As António Guterres approaches the end of his decade as United Nations Secretary-General, the organisation faces a question more consequential than who will occupy its highest office: what will that office stand for?
In less than 100 days of his tenure, amid wars, geopolitical fragmentation, polarisation, discrimination and resurgent antisemitism, the choice of his successor must become an opportunity to restore the UN’s moral purpose.
The United Nations emerged from the devastation of the Second World War and the horror of the Holocaust. Its founders understood the catastrophic consequences of aggression, dehumanisation and international failure.
The Charter’s commitment to human dignity, equal rights and peace was a promise that the world would build institutions capable of resisting those forces, rather than merely recording their consequences.
Eight decades later, that promise too often disappears beneath petty interests, political bargaining, institutional bureaucracy and the pursuit of consensus.
Diplomacy requires compromise, but compromise becomes dangerous when it determines which victims deserve recognition, which perpetrators deserve scrutiny and which principles can be quietly set aside. An organisation charged with defending universal values cannot allow political convenience to decide when those values apply.
Nowhere is this failure of consistency more visible than in the disproportionate attention directed at Israel. According to UN Watch, between 2015 and 2025, the UN General Assembly adopted 188 resolutions critical of Israel, compared with 91 concerning all other countries combined. In 2025 alone, 15 of the 26 country-specific resolutions classified as condemnatory by UN Watch focused on Israel.
This imbalance demands an honest explanation from an institution claiming to apply universal standards. Israel is the only country specifically targeted by a dedicated standing item on the Human Rights Council’s agenda. Since the Council’s creation in 2006 there have been 112 resolutions against Israel, compared with 45 against Syria, 16 against Iran and 11 against Russia.
The United Nations has to uphold universal values equally. Its legitimacy rests on fairness, consistency, and the equal application of international standards to every member state, including Israel.
Nevertheless, accountability loses credibility when one country becomes a recurring institutional fixation while grave abuses elsewhere attract comparatively limited attention.
Selectivity weakens the authority of every condemnation.
This matters far beyond Israel. When governments learn that diplomatic alliances and being part of powerful political groupings can shield them from scrutiny, the people suffering under those governments pay the price.
When resolutions become instruments of political rivalry, human rights become bargaining chips. Equal treatment is therefore essential both to the UN’s credibility and to the protection of those who depend upon it.
For me, these questions are deeply personal. Much of my family, including my half-sister, was murdered in the Holocaust. These losses are part of the history that shaped my family and my understanding of responsibility. They remind me that hatred becomes most dangerous when societies accommodate it and institutions fail to confront it.
There are approximately 196,600 Jewish Holocaust survivors alive worldwide. As their numbers diminish, the responsibility to preserve their testimony and act upon its lessons grows more urgent. Commemoration must carry consequences for the living.
The UN cannot honour murdered Jews in solemn ceremonies while tolerating antisemitism within its own institutional environment.
The next Secretary-General should make that principle operational: clear standards for personnel, transparent investigations of misconduct, meaningful consequences for violations and consistent rejection of language that dehumanises Jews or any other people.
Holocaust education should inform institutional conduct throughout the year, rather than remain confined to an annual calendar of remembrance.
While there are some in Israel and around the Jewish world who are ready to give up on the United Nations as a result of these failings. I believe that abandoning the United Nations would surrender an essential institution precisely when international cooperation is most needed. Across its agencies, dedicated professionals deliver humanitarian assistance, support refugees around the world and sustain channels of communication in places where other avenues have collapsed.
Their work deserves recognition, protection and leadership that strengthens its integrity.
However, organisations like UNRWA that didn't meet the necessary standards need to be shut down, their mission needs to be completely redefined, and they should be held accountable for their historic failures.
Reform should connect resources to results, end the double standards against Israel, reduce duplication and insist upon financial transparency.
Agencies must demonstrate that assistance reaches intended beneficiaries and that credible allegations of abuse receive independent scrutiny. Accountability should be understood as a condition of humanitarian effectiveness, because public trust and donor confidence are essential to sustaining lifesaving work.
The next Secretary-General will inherit an organisation constrained by member states, competing interests and financial pressures. No individual can erase those realities.
However, the office carries a powerful public voice and significant responsibility for institutional leadership. Its occupant can insist on evidence, challenge double standards and refuse to dress political expediency in the language of moral authority.
The appointment process should therefore ask more than whether a candidate can secure broad acceptance. It should ask whether that candidate has the courage to defend the Charter when doing so becomes uncomfortable, costly or unpopular. A successful negotiator must know what can be negotiated and what must remain inviolable.
The United Nations needs a leader who understands that compromise is a diplomatic instrument, while human dignity, standing by the truth and clear values, is an obligation.
Its next chapter must restore that order of priorities. The institution’s credibility will depend on whether its principles guide its decisions, especially when powerful interests would prefer otherwise.
Robert Singer is the chairman of the Center for Jewish Impact and a former CEO of the World Jewish Congress and World ORT
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