friendly to Israel, Russia now positions itself as the champion of the Palestinian cause. “The Russians behave as though they have been exonerated,” says Mr Kyslytsya. For instance, at a session of council on September 16th, the Russian ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, denounced the “horrific” conditions in Gaza, the “arrogance” of Israel, America’s “unconditional support” and the “hypocritical” West. The same day, a Russian glide-bomb struck a block of flats in Kharkiv, killing at least one person and injuring 42.
For all its swagger, Russia has yet to recover from repeated diplomatic snubs, such as losing its seats at the ICJ and bodies such as the Human Rights Council and UNESCO (the education, scientific and cultural body). That said, Russia has thrown its weight around on a growing number of issues. It has helped to push UN peacekeepers out of Mali; halted the supply of UN humanitarian aid to areas of Syria controlled by rebels; and blocked the work of a panel monitoring North Korea’s compliance with UN sanctions. Russia, it seems, does not mind being the spoiler. “We see instability as a risk, as something to fix,” says a Western diplomat. “The Russians see it as an opportunity, and something to exploit.”
China plays an altogether different game, often supporting Russia but at times co-operating with the West, for instance on how to regulate artificial intelligence (AI). In March it co-sponsored an American resolution on AI; America reciprocated by supporting a Chinese one in July.
At the UN, China stands as a defender of state sovereignty against the intrusions of outsiders, for example, in the use of economic sanctions. It reinterprets human rights as the expectation of economic development, rather than individual liberties; and democracy as equality among states rather than the right of people to choose their leaders. It sees itself as the vanguard of the developing world, where it often finds a receptive audience for its interests-first, values-second approach. “Russia does not mind being seen as a wrecker of the system. China wants to remake it in its own image,” says the diplomat.
As the big powers jostle, others seek space to manoeuvre. For instance, India pursues a “multi-aligned” foreign policy, triangulating between its old Russian friend and its newer Western pals. It has refused to impose sanctions on Russia, benefiting handsomely from the resulting trade. Turkey, though a member of NATO, has similarly stood apart from the West.
It is difficult to measure influence. Despite its troubles, “America is still the main game in town,” says Mr Kimani. But Western countries “are much easier to resist now than they were a few years ago”.
Yet many countries, especially those that feel threatened by bullying neighbours, are also drawing closer to America for protection. The war in Ukraine has fortified the NATO alliance. Similarly in Asia, where Japan, Australia and the Philippines have bound themselves more tightly to America, and to each other, fearing China’s military build-up.
In the Middle East mighty Israel has relied heavily on the presence of America’s armed forces to deter a regional war with Iran and its “axis of resistance”, and to help shoot down missiles fired at it. Gulf monarchies, which dislike Hamas, still seek American protection against Iran and several maintain ties with Israel. As for Gaza, only America has any chance of negotiating an end to the war.
Hobbled hegemon
America has belatedly woken up to competition with China for support in the global south amid signs that sentiment is shifting. An opinion survey of 31 countries, conducted for The Economist by GlobeScan, found strong support for Ukraine in many of them. But respondents in India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and Saudi Arabia sided more with Russia. The survey also found strong support for American leadership in the world, though places like Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia leaned towards China.
A separate annual survey of elite opinion in South-East Asia, by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, for the first time recorded a majority saying that if asked to choose between America and China, they would side with China in a crisis. Western diplomats say it has become harder to meet senior figures in Muslim-majority countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia. Some in America’s Congress worry the damage to America’s standing is becoming irreparable, though they also think showing loyalty to an embattled ally will reassure friends worldwide.
A more anarchic world has thrown the UN into a profound crisis. The body is busy, for instance, providing humanitarian aid to afflicted peoples, but it is increasingly marginalised. Even as conflicts rage from Mali to Myanmar, the Security Council is hamstrung. “The challenges we face are moving much faster than our ability to solve them,” warned António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, on September 12th.
Mr Guterres hopes two big talkfests this month will lead to a “stronger and more effective multilateralism”. The Summit of the Future on September 22nd-23rd will seek agreement on a “pact” that would, among other things, steer a path towards the difficult, perhaps impossible, reform of the UN. Then, starting on September 24th, leaders will take part in the “high-level” meeting of the General Assembly—a week of pretentious speeches and quiet diplomacy. Expectations are low. “The UN now suffers from a surfeit of summits,” says Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group, a think-tank. “It is still quite good at getting leaders together to pledge things. The follow-up is typically meagre.”
The Security Council, complains Mr Guterres, is “stuck in a time warp”. It grants veto powers to five permanent members—the “P5” of America, China, Russia (as heir of the Soviet Union), Britain and France—representing the victors of the second world war. Ten elected members, who lack the power to veto decisions, are selected for two-year stints. As great-power enmity deepens, the number of vetoes has risen. Since the start of 2020 Russia has cast a veto 13 times, America six times and China five times (see chart).
The flaws are ever more glaring. There is no permanent seat for India, the world’s most populous country; nor for Japan and Germany which, though not nuclear powers, have larger economies and populations than either Britain or France. America has long supported giving each of these three countries a permanent seat. It has also endorsed a permanent seat for Latin America and the Caribbean, and one for Africa (without specifying which countries should hold them). On September 12th Linda Thomas-Greenfield, America’s ambassador to the UN, went further, saying the US supported the establishment of two permanent African seats, as well as one for small island states, such as Pacific countries, threatened by climate change. Few believe America or any other P5 members want to share power, but America’s move seems calculated to wrong-foot China.
Crucially, America says none of the new permanent members should have a veto. That may upset India, in particular, which is pushing hard for equality with the P5. “If we expand that veto power across the board, it will make the council more dysfunctional,” said Ms Thomas-Greenfield. Instead, she suggested, countries should focus on reducing the use of the veto. In 2022 the General Assembly changed its rules so that countries wielding the veto had to come before it to explain why. This mild shaming has had little effect.
Seeking order in the chaos
Diplomats say Russia, ever the spoiler, has entered 135 amendments and reservations to the draft text of the Pact for the Future. They include removing mention of the evils of “aggression” and of climate change as a threat to peace and stability. It also wants to excise calls for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Others will have objections, too. In the end, however, members will probably weaken the text and then, as one diplomat puts it, “hold our nose” and adopt it.
Meanwhile, alternative international institutions are emerging. The BRICS group of non-Western states, dominated by China and Russia, has expanded to nine countries, and will hold a summit in Russia next month. Though a disparate lot, one thing that binds them is the common desire to break their dependence on the American dollar and Western payment systems.
A fluid, multipolar international order, says Mr Kimani, is welcomed by many states. “Competition among big powers offers countries many opportunities. What one power will not give you, another might.” That may explain why some at the UN seem to be untroubled by the possible return to power of Donald Trump. But would an increasingly transactional international system with a weakened America really create a more equitable world? Instead, as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza seem to warn, it may be one that is far more chaotic and dangerous for all. ■