For the first time ever, Israel has a real shot at a seat on the UN Security Council — but the Germans, of all people, may prevent it.
Mind you, Germany — and, before reunification, West Germany — has been Israel’s most reliable European supporter for decades. Berlin, for example, sells the Israeli navy much-needed submarines. And despite growing anti-Israel sentiment there (from the right and left), German leaders, well aware of their historical baggage, often defend the diplomatically besieged Jewish state.
But now Berlin diplomats risk reopening those deep historical wounds.
What’s going on?
For over 50 years since the UN was founded in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, Israel was the world’s only country that could never get a Security Council seat. Dictatorships like Syria and Iran got their turn in the prestige UN position; unfree China and Russia control two of its five permanent veto-wielding seats.
But not the Mideast’s sole democracy. Israel couldn’t even be “elected” to the dog-catching committee (if the UN had anything so useful).
The exclusion derived from the peculiarities of the world body’s “democracy”: To become a member of a UN organ, a country’s candidacy first needs to be endorsed by its regional voting bloc. But Israel’s neighborhood is filled with monarchs and dictators who refuse to even acknowledge its right to exist; it was locked out.
This was finally fixed in 2000, after long US pressure: Israel was admitted to a “regional” bloc called the Western Europeans and Others Group. (WEOG, as it’s known, comprises the Western democracies, including America, Canada and Australia as well as the Europeans.)
So now that it at last had a shot at a council seat, Israel needed to (first) win the endorsement of its new peers.
Not easy: Several WEOG members share the opinion that Daniel Bernard, a French ambassador in Britain, famously expressed at a 2001 London dinner party: “Israel, that s—ty little country.”
And gaining a council seat then gets even more difficult: A majority of all the UN’s 193 members must OK all the regional groups’ selections. With anti-Israel sentiments rampant in the UN halls, such approval is a tall order.
But in 2005 Jerusalem diplomats offered their candidacy for a Security Council slot for 2019-20 that they believed to be “open”: Along with Belgium, it vied for one of two seats allocated for the Western group. With no competition, WEOG members would have no choice but to endorse both countries.
But now the historic end to Israel’s exclusion is at risk.
Late last month, Berlin informed the Western group that it, too, will vie for the 2019-20 slot, creating a three-way fight for two seats.
German diplomats tell me that this is what they always do: As a top world economy and major UN donor, they compete for (and easily win) membership in the UN’s top body every eight years.
But Jerusalem smells a rat. Irate officials there suspect that Berlin picked 2019-20 because Israel will be easy to beat in the popularity context. (And the next uncontested council seat available to the Western group is in 2029.)
With its future-oriented economy, entrepreneurial Israel is an unlikely success story. Despite its many enemies, the country has built a relatively secure environment for its citizens, attracting fun-seeking tourists and inspiring world admiration.
Yet, from Elvis Costello to Stephen Hawking, people who single out Israel for rebuke and boycott create the impression that the Jewish state’s success is somehow ill-gained.
More than any other institution, the United Nations has promoted and validated this pariah status for the Jewish state.
Remembering all too well where such scapegoating could lead, Israeli diplomats are rightly puzzled: Germany, of all countries, now muscles in, threatening to crush their dream of breaking the glass ceiling in the glass building on the East River.
Twitter: @bennyavni