Why is the dispute burning between Israel and the United Nations?

Verbal escalation, inadmissibility, premeditated attacks against peacekeeping forces: relations between Israel and the United Nations have never been so execrable. Why these hostilities? We asked the question to Romuald Sciora, researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) and author of the book Who wants the death of the UN?.

Eight days ago, peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were attacked and injured by the Israeli army. Is this common?

No. This is the first time that peacekeepers have been intentionally targeted by a democracy that is part of the Western bloc. We have already seen peacekeepers taken hostage, targeted by more or less authoritarian regimes or failed states. We have already seen democracies question the role of peacekeepers and raise their voices on the ground. But this is the first time that we have seen a deliberate act, and without denial on the part of the people who committed it.

Why do you think the Israeli army targeted UNIFIL?

The official arguments are that Hezbollah has built underground shelters where weapons are located near bases and stations [de la FINUL]. They want to dislodge the peacekeepers to storm Hezbollah’s hideouts. But to be completely frank, these lairs are already emptied of their weaponry. I think it’s also about getting rid of somewhat annoying observers, which wouldn’t be a bad thing for Israel. Attacking the UN is also a way of humiliating the international community and presenting it with a fait accompli, that is to say: I, Benjamin Netanyahu, will stop at nothing, since anyway, I am unconditionally supported by the United States.

French President Emmanuel Macron is one of the rare heads of state to have reacted to the attacks on UNIFIL. This week, he reminded Netanyahu that Israel owes its existence to the UN. The latter replied that Israel rather owed its existence to the “war of independence” of 1948. Who is telling the truth?

God knows I often criticize Macron’s foreign policy, but he was rightly vocal. Israel was legally recognized as an independent state by the international community through Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947 of the United Nations General Assembly. Netanyahu is not completely wrong: it is not only thanks to this resolution that Israel was able to survive, since, in fact, it was thanks to the war which subsequently opposed him to the Arab States that Israel consolidated its position on the territory given to it. But this war, which according to Netanyahu is the birth certificate of Israel, follows Resolution 181 by several months.

The attacks against UNIFIL crown several months of tough verbal exchanges between Israel and the UN. Netanyahu ended up declaring that UN Secretary-General António Guterres was persona non grata on Israeli territory. Why all this animosity?

There have been more than 50 UN Security Council resolutions against Israel in over 60 years, none of which have been followed by action. There have been more than 200 resolutions or motions from the UN system that have never been respected by Israel. Each time the secretary general has raised his voice towards Israel. And Israel has very often criticized the United Nations. It has been a national sport for the Israeli right to criticize the UN for years. But today, Netanyahu mainly attacks the United Nations because it is an easy target. The political UN no longer represents absolutely anything today on the international scene, Guterres has no influence, except on humanitarian matters. Attacking Guterres allows us to say loud and clear to the international community that we think there is a form of interference against his policies. It also offers a virile posture that pleases Netanyahu’s far-right allies and part of Israeli public opinion.

Many deplore the impotence and inaction of the UN in the current conflict in the Middle East. Does this institution still have its reason for being? Is the UN brain dead?

We must differentiate the political UN from the UN system. The political UN, as we dreamed of it in 1945, is dead and will not rise from its ashes. The era of multilateralism is coming to an end, for me it is a settled story. On the other hand, the UN system itself, with its large humanitarian and communicating agencies – I am thinking of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) which is very active in many countries, I am thinking of UNICEF for children, UNESCO for culture, I am thinking of UNAIDS, UNWOMEN, I am obviously thinking of the WHO – this system will continue to work for, I think, a very long time to come. But the political UN is moribund and will not recover, whatever happens…