September’s UN Gabfest Expected To Deepen Turtle Bay’s Anti-Israel Inertia

An annual late September gathering at the United Nations is expected to provide little solace for anyone hoping to trim the world body’s fat or end its Israel obsession. The September 22 annual gabfest, known as the UN General Assembly general debate, will be overshadowed this year by the race to replace retiring Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who departs effective January 1, 2027. As yet, the race resembles “The Pitch” episode from Seinfeld: As George Castanza tries to persuade TV industry executives of his TV show’s worth, he devolves into a pitch “about nothing.”America is seeking a non-traditional candidate to lead Turtle Bay from the world of business, several sources tell The New York Sun. No such person has emerged publicly yet. After two straw polls of the 15-member Security Council, a frontrunner among the current eight declared candidates has not emerged. A separate General Assembly highlight this year will be a celebration of the 25th anniversary of an anti-racism conference at Durban, South Africa. The 2001 gathering there turned into an ugly anti-Israel hatefest. A quarter century later, and even more so since the October 7, 2023, massacre, some of the original themes at Durban are now conventional wisdom at Turtle Bay and beyond. A top organ aiding Palestinians, the UN Relief and Works Program, was badly infiltrated in Gaza by Hamas. Last month the inspector general at Washington’s Agency for International Development listed more than 100 current or former UNRWA staff as participants in the October 7 terrorist atrocities that launched a Mideast-wide war. One of President Trump’s first executive orders in his second term was to ensure that “we are no longer going to send money to this UN agency in Gaza, you know, commonly called UNRWA,” America’s ambassador to Turtle Bay, Mike Waltz, told Just the News last week. America is not alone in shunning that agency. On Monday Finland became the 16th country to cut UNRWA funding.Mr. Guterres, though, strongly supports the agency — as do the leading candidates to replace him. Inertia is also informing a systemwide attempt to fend off American initiatives to trim the UN bureaucracy. Any attempt to force significant budget cuts, change global priorities, or reverse the world body’s knee jerk anti-Israel bias seems like an uphill battle.UN Chief Race: Any Takers?September 18 is the date for a third secretive straw poll, evaluating support for the eight candidates vying for the UN chief post. Last week one of these candidates, a former Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet, publicly acknowledged she would likely lose her bid to lead the institution. Yet, in perfect illustration of UN inertia, Ms. Bachelet refused to drop from the race.A new candidate considering a late entry to the race must jump in quickly after the September 18 straw poll, a former UN official, Daniel Safran-Hon writes on X. If the current frontrunners fail yet another straw poll, he adds, the council might schedule a quick follow-up even before heads of state begin speechifying at the General Assembly. A former Costa Rican deputy president turned top UN official, Rebecca Grynspan, led the first straw poll on July 30. Her support waned on August 21, when in a second poll a former foreign minister of Guyana, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, took the lead. Both frontrunners, though, failed to receive nine supporting votes at the council. Such a majority is needed to approve a nomination. “The international community,” Ms. Rodrigues-Birkett told the Security Council in January 2025, “must do all in its power to safeguard UNRWA’s role in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” She was Guyana’s UN ambassador at the time and conformed to the majority anti-Israel bias. Ms. Grynspan, who is Jewish, was more cautious than her competitor earlier this year when she was urged by Arab ambassadors to defend UNRWA. Aid, she told the General Assembly, should never be used as a weapon. It was seen as a clear reference to allegations that American and Israeli disclosures about UNRWA’s complicity with Hamas terrorism are political, rather than factual. Even as support for the frontrunners is weak, a new candidate entering the race at this point could prove tricky. The next straw poll might be color-coded, which would identify the five veto-wielding council members. Any negative vote from one of the permanent council members would kill a candidacy.Durban: Laundering AntisemitismThe 2001 conference on racism at Durban would have garnered more attention had it not been overshadowed by the September 11 terrorist attacks of that year. It became notorious afterward as a precursor to today’s growing “anti-Zionism” that is often indistinguishable from classic antisemitism. A notorious 1975 UN resolution that equated Zionism with racism was a “Soviet-Arab concoction,” a former head of the American Jewish Committee, David Harris, said in a UN Watch conference last week. In comparison to that now-repealed resolution, he said, the Durban conference “was much more sophisticated: Wrapping its agenda in a mantle of political progressivism, of the language of human rights.” That marriage between heated anti-Zionist tropes and widely-agreed human rights issues is widely expected to dominate the Durban anniversary on September 28. The 2001 conference was “a tipping point for the laundering of antisemitism at the UN,” Canada’s former justice minister, Irwin Cotler, says. Budgets: Can America Stop the Bleeding?Last month the Department of State informed Congress that it intends to transfer $725 million to the UN coffers. That is less than 20 percent of $4 billion annual American dues, according to a UN assessment. Several steps must be taken before more funds are paid, according to a letter by Mr. Waltz’s deputy for UN reform, Jeff Bartos, which was first reported by Devex. Washington’s demands include an overhaul of the UN pension system, ending expensive travel perks for officials, reducing the number of senior officials, and cutting at least 10 percent of the institution’s long-standing defunct peacekeeping missions. “The charge from the president is to clean this place up and get it working for the American people,” Mr. Waltz told Just the News. Mr. Trump’s much-anticipated September 22 speech at the General Assembly is widely expected to stress America’s expectation for the UN to rise to its potential. He will follow Brazil’s President Ignacio Lula da Silva, who is more likely to demand staying the course of a wasteful, anti-American and anti-Israel institution.

September’s UN Gabfest Expected To Deepen Turtle Bay’s Anti-Israel Inertia

September’s UN Gabfest Expected To Deepen Turtle Bay’s Anti-Israel Inertia

More from the New York Sun

Trump Gets His Day in Court To Fight Convictions for Hush Money Payments to Stormy Daniels

After Years-Long Debate, Airbnb Restricts Hosts’ Ability To Require Guests To Do ‘Onerous’ Chores

Security Crisis Casts Shadow Over Boxing Championship, High-Profile WWE Matches Scheduled at Riyadh

Federal Judge Strikes Down New York’s Body Armor Ban

Old-School Thieving on New York’s Mean Streets

Pollsters Warn MAGA Voters Are Being Undercounted and Blue Wave is an Illusion

Ireland Scraps ‘Demeaning’ Ad Warning Grandparents Against Hugging Their Grandchildren

Larry David Was Right To Call Out Socialist Absurdity, but I Wish He Were Funnier

More from the New York Sun

Trump Gets His Day in Court To Fight Convictions for Hush Money Payments to Stormy Daniels

After Years-Long Debate, Airbnb Restricts Hosts’ Ability To Require Guests To Do ‘Onerous’ Chores

Security Crisis Casts Shadow Over Boxing Championship, High-Profile WWE Matches Scheduled at Riyadh

Federal Judge Strikes Down New York’s Body Armor Ban

Old-School Thieving on New York’s Mean Streets

Pollsters Warn MAGA Voters Are Being Undercounted and Blue Wave is an Illusion

Ireland Scraps ‘Demeaning’ Ad Warning Grandparents Against Hugging Their Grandchildren

Larry David Was Right To Call Out Socialist Absurdity, but I Wish He Were Funnier