Behind the Headlines: Rogue States at the UN

The whole world voted against U.S. sanctions on Cuba — except the U.S. and Israel.

International Law on a “Knife’s Edge”

The U.S. and Israel are aligned in their disregard for international law. While the U.S. continues to shrug off the General Assembly’s opinion on Cuba, Israel has done more than just ignore the UN. It’s criminalizing it.

Last week, Israel passed two bills banning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from operating in Palestine, including in the “apocalyptic” northern strip of Gaza, where the entire population is at risk of “imminent death,” per UN officials. UNRWA provides healthcare, schooling, aid, and more to stateless Palestinians.

Norway has called the UNRWA ban a breach of international law and is initiating a General Assembly resolution requesting the UN’s highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), to advise on Israel’s obligation to facilitate aid.

In January, the ICJ already declared that Israel has an obligation to prevent genocide and facilitate aid. In July, the court ruled that Israel’s entire occupation of Palestine is unlawful and tantamount to apartheid. Israel’s disregard for that ruling, UN experts have warned, leaves “the edifice of international law [standing] upon a knife’s edge.”

Chris Sidoti, a member of the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, was one of many experts who expressed frustration at Israel’s ongoing disregard for international law last week.

“Our reports, the decision of the International Court of Justice, four resolutions passed by the Security Council … resolutions as part of the General Assembly, none of those have resulted in a single child not being killed,” he said. “That’s the reality that confronts the whole United Nations system today.”

Last week, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese reiterated her recommendation that Israel be unseated from the General Assembly, as South Africa was in 1974, in part because of its “unprecedented attack” on the UN. She expressed frustration not just at Israel, but at allies like the U.S. who hold tremendous leverage over it. The U.S. has sent $22.8 billion in military aid to Israel in the past year alone.

“For over one year, I have pleaded to all concerned parties, particularly those states who can exert more influence on the state of Israel, to take concrete actions to stop the destruction of Gaza, the destruction of the Palestinian people,” Albanese said. “Had international law been respected … this would have stopped. Instead, the silence, or worse, the justification by a small but influential number of states has continued to enable and to nurture the hubris that leads Israeli conduct as we speak.”

Nobody at the UN was buying the U.S. argument for sanctions anyway.

Even Argentina, expected to align with the United States against Cuba, voted for the resolution when Foreign Affairs Minister Diana Mondino apparently defied rabidly pro-U.S. President Javier Milei. Mondino lost her job over the vote.

Only one country stood by the United States: Israel.

Responding to Terror…or Creating It?

Israel claims its ban on UNRWA is justified because the organization played a role in the Oct. 7 attacks — an allegation echoed by U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield at last week’s Security Council meeting. An independent report said Israel lacked evidence for such allegations, though UNRWA dismissed some staff members following an internal investigation into the matter. When the allegations were first made, a litany of top UNRWA donors suspended their funding. All have since resumed, save the U.S.

Allegations of terrorism have also justified U.S. aggression toward Cuba. The U.S.’s designation of Cuba as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” was cited repeatedly during General Assembly speeches last week. While in office, President Obama removed Cuba from this terrorism blacklist and worked to normalize relations between the two countries, becoming the first U.S. president in 90 years to visit the island 90 miles south. The U.S. abstained from the UN vote in the final months of his second term.

“Instead of isolating Cuba, as President Obama has repeatedly said, our policy isolated the United States, including right here at the United Nations,” Samantha Powers, Obama’s ambassador to the UN, told the General Assembly in 2016. “After fifty plus years of pursuing the path of isolation, we have chosen to take the path of engagement.”

If Obama took a step forward in relations with Cuba, Trump took two steps back. As president, he tightened restrictions on travel and trade, allowed lawsuits to proceed under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act — a long-dormant piece of legislation considered a blatant violation of international law — and added Cuba back to the “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list. The U.S. returned to its isolationism in the UN as well.

Smirking at the Law

In January, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the General Assembly that the only way out of the current tumultuous, fractured reality is through multilateralism. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israel remained committed to unilateralism – and each other.

Shortly after the vote last week, Stéphane Dujarric, Guterres’s spokesperson, was asked if he would urge the U.S. to comply with the resolution condemning sanctions on Cuba. His sigh was audible. “We urge for all member states to follow all resolutions,” he said. Next question.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, doesn’t seem particularly concerned about behaving like a rogue state. Ahead of the vote, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked if he knew it was taking place. “I didn’t have it on my bingo card,” he said.

When asked how the U.S. would vote, Miller said, “I doubt we’ll be voting to condemn ourselves,” and laughed.