When David Ben-Gurion, one of Israel’s founders, was warned in 1955 that his plan to seize the Gaza Strip from Egypt would provoke a backlash at the United Nations, he mocked the UN, playing on its Hebrew acronym, as “ Um – Smoo.
The phrase came to symbolize Israel’s willingness to defy international organizations when it believes its core interests are at stake.
Nearly 70 years later, Israel is facing another wave of condemnation from the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and dozens of countries over its military operation in Gaza, which has killed an estimated 29,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, and left much of the territory in ruins.
The massive build-up of global pressure has left the Israeli government and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, deeply isolated, if not bowed down, largely because it still has the support of its staunchest ally, the United States.
This time, however, Israel faces a rare rift with Washington. The Biden administration is circulating a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council that would warn the Israeli military against a ground attack on Rafah, near Egypt, where more than a million Palestinian refugees are taking refuge. It would also require a temporary ceasefire as soon as possible.
“It’s a big problem for the Israeli government because in the past it has been able to hide behind the protection of the United States,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel. “But now Biden is signaling that Netanyahu can no longer take that protection for granted.”
“There is a broader context of condemnation from the international public, which is unprecedented in scope and depth, and which has spread to the United States,” Mr. Indyk said. “The Democratic Party’s progressive, youth and Arab-American constituencies are outraged and harshly criticizing Biden for his support for Israel.”
So far, President Biden has not allowed international or domestic pressures to sway him. On Tuesday, the United States failed in a familiar role, invoking its Security Council veto to block a resolution, backed by Algeria, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. It was the third time during the Gaza war that the United States vetoed a resolution putting pressure on Israel.
Since the United Nations was founded in 1945, three years before the state of Israel, the United States has used its veto more than 40 times to shield Israel from the Security Council. In the UN General Assembly, where Americans are just another vote, anti-Israel resolutions are commonplace. Last December, the assembly voted 153 to 10 with 23 abstentions in favor of an immediate ceasefire.
“As far as the Israelis are concerned, these organizations are stacked against us,” said Michael B. Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and other bodies. “What they are doing does not affect us strategically, tactically or operationally.”
But Mr Oren acknowledged that any rift with the United States, its biggest arms supplier, powerful political ally and main international defender, would be “a whole different kettle of fish”.
While Israel has been under heavy pressure since the early days of its Gaza offensive, the chorus of voices from foreign capitals has become thunderous in recent days. In London, the opposition Labor Party on Tuesday called for an immediate ceasefire, reversing its position from the ruling Conservative Party, under pressure from its own members and other opposition parties.
Even Prince William, the 41-year-old heir to the British throne, called for “an end to the fighting as soon as possible,” a rare intervention into geopolitics by a member of a royal family that usually avoids such issues. “Too many were killed,” William said in a statement on Tuesday.
Perhaps the most striking display of Israel’s isolation is at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where representatives of 52 countries are lining up this week to offer arguments in a case examining the legality of Israel’s “occupation, settlement and annexation” of Palestinian land. , including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Most have been harshly critical of Israel.
South Africa has likened Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to an “extreme form of apartheid”. The South African government has bought a separate court case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
On Wednesday, the United States once again defended Israel, asking the court not to rule that Israel must withdraw unconditionally from those territories. A State Department lawyer, Richard S. Visek, argued that this would make a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians even more elusive because it would not take Israel’s security into account.
But America’s voice was a lone voice, with only Britain offering a similar argument.
“The truth is just the opposite,” he said Philippe Sands, a human rights lawyer who spoke on behalf of the Palestinians. Noting that the court had already affirmed the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, he said, “The function of this court — of these judges, of you — is to state the law: to determine the legal rights and obligations that will only allow a solution to the future”.
The decisions of the International Court of Justice are advisory only and Israel has boycotted these proceedings. But Israel’s disdain for international organizations does not mean it ignores them completely.
The Israeli government initially dismissed South Africa’s claim of genocide as “abhorrent and despicable”. There were reports that Mr. Netanyahu wanted to send Alan M. Dershowitz, the lawyer who defended Donald J. Trump and the financier and sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, to present Israel’s case — an option that some said he would have turn listening into a circus. In the end, he sent a powerful legal team, led by a respected Australian-Israeli lawyer, Tal Becker, who argued that South Africa had presented “a sweeping counter-narrative” of the conflict.
In an interim ruling in early February, the court ordered Israel to prevent and punish public statements that constitute incitement to genocide and to ensure that humanitarian aid enters Gaza. But he did not accept a key South African demand: that Israel suspend its military campaign.
Even with the United Nations itself, the Israeli urge to say “Um-Shmum” only goes so far. Israel often maneuvers to torpedo or weaken Security Council resolutions because it recognizes they could open the door to sanctions.
In December 2016, Israeli officials lobbied Mr. Trump, who had just been elected president, to pressure the outgoing president, Barack Obama, to veto a Security Council resolution condemning Israel for Jewish settlements in the West Bank ( the United States abstained and it was voted).
“They understand that you have to keep global opposition at the level of rhetoric,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who now heads the US/Middle East Project, a research group based in London and New York. “You can never let it get into the realm of cost and consequence.”
