Israel’s ex-PM Yair Lapid urges UN-style alliance of democracies

In 2021, while I was serving as Israel’s foreign minister, the U.N. General Assembly passed a series of resolutions against Israel. A year later, in 2022, when I was prime minister, the General Assembly passed yet another series of resolutions against Israel.

Nobody cared. No one burst into my office waving a piece of paper in panic. We didn’t huddle in front of the television, holding sweaty hands and waiting for the vote. Israel’s U.N. ambassador didn’t call me, choking back tears, to confess he felt like a failure. The fact that the U.N. meets and votes against Israel is like rain in London: that’s just what it does. They gather, deliver the same speech as last year, vote the same way as last year, and then head to dinner at Wolfgang’s on Park Avenue. 

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The idea for the United Nations was born out of a desire by democratic nations to promote liberal values and human rights. Its foundation is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 21 declares that the organization will advance democracy around the world, so that everywhere there will be “periodic and genuine elections… guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the people.” It only lacks five words: Or you won’t be admitted.

A mix of post-colonial guilt and ideological laziness led the U.N. to admit more and more non-democratic states. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, of the U.N.’s 193 member states, only 25 are “full democracies,” with another 46 “flawed democracies.” In other words, in every vote, on every budget, in every resolution, non-democracies hold an automatic majority. And they use it without the slightest qualm.

That’s how Iran sat on the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women in 2022, as Mahsa Amini was murdered. Syria chaired the Conference on Disarmament in 2018 while gassing its own citizens. North Korea presided over that very same disarmament conference in 2022 while openly brandishing nuclear weapons and firing ballistic missiles at Japan. China currently serves on the Human Rights Council — apparently because it cares so deeply about human rights.

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And all this before we even touch the U.N.’s obsessive bias — sorry, there’s no better word — against Israel. I am the last person to claim Israel is perfect or mistake-free. I disagree with most of what the current government does, especially in Gaza (I supported the strike in Iran and the operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon). Still, the U.N.’s treatment of Israel is the diplomatic equivalent of a psychotic episode. Israel makes up 0.1% of the world’s population, yet accounts for more than 60% of the U.N.’s condemnatory resolutions in the past decade.

In 2023, the year Hamas launched the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the General Assembly passed 15 resolutions against Israel, and only eight against all other countries combined. This was no anomaly. Over the last decade, the General Assembly has passed 187 resolutions against Israel, and only 86 against the entire rest of the world combined. In that same decade, wars in Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia and Myanmar killed far more people than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (yes, even including the current war in Gaza—Google the facts if you doubt it). But voting patterns at the U.N. never changed.

This isn’t just absurd — it’s an expensive absurdity. The total expenditure of the U.N. system tops $70 billion, more than the entire annual budgets of Luxembourg, Estonia, Malta and Cyprus combined. Most of that money comes from the U.S. and the European Union. And it disappears into a black hole of unaccountability. One thing is clear: it isn’t being used to advance “the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family, as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,” as the U.N. charter promises.

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So, what do we need?

We need a U.N. of democracies. I suggest calling it DAWN — the Democratic Alliance for World Nations — though perhaps something less poetic would do. We don’t need to reinvent its goals. We just need to clarify the terms of membership: a commitment to democracy; a willingness to confront authoritarian leaders who make a mockery of everything we hold sacred; and a focus on fighting the great threats of our age — terrorism, religious fanaticism, fake news, nuclear weapons in the hands of reckless regimes, and the abuse of democratic mechanisms by those who despise democracy itself.

On the positive side, the organization should focus on genuine economic cooperation among states that uphold intellectual property, human rights, freedom of expression and fair elections — creating incentives for other nations to move toward democracy. Above all, we must say clearly to the world: if you want the money, power, and capabilities of democracies, you must abide by their rules. Democracy isn’t an exclusive members-only club. It’s a binding contract. And those who refuse to honor it should no longer be allowed to abuse its privileges.