Israel versus the UN: How it got this bad
Israel versus the UN: How it got this bad Submitted by Daniel Tester on Thu, 07/16/2026 - 13:18 Amid the genocide in Gaza, already tense relations between the United Nations and Israel have reached a new low A Palestinian boy holds a sack of flour at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) aid distribution centre in Gaza City in April 2013 (AFP) On Israeli forces seized the last…
Relations between Israel and the United Nations have been fraught with tension for decades. Despite becoming a full member of the UN in 1949, Israel has never been elected as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. The UN has played a role in several Arab-Israeli conflicts, including the 1967 and 1973 wars, through resolutions such as 242, 338-340, and 3379, which denounced Zionism as racism.
In 1978, the UN established the UN Interim Force in Lebanon following Israel's invasion. However, Israel's tensions with the UN escalated in the past two decades as it withdrew from various UN agencies due to what it perceives as bias against it. Notably, Israel was involved in the pullout of funding from UNESCO in 2017 after the organization designated the Ibrahimi Mosque in the occupied West Bank as an endangered World Heritage Site.
The ongoing conflict in Gaza has further strained the relationship between Israel and the UN, leading to the recent seizure by Israeli forces of the last remaining UN facility in occupied East Jerusalem.
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