United Nations, United States, and Gaza

By Paul VanRaden

October 24, 2025

The United Nations began exactly 80 years ago on October 24, 1945, 2 months after World War II ended, with a goal to promote peace and prevent war. The United States began 249 years ago by declaring war on Great Britain to gain its independence. Gaza was settled at least 5500 years ago and has had a very long, difficult history, being conquered by Egypt, Greece, Rome, Ottomans, Mongols, Christian crusaders, Arabs, Jews, and others. Until recent decades, Gaza rarely declared war on anyone but often had war declared on it. How to get peace is a world problem difficult to solve.

The U.N. General Assembly voted 149 to 12 to end the bombing, starvation, and hostage holding in Gaza on June 12, 2025, and the Security Council voted 14 to 1. The United States voted to continue the bombing and starvation and thus the resolution failed. After 4 more months, the United States finally agreed with the rest of the world to put some pressure on Israel to stop the bombing and starvation.

The American leader could have asked the U.N. to vote again on its June 3 resolution and pass it 15 to 0, giving the credit to the U.N. and its members who already had been pressuring both Israel and Hamas. Instead, Trump flew to Israel to be praised for being the last leader to criticize Israel. He criticized them only after Israel tried to kill the negotiators in Qatar, proving that Israel would continue its war until the U.S. joined the rest of the world and finally said NO.

The U.S. gave and will continue giving $4 billion to Israel each year plus an extra $9 billion in 2024, mostly for 90,000 tons of military equipment and missile defense that Republicans and Democrats both strongly supported. Israel’s military budget jumped by 65% to $47 billion last year, and U.S. taxpayers paid for about 25% of the bombs and military equipment used to destroy Gaza. About 80% of the buildings in Gaza are now damaged or destroyed and 98% of its cropland is unusable. In March, Trump’s government severely cut or froze $446 million of aid to Gaza for hospitals, medical supplies, food aid, and staffing. The U.S. terminated nearly all contracts between USAID (Agency for Internation Development) and humanitarian partners in Gaza.

The 8 previous exchanges of 148 hostages for 1,200 prisoners from January 19 to March 18, 2025 mostly followed the plan of U.N. Resolution 2735 approved by the Security Council on June 10, 2024. On Oct 13, the last 20 live hostages were exchanged for 1,900 prisoners when Israel stopped most of the slaughter and part of the starvation. The more difficult questions are how the people in Gaza and Palestine should choose where to live, what jobs they want, who should lead them, and how to enjoy life like the rest of us do. The 2 million people of Gaza are trapped and cannot even move within Palestine to the other half of their country on the west bank of the Jordan river.

Previous generations of Israelis and Palestinians both had catastrophes. In 1948 after millions of Jews were killed in the Holocaust, about 700,000 Palestinians were deported from their homes in Israel to make room for a Jewish state as approved by the U.N. In 1983, the Wall Street Journal announced a 1-point plan to Invite the Palestinians to America. In February 2025, the American leader announced a 2-point plan to 1) deport all Palestinians from Gaza and 2) build a fancy resort there instead. More than a year ago on May 10, 2024, the U.N. General Assembly voted 143 to 9 to accept Palestine as a state but in the Security Council, the U.S. vetoed that idea.

Historians mostly credit American and Soviet leaders rather than the U.N. for ending the Cold War. Ronald Reagan’s speeches to the U.N. 40 years ago were so excellent that you should watch them carefully now, as I did in the 1980s and again this week. Reagan quoted Russian Andrei Sakarov: “I am convinced that international confidence, mutual understanding, disarmament, and security are inconceivable without… freedom to travel and the right to choose the country in which one wishes to live.” The right to migrate across Europe was restored a few years later and that ended the Cold War. In his 1984 U.N. speech, Reagan also quoted Ghandhi: “If you approach people with trust and affection, you would have 10-fold trust and thousand-fold affection returned to you.”

Donald Trump has the opposite goal: divide people, belittle them, and find some group to hate or fear. His speech to the U.N. in September was pathetic and embarrassing, especially when compared to Reagan’s. This week the American president ended trade talks with Canada and increased their tariff rate by 10% because Ontario dared to advertise Reagan’s speech saying that tariffs usually are a bad idea. If any foreign leader criticizes any of Trump’s policies, they risk higher tariffs on their country’s exports. In March 2025 when Chuck Schumer, the current leader of the Democrats, asked Israel to do better, Trump called him a Palestinian, as if that was an insult. I do not waste any of my time listening to the current American president because his words do not help me understand how to improve our world.

