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The UN turned 80 years old this year. This is an incredible milestone for the only body that brings together all states in an attempt, as per its charter, to preserve world peace and resolve conflicts.

But with 193 members, it is also an organization that is suffering from an identity and financial crisis. US President Donald Trump, whose country is the most significant economic contributor to the UN, is withholding most of the key financing it provides and demanding that the international body limits its mandate to the preservation of world peace and security, while staying away from what he views as controversial issues such as climate change, human rights and humanitarian efforts.

Washington’s closest allies have a very different view; they would like the UN to become more involved in conflict resolution and efforts to address global challenges such as climate change and human rights.

Under Trump, the US has withdrawn from key UN agencies such as UNESCO, the World Health Organization, the Human Rights Council, and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, either on political grounds related to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, or based on ideological, right-wing populist dogmas that have polarized the world since Trump’s rise to power.

Some countries see a substantial shift in global geopolitics, especially in the aftermath of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the protectionist trade crusade Trump is waging, which lends merit to their case for expanding the number of permanent seats on the Security Council. Those in favor include India, Brazil and Japan, among others.

Washington’s monopoly over the peace process has been disastrous for the Palestinians — and the region as a whole

Osama Al-Sharif

But while the UN has been successful in preserving global peace through its peacekeeping role, and in resolving conflicts in some parts of the world, its record remains blemished, at best, when we consider the oldest conflict on its roster, which has been there since the organization was founded in 1945: the Palestine question, a question that remains unresolved by the colonial powers that emerged in the region after the First World War.

The UN inherited the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the occupation of Palestine at its core, the moment it opened for business 80 years ago. Israel’s war on Gaza over the past two years reminded the world that this ongoing saga, often bloody and ruthless, remains one of the most complex and challenging conflicts facing the world.

It is not for a lack of trying that the UN has failed to resolve this challenge. The annals of the Security Council are rife with resolutions — more than 130 of them — that address the issue or parts of it, from the controversial partition plan of 1947 to the most recent, Resolution 2735 in June 2024, which called for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza.

It goes without saying that the will of the Security Council to push for the implementation of these resolutions was foiled, mainly as a result of geopolitical tensions, international rivalries, and the inclination of the US to support Israel at any cost.

During the Cold War and the deep polarizations in the region from the 1950s through to the end of the 1980s, the Palestine question fell victim to the prevailing global political conditions of the time. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc in 1991, the US emerged as the sole superpower and soon claimed responsibility for efforts to resolve the Palestine-Israel conflict on its own, outside of the UN.

From the early 1990s until Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan for Gaza this month, the US owned and managed what was called the Middle East peace process. During this time there was a slow, but intentional, departure from resolutions 242 and 338, the bedrock UN resolutions related to the future of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

The UN had been kept away from any direct involvement in efforts to resolve the conflict. And in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks against Israel by Hamas, the US and Israel decided to end the role of UNRWA, the UN’s humanitarian agency for Palestinian refugees, by falsely claiming it had colluded with Hamas in the attacks. Both Washington and Tel Aviv wanted to remove one central pillar of the conflict: the fate of Palestinian refugees and their right of return.

While the world is divided over much-needed reforms to the UN, there is now a consensus on the Palestine question

Osama Al-Sharif

Washington’s monopoly over the peace process has been disastrous for the Palestinians — and the region as a whole. The US was never an honest broker. In the past decade-and-a-half, it leaned openly and brazenly toward the Israeli position which, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had shifted to the far right of Israeli politics.

That position denies Palestinians their rights to self-determination and to an independent state. It offers them no hope and, more importantly, it confirms Israel as an apartheid state ruling over 5 million Palestinians.

Israel’s war on Gaza — recognized as a genocide by many nations, while international courts consider the matter — is now bringing the Palestine question back to the UN. The sheer indifference shown by Israel to its war crimes in Gaza has become a game-changer, destroying the country’s long-held narrative and turning it into an international pariah.

In September, a Saudi-French initiative introduced at the UN General Assembly resulted in historic global support for the two-state solution, and unprecedented official recognition of Palestinian statehood by 157 member nations, as of today. Israel and the US stood alone, abandoned even by their closest Western allies.

Trump’s Gaza peace plan is a small step on a long path that should restore responsibility for the Palestine question to the UN, where a just and lasting solution can be attained.

The plan, which Israel is trying to derail, calls for an “International Stabilization Force” to be deployed in Gaza to help preserve the peace and ensure the terms of the ceasefire agreement are observed. Arab and Western allies of the US are pressuring Washington to approach the UN and seek a legal mandate for the deployment of such a force.

This is a political nightmare for Israel because it would be a significant step toward the “internationalization” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the reinstatement of UN resolutions pertaining to it.

It is ironic, as well, that it is Trump, the best American president for Israel in decades, who can now steer this conflict toward a more balanced path. He has already warned that he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank under any circumstances. That position is in alignment with UN resolutions and the will of the international community.

While the world is divided over much-needed reforms to the UN, there is now a consensus on the Palestine question. The US cannot resolve this conflict on its own; its track record over the past 30 years speaks for itself.

It is high time the Palestinians were able to exercise their right to self-determination, have their own state and be free of occupation. The only venue where this can be achieved is the UN.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010