Even as it celebrates a second war-time Independence Day in a row Wednesday, Israel is being attacked on several battlefield fronts and, notably, also in various organs of the United Nations.

The Jewish state marks a solemn Memorial Day for fallen soldiers Tuesday night, which will turn into a celebration of the country’s 77th birthday the next evening. The war Hamas launched on October 7, 2023, with an atrocious attack from Gaza quickly drew in Iran-led enemy combatants from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. The conflict is already longer than all of Israel’s past wars. 

The war might last until the next Independence Day, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s closest confidante, Ron Dermer, said in a rare public appearance Monday. A year from now, he told a Jerusalem conference organized by the Jewish News Syndicate, “the seven-front war that began on October 7 will be over. Israel will have won. And I think you will see many peace agreements, either that have been forged, or will be forged in the coming years of President Trump’s presidency.” 

That optimism was not shared at Turtle Bay Tuesday. While Israelis mourned and extolled the sacrifice of those killed in battle, the UN Security Council on Tuesday conducted a routine debate on “the Middle East and the Palestinian question.” One speaker after another denounced Israel’s war conduct and decried the lack of progress in global recognition of a Palestinian state. 

“Today, the promise of a two-state solution is at risk of dwindling to the point of disappearance,” the UN’s secretary general, Antonio Guterres, told the council as the session began. Israel, he said, must “stop the repeated displacement of the Gaza population.” Israel’s “trampling of international law must end,” he added. “I call on Member States to use their leverage to ensure that international law is respected and impunity does not prevail.”

An even more concentrated attack on Israel was launched at The Hague this week. There the UN’s legal arm, the International Court of Justice, convened Monday for a week-long session to address the allegation — first launched by South Africa — that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. 

The hearing was launched with an assault on the legality of a Knesset law severing Israeli ties with the UN Relief and Works Agency —  a body dedicated to aid Palestinian descendants of refugees from Israel’s 1948 independence war that Arabs call “the Nakba,” or catastrophe. 

Israel cannot unilaterally declare UNRWA impartial and deny it cooperation or aid, the UN’s undersecretary general for legal affairs, Elinor Hammarskjold, a scion of the world body’s legendary second secretary general, told the ICJ.  When the UN Charter’s “basic elements are not observed, the very nature of the work of the organization on behalf of its member states is in jeopardy,” she said.  

American jurists might disagree on the UN agency’s virtues. Last week the Department of Justice argued at a Manhattan federal court that UNRWA’s rules and conduct differ from other UN bodies, and is therefore not immune and can be prosecuted in American courts. October 7 Israeli victims are suing UNRWA over its tight relations with Hamas terrorists.      

The ICJ session is nothing but “systematic persecution and delegitimisation of Israel,” Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, told reporters at Jerusalem Monday. “It is not Israel that should be on trial. It is the UN and UNRWA.”

In 1947, the UN General Assembly approved a partition plan for dividing the British-mandated Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Israel accepted the plan and declared independence six months later. The Arabs opposed it and launched a war. Several subsequent attempts at an agreed framework for creating a Palestinian state failed. 

At the UN Tuesday, France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, who presides over the Security Council in April, previewed a joint French-Saudi UN conference, scheduled for June. “Our objective is clear,” he said. It is “to make progress on the recognition of Palestine.”

The UN General Assembly has recognized “Palestine” as a “non-member state under occupation,” but only the security council can approve full UN membership, which is seen as a stamp of approval for statehood. But America, which opposes statehood unless it is agreed by Israel, has so far blocked any council attempt at such recognition. 

The June conference at New York will do “more harm than good,” Israel’s deputy UN ambassador, Jonathan Miller, told the council. It will provide “fertile ground for yet another opportunity to politicize and polarize international forums, deepening the divide, and moving all parties further from peace,” he said. 

In 77 years, Israel has built a thriving state in its ancient homeland. During the same period, Palestinians have gathered ever-more recognition at UN institutions but that recognition has failed to give them the wherewithal to replicate Israel’s feat and build their own state in the Middle East.