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‘Absurd’: UN Condemned Israel Twice as Often as All Other Countries Combined in 2023
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks at the UN headquarters in New York City, US, before a meeting about the conflict in Gaza, Nov. 6, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
The United Nations General Assembly condemned Israel twice as often as it did all other countries combined in 2023, according to UN Watch.
The Geneva-based NGO, which monitors the UN, found that the General Assembly last year passed 14 resolutions singling out Israel, while passing only seven condemning other countries. The international body passed two measures against Russia and one each against North Korea, Myanmar, Syria, Iran, and the United States.
Notably, there were zero resolutions passed condemning countries such as Venezuela, Lebanon, China, Saudi Arabia, or Iraq — or terrorist groups such as Hamas — all of which have poor human rights records or committed extensive war crimes last year.
The UN focusing a disproportionate amount of its time on Israel is a long-standing trend. Since 2015, the General Assembly has passed 141 resolutions condemning Israel, which is more than double the number of condemnatory resolutions targeted at all other countries combined. And since 2006, the UN Human Rights Council has passed 104 resolutions against Israel, as opposed to 99 against other countries.
The resolutions condemning Israel in 2023 included two statements saying that its presence in the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, was illegal; an affirmation that the security barrier in the West Bank “severely impedes the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”; and a more general assertion that the UN “deplores those policies and practices of Israel that violate the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories.”
Two of the General Assembly resolutions condemning Israel were specifically tied to its defensive war in Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Those measures did not mention the Palestinian terror group or condemn the Oct. 7 onslaught, in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 others taken as hostages.
Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, called the ratio of condemnatory resolutions “absurd” in a statement, arguing that “the purpose of the lopsided condemnations is to demonize the Jewish state.”
“This demonization fuels the antisemitic agitators in America today and around the world who are threatening Jews on campus, at community centers, and at their businesses,” he added.
Neuer also questioned the European Union’s commitment to equally applying human rights standards, pointing out that “while France, Sweden, and other EU states have supported nearly all of the 14 resolutions adopted against Israel during this General Assembly session, the same European nations have failed to introduce a single UNGA resolution on the human rights situations in China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria, or on 170 other countries.”
His criticism came on the heels of widespread scrutiny of another UN body — UN Women, which describes itself as a “global champion for women and girls” — for its prolonged silence on the extensive gender-based and sexual violence against Israeli women during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
The UN agency for gender equality and women’s empowerment released on Nov. 25 its first statement about the Hamas atrocities — 50 days after the onslaught took place. A week later, on Dec. 1, the agency condemned the Hamas attacks for the time, saying it was “alarmed” by accounts of systematic sexual violence and supported an investigation into the matter.
The criticism reached its apex in November, when UN Women’s deputy executive director did not directly answer a question when asked on CNN why she would not “specifically call out Hamas and the mounting evidence” of mass rapes and sexual violence, including torture, perpetrated against Israeli women and girls.
More than half the countries on the executive board of UN Women are non-democracies, such as Afghanistan. Similar concerns have been expressed about the UN Human Rights Council, whose executive board includes countries such as China, Pakistan, and Sudan — as well as the General Assembly, of which only 44 percent of its members are free democracies, according to Freedom House.
The post ‘Absurd’: UN Condemned Israel Twice as Often as All Other Countries Combined in 2023 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.