A tool that can’t do the job is merely a prop. Replace the prop or accept the theater.
Empty seats told the story on September 26, 2025. In an orchestrated dance of faux outrage, dozens of delegations walked out as Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the United Nations. Anyone watching witnessed a ridiculous cancel-culture charade in this now neutered though once noble body.
As envisioned at inception, the UN promised peace, dignity, and quick coordination. The design looked elegant in 1945. A hall for talk, diplomacy and persuasion. A council for action. A court for law. A secretariat to run the shop.
The reality today falls far short of that righteous vision. Over time, the veto froze decisions. Committees multiplied and bureaucracy ballooned. In 1950, the UN had approximately 3,300 employees. Today, the UN employs over 131,000 people across a dizzying organizational chart. Budgets swelled from about $19 Million in 1946 to over $9 Billion today. The mission drifted, and the gap between words and deeds grew.
Worse, bias corroded credibility. Over time, the UN became overtly antisemitic. Israel became its perennial target. From 2015 through 2023, the UN condemned Israel an unbelievable 154 times—more than twice as many times as all the other 193 member states (and two non-member states) in the world combined!
Mismanagement deepened the rot. Consider UNWRA’s assistance of Hamas in Gaza. It allowed UNWRA to use hospitals as terror headquarters, allowed terror tunnels beneath its offices, and permitted Hamas to cynically use schools as shields from which to indiscriminately fire rockets into Israel.
The list of feckless, incompetent, or downright intentional misconduct is too long to recount. To name just a few, consider the UN’s: multiple sexual abuse scandals; responsibility for Haiti’s cholera crisis; disregard of China’s documented mistreatment of Uyghurs; blasé response to the massacre of Christians in Nigeria; disgraceful neglect of a famine affecting millions of people in Sudan. The list of UN failures, foul ups and fiascos goes on and on with impunity.
Against this backdrop, the walkout of diplomats during Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech demonstrates the farce the UN has become. It rewards theater over truth. When a hall empties at the sound of an Israeli voice, that hall forfeits any claim to fairness when it judges Israel (all 154 times!). If presence gets punished and posturing gets applause, the institution no longer serves its intended purpose. From its exalted initial status, the UN has devolved into a cesspool of antisemitic, anti-democratic, anti-western dramaturgy.
In response the United States, Israel and other qualified democracies should start anew. They should build a coalition of capable, law-respecting states with lean mandates and hard metrics. Focus on three lanes only: pandemics, disaster relief, collective sanctions and peace missions. Decide with weighted votes that reflect contribution, rule-of-law, and compliance history. Limit every mandate to three years and demand a public re-justification for renewal. Enforce discipline with automatic suspensions, and criminal referrals to national courts. Make every transaction visible. Put every contract and audit on a live public ledger.
Israel should help lead this reset. Israel understands pressure, speed, and accountability. Its logistics, cyber, med-tech, and water expertise scale well in crisis. We should also invite regional partners who deliver in the field when it counts. Results first. Politics later. That offer will find takers in places that value competence over ceremony, and it will build habits of cooperation that outlive the crisis of the week.
The stakes are human, not theatrical. Famine does not wait for speeches. Empty resolutions provide no comfort to communities targeted for ethnic cleansing. We can keep rehearsing on the old stage, or we can perform in a manner that works—lean mandates, hard metrics, real enforcement, and sunlight on every ledger. The UN has become a prop. We have a choice: replace the prop—or accept the theater.