NICHOLAS WOODE-SMITH: UN continues to fail Israeli women

June 19 is International Day for the Elimination of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, an initiative promoted by the UN. Yet, despite paying repeated lip service to condemning sexual violence and the abuse of innocents, the UN has continually ignored, allowed and enabled Hamas to get away with its systematic rape and torture of Israeli women, men and even children.

That Hamas engaged in widespread and mass sexual violence on October 7, and after, is indisputable. The video evidence published by Hamas itself, forensic evidence, and survivor and witness testimony should be enough to convince everyone but the wilfully ignorant that Hamas is not just a terrorist organisation but also an institution that uses rape as a weapon of war.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for the leaders of Hamas, with one charge being the use of sexual violence in the context of war. On top of this a UN senior official published a report showing that conflict-related sexual violence did occur on a mass scale.

Despite this, the UN still refuses to place Hamas on a list of groups suspected of committing sexual violence during conflict. Member states, many of which are guilty of conflict-related sexual violence themselves (notably Russia), continue to condemn Israel while sabotaging isolated attempts from within the organisation to hold Hamas accountable.

The UN recently placed Israel on a list of states that violate the rights of children in exposing them to war. Hamas was also placed on the list, which is a small compromise. Yet, should Israel really be placed on the list when it is Hamas using children as human shields, hiding their operations in civilian areas, including schools and nurseries? Hamas has wilfully sacrificed the lives of children for its sick cause. Israel did not choose to harm children while Hamas keeps throwing the youth into the thresher.

Double standard

The UN has repeatedly treated Israel unfairly. There has been neither a concerted effort to condemn Hamas for the atrocities of the October 7 attack on Israel nor a demand for the freeing of the remaining hostages.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) itself is broken, overseen by representatives of dictatorships and human rights abusers who leverage the prestige of the organisation to vent their ideological hatred of the Jewish state.

The council disproportionately attacks Israel, which is the freest, most liberal, most tolerant state in the Middle East. While women are treated like property and LGBTI+ individuals are put to death throughout the Arab world, the UNHRC focuses most of its energy on attacking Israel. This is while China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe have never been condemned, despite those nations participating in mass violence against their own people.

The UN not only treats Israel unfairly while giving Hamas a tacit pass to rape and murder, it also enables and aids in sexual violence. UN peacekeeping has an endemic sexual violence problem, with repeated reports of UN peacekeepers using their positions to abuse and rape the very women they’re meant to be protecting.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), a division of the UN that exclusively exists to privilege Palestinians and their anti-Israel cause, has been directly linked to imprisoning hostages, aiding Hamas and abetting terrorism. UNRWA workers participated in the October 7 massacre and the kidnapping of women. Released hostages have reported that they were held by UNRWA officials.

The UNRWA is functionally an extension of Hamas, and the UN is funding it. That an entire division of the UN exists purely for one group of people is beyond unfair; the UNRWA should not exist at all.

The UN and global community have proven again and again that they will not come to Israel’s aid. They will continue to condemn Israel for defending its right to exist, and its right to save its people.

The recent rescue of four hostages by the Israeli Defense Force, one of whom Hamas had lied about being dead, shows that Israel knows how to protect its own people. And it must continue to rescue innocents, without caring what a belligerent, biased and hateful UN has to say about it.

The UN is fundamentally broken, existing as a tool for the worst governments in this world to condemn decent democracies, while pushing for their own power. That needs to change. On this International Day for the Elimination of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence let us remember how the UN has failed not just Israel, but all of the women of the world.

• Woode-Smith is a political analyst, economic historian and author who has written extensively on the Israel-Hamas conflict.