The UN vs Israel

There’s an old joke about the United Nations having a football team. ‘But who would they play?’ it goes. ‘Why, Israel of course.’

There may not be much humour in it, but there’s plenty of truth. Despite Israel being set up by UN vote, it has been the world’s premier forum for Israel-bashing, particularly since the country won wars of self-defence in 1967 and 1973.

Perhaps the most notorious moment was the ‘Zionism is racism’ resolution in 1975, when the foundations of the Jewish state were suddenly under assault. On that occasion the late great Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan gave one of the best counter-blast speeches ever given on the floor of the UN. As did Chaim Herzog, the father of Israel’s current president. But at that point, as at so many other times, Israel’s enemies were greater in number than its friends by a significant margin. The victorious majority was led by that great campaigner for social justice Idi Amin.