Fox News: I know why the UN Security Council is irrelevant to Gaza. I was there when the US stood up for Israel
Published June 16, 2025
On October 7, 2023, like many around the world, I awoke to news of the horrific attacks perpetrated by Hamas against more than 1,200 innocent Israeli, American and other civilians who that day were doing nothing other than going about their lives. The television newscasts were bone-chilling – pictures of mutilated babies; of fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers slain in front of family members; of peace activists murdered in cold blood; and of the taking of 250 hostages, some of whom more than 20 months on are still being held.
Later that day, the United States called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to address this mass terror attack, the largest murder of Jews since the Holocaust. As the American ambassador to the UN responsible for Security Council matters, I represented the United States at the October 8 emergency meeting and demanded the council issue a statement expressly condemning Hamas for the ruthless terrorist attacks.
Unfortunately, Russia, China and a few other council members refused to endorse such a statement. To put it simply, their refusal to call a spade a spade was abhorrent and incomprehensible. Note: To this day, the Security Council has yet to formally declare Hamas a terrorist group.
Going into the October 8 emergency Security Council meeting, there had rightfully been much global sympathy for Israel – and certainly an expectation that Israel would have to respond militarily. However, once Israel took measures to defend itself, a right enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter, many nations, most notably from the Global South, condemned Israel’s response as disproportionate and used it as a rallying cry to further isolate Israel in the multilateral system and beyond.
To me and many of my U.S. government colleagues, this was not unexpected. Since joining the UN in 1948, there has been an unfortunate decline in support for Israel at the world body, a decline that began to accelerate following the period of decolonization in the 1960s. Many former colonies wrongly began to view the Israel-Palestinian conflict through the prism of their own struggles against European colonizers, with Israel viewed as a colonizer and the Palestinians as being colonized.
Israel’s relationship with the UN reached a nadir in 1975, when the UN General Assembly passed a highly politicized resolution equating Zionism with racism, a document that was finally revoked by the UNGA in 1991. Regrettably, efforts by the Palestinians and their supporters to isolate Israel at the UN have not abated and in fact have intensified since October 7, 2023.
During my two-plus years in New York as ambassador, I engaged in a great deal of difficult diplomacy on the situation in Gaza and cast the sole veto of two UNSC draft resolutions related to the war, both of which lacked a clear condemnation of Hamas, a direct linkage of a ceasefire to the release of hostages, and a reference to Israel’s Article 51 rights.
Had these texts been adopted by the council, they would not have delivered an immediate ceasefire or a release of the hostages – but certainly would have given Hamas the time and space to rearm. Other council representatives privately agreed but nevertheless felt increasing pressure from their capitals to produce a council document calling for an immediate ceasefire.
From the beginning of the conflict through the end of the Biden administration, the U.S. regularly proffered creative alternatives on ceasefire language, while most other council members insisted on an explicit reference to an immediate ceasefire. On rare occasions, the council was able to find common ground on Gaza wording when it focused on upholding the principles of humanitarian assistance and protection of civilians.
But when some members opted to abandon council unity and force votes on resolutions containing unacceptable ceasefire language, the U.S. was left with no choice but to exercise its veto. Before each veto was cast, we recognized the potential collateral damage to America’s international reputation; however, in our view the adoption of an unbalanced council resolution would have made a ceasefire neither practicable nor implementable given the highly charged and extremely complex situation on the ground.
In the United States’ view, the establishment of a limited and credible negotiation channel was essential for achieving an effective, durable and sustainable end to the war. While the Biden administration didn’t achieve an end to the war on its watch, it did negotiate a three-phase diplomatic framework to pause the fighting and release the hostages, which was ultimately blessed by the council and backed by the Trump administration.
To this day, one key factor hampering council unity on Gaza is Moscow and Beijing’s exploitation of the situation there for a clear geopolitical end: deflect international attention away from Russia’s savage war against Ukraine. In response to Russian statements in the Council on Gaza, which habitually condemned the U.S. for allegedly facilitating Israeli actions, I constantly reminded council members that Russia was in no position to criticize any country given the horrific war of aggression it was conducting in Ukraine.
I also publicly warned Chinese diplomats that should they continue making false accusations about the U.S. concerning Gaza, I would immediately call out their country’s support to Russia’s military industrial base, refuting Beijing’s fictitious claim that it supports neither party to the conflict. Russia and China must end their politicization of Gaza and either contribute constructively to peace efforts or simply get out of the way.
While I had expected Russia and China to take adversarial positions, I was extremely disappointed that three U.S. partners on the council, Slovenia, Algeria and Guyana, chose to regularly piggyback on Russian and Chinese political shenanigans to push for more urgent council action on the issue. Their aim was to shame the U.S. and compel it to change course from its steadfast support of Israel in the war with Hamas.
All the while, the three had been keenly aware that Washington was conducting sensitive negotiations behind the scenes with Israel, Qatar and Egypt on steps to facilitate a durable end to the fighting and ease civilian suffering in Gaza. But instead of getting fully behind those steps and working with us in good faith, they preferred to ratchet up public pressure on the U.S. and ignore American concerns about how their actions would be manipulated by Hamas and other malign actors in the region – Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis – to the detriment of regional peace and security.
Given persistent council divisions over the war in Gaza, some UN member states continue to lay the diplomatic predicate for a future General Assembly resolution (non-legally binding) calling for sanctions, an arms embargo and other tough international measures against Israel.
Since this tragic conflict began, I have been mystified as to why many UN officials believe that all the U.S. has to do is instruct Israel to end its pursuit of Hamas and then somehow a magical end to the fighting would materialize.
On their part, I sense a genuine reluctance to treat Israel as a legitimate state with its own national security concerns. While the United States does indeed have influence with Israel, it is naïve at best for these colleagues to think America can simply dictate to Jerusalem what it should and shouldn’t do in response to what it perceives as existential threats.
Misguided pressure on the U.S., relentless efforts to isolate Israel, Russian and Chinese diversionary tactics, blatant antisemitism, and a reluctance by some states to compromise continue to stymie the Security Council’s ability to speak with one voice on ending the Gaza war. Until these unfortunate practices cease, the council will remain irrelevant to a resolution to Gaza and the broader Israel-Palestinian conflict.
While no one can ignore the terrible tragedy that is now Gaza, it remains a fact that those UN member states that have influence with Hamas have made a strategic decision not to use it. The hesitancy of many countries over the years to publicly condemn Hamas as a terrorist group has only given it the oxygen it needs to carry on, no matter how much death and suffering Palestinians in Gaza continue to experience.
To end this war, Hamas must disarm and disband. There will not be peace in Gaza until it does. Gazans deserve an opportunity to live in peace and to seek a prosperous future. Hamas’ continued rule will bring them neither.
Fox News: I was Biden's man in the room at the UN Security Council. Don't let Russia, China take over
Published March 21, 2025
Over the last four years at the United Nations, the international community has witnessed an alarming trend of closer collaboration between Russia and China that poses a significant threat to the "rules-based order" the United States helped design back in 1945.
This increased and renewed level of cooperation presents an unprecedented dilemma for the United States and like-minded partners: how to maintain the existing order, warts and all, when two permanent members of the UN Security Council are now working feverishly to subvert it.
To many UN observers, China and Russia have now come to the shared conclusion that the UN has become a tool Washington and its allies regularly use to destabilize their regimes and diminish their global influence. Consequently, the United Nations has become a critical battleground in the current era of "Great Power" competition.
During my two-plus years as the U.S. ambassador responsible for UN Security Council matters, I have seen first-hand at the UN how these two authoritarian powers repeatedly and energetically spread falsehoods alleging:
- The UN’s bureaucracy is beholden to the "West";
- That the U.S. and Europe continue to exploit countries of the global South in "colonial" fashion;
- That the U.S. uses unilateral sanctions to impose its will on the rest of the world;
- And that the Western-led international financial system continues to subjugate the global have-nots.
By propagating these false storylines, Russia and China hope to persuade developing nations that the UN and its associated mechanisms don’t represent their views and values and that a fundamental overhaul of the multilateral system is urgently needed.
It’s not as if there haven’t been warning signs. Since Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine in early 2022 — and the robust international condemnation of it — Moscow has been determined to dispose of the current order, even going so far as to claim there is no such thing as a rules-based order.
It flagrantly violates UN General Assembly resolutions on Ukraine, defying repeated calls from UN member states to withdraw its troops from the country. Almost daily, it uses inflamed rhetoric and nuclear saber-rattling in the UN Security Council to threaten and intimidate nations that express opposition to its war on Ukraine, its illegal military cooperation with North Korea, its blatant interference in democratic elections, and its support for authoritarian regimes committing horrific atrocities against their own people.
While this type of menacing Russian behavior is not new, when viewed in the context of its "no-limits partnership" with China, a burgeoning authoritarian superpower, the world needs to take serious notice.
Since 2016, Beijing has been on a relentless campaign to remake the UN in its own authoritarian image. It has worked zealously to insert into official UN documents language promoting its own domestic ideological and political priorities, such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Security Initiative.
It has prioritized funding the placement of young Chinese nationals in the UN’s Junior Professional Officers program, which trains and develops future UN civil servants. Through this program, the primary goal of Beijing is not simply to develop a cadre of Chinese nationals with UN expertise, but to seed the multilateral system with apparatchiks focused solely on promoting the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.
Playing the long game, China, like Russia, also seeks to devalue the importance of human rights, individual freedoms, and the role of civil society in the UN writ large, quietly chipping away at international standards and norms the United States and the vast majority of UN member states want to preserve. Instead of withdrawing from UN institutions like UNESCO and the WHO, the new administration should double down on its engagement in these bodies to prevent China from dominating critical areas such as AI and responses to future pandemics.
In public and closed-door Security Council meetings, I had many verbal clashes with Russian and Chinese diplomats to firmly contest their propaganda and false narratives which, if repeated often enough, begin to resonate with states not completely familiar with the history and facts related to a given issue.
To woo the Global South, Russia and China typically point to growing economic inequality, the war in Gaza, allegedly unfair restrictions on access to leading technologies, and what they claim is the instability of democracies as proof the rules-based order is failing and that the authoritarian model is the wave of the future.
While most countries of the Global South do not subscribe to these views, it would be incorrect to say there isn’t some growing support for this line of thinking. The Biden administration’s call for UN Security Council reform, and UN Secretary General Guterres’s "Pact for the Future," a blueprint for taking the UN forward, have tried to address some of the demands for change expressed by developing countries.
But, should Russian and Chinese propaganda become mainstream in Global South discourse on the UN, demands for a fundamental overhaul of the rules-based order will certainly grow louder and could severely weaken support for the UN as we know it.
Friends of the United States also warn that current political divisions in Washington and between Washington and its allies are giving Russia and China the upper hand in this struggle. To effectively meet the moment in this evolving, competitive strategic landscape, the Trump administration needs to abandon anti-UN posturing and instead urgently deploy America's unique convening power to renew and strengthen alliances at the UN.
Chinese and Russian diplomats privately acknowledge that one comparative advantage the U.S. has over their countries is our historic, values-based alliances. However, as important as alliances are, they cannot be a one-way street.
The U.S. has a right to expect that partners will not work to undermine its critical security interests. Nations should not expect to continually vote against American policy priorities at the UN without being held to account. It is important that each side understands the other’s expectations.
The U.S. also needs to actively engage the UN press corps. This was something I undertook religiously at UN headquarters, making sure as best I could the U.S. point of view was factored into media reporting. This needs to be a priority. If we don’t consistently push out the U.S. narrative, our adversaries will fill the void and define that narrative in ways that damage our global standing and interests.
Over the last 79 years, the United States has invested substantially in building out the UN and broader international system. Let’s not waste this enormous investment. Let’s make the UN fit for purpose, ensure it continues to live up to its charter’s foundational principles – protecting human rights, saving future generations from the scourge of war, promoting a more just world. We should work with like-minded nations, organizations and peoples to help it survive and thrive in what will undoubtedly be an intense era of strategic competition.
We don’t have a moment to spare.