Israel built a wall but it did not protect them from Hamas. Communists previously separated themselves from democracy with a much longer wall, but since 1989 Europe is a much nicer place without that wall. In church we sang a song “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho , and the walls came tumbling down” to remind us how Israel got started thousands of years ago. I hope future children do not happily sing “Netanyahu fought the battle of Gaza, and the houses came tumbling down.” We should prefer tearing down the walls that trap people instead of bombing or launching rockets and missiles into the houses on the other side.

The U.S. was founded with a goal to give all men equal rights. The U.N. was founded with a goal to give all people equal rights. Some people were born rich with much opportunity, while others were born poor with few opportunities. Some countries are rich with much freedom, while others are poor with little freedom. Some children are orphans with no parental support or have medical needs that few parents can afford. Some adults are unable to support themselves or old and no longer able to earn a living. We can support them by taxes or by charity to give them hope for a better life.

Many people may still believe in sharing wealth or affirmative action or even restitution. If your ancestors or your parents or you never got a chance before, maybe you should now get your turn to get ahead. We share our risks so that if one of us has bad luck and others have good luck, we can still all pay our bills and have a decent life. That is why we buy insurance or pay taxes or donate to charity or elect governments that help people who need help. As individuals, we can spend every dollar on ourselves or give opportunities to others. We can still believe it is better to give than to receive. And we can care for the poor instead of catering to the rich.

The American leader who wants to run the world does not believe in paying taxes, giving to charity, or equal opportunity for poor people or poor places. As a billionaire, he paid no income tax in most years before being president and less than 5% in years since then compared to the 20% that I and many other Americans paid. His Trump Foundation was not a real charity and was shut down and fined $2 million by the state of New York. Americans elected him to stop equal opportunity at the national border and to deport people who had previously found opportunities on their own. But both American parties seem to hate the idea of equal opportunity for all people.

In Gaza, most people have had no opportunity to choose where to live, what jobs they want, who should lead them, or how to enjoy life, while much of the world has all those things. Americans and Israelis and many other countries use force to keep poor people in their place. Immigration policies now keep rich people and rich places rich while keeping poor people and poor places poor. We do not need to give up any of our rights to let people in Gaza also have rights and choose better lives. Instead of Israel and the United States trying to control them and then paying billions in taxes to bomb their houses, the people of Gaza and the world could vote on what to do next.

Ukraine might someday have peace and if that happens, the American leader will demand praise for ending that war too. Initially, Trump praised Putin for starting the war, then he accused Ukraine of starting the war, and then he called Ukraine’s leader a dictator but not the Russian leader. In 2023, the U.N. voted 141 to 7 to condemn Russia’s invasion and demand that it stop, including a yes vote from the U.S. In 2025 with Trump back in office, the U.S. voted against a U.N. resolution that condemned Russia for invading Ukraine. I miss the leadership of honest, decent, caring people like sleepy Joe and Kamala.

Eighty years ago, U.S. president Harry Truman ended World War II with these words: “…we face the future and all its dangers with great confidence and great hope. America can build for itself a future of employment and security. Together with the United Nations, it can build a world of peace rounded on justice, fair dealing, and tolerance. As President of the United States, I proclaim Sunday, September the second, 1945, to be V-J Day—the day of formal surrender by Japan… From this day we move forward. We move toward a new era of security at home. With the other United Nations, we move toward a new and better world of cooperation, of peace and international good will and cooperation.”

The 1945 peace treaty that ended the last world war was signed by 10 countries the next day: by Japan’s Foreign Minister and Chief of the Army on behalf of their emperor and government, then by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers and by 9 top military commanders representing governments of the United States, China, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, Australia, Canada, France, Netherlands, and New Zealand. That peace has lasted more than 80 years because the whole world agreed to respect rather than punish former enemies, and because the people and government of Japan took peace and cooperation very seriously. In 1975, emperor Hirohito visited the White House and thanked the United States for helping to rebuild Japan after the war.

Recently, the U.S. government decided not to pay the $2.2 billion it owes to the United Nations for 2025 and 2026. I paid 16% ($28,964) of my salary as U.S. federal income tax in 2022, and the U.N. got just 0.01% ($23) of my salary. Each nation pays just 0.00002 of its gross domestic product. The U.S. economy generated $27 trillion or 22% of the world’s gross income so the U.S. government should pay 22% of the $3 billion U.N. budget. If the U.S. refuses to pay its membership dues, the U.N. in New York should expel the diplomats from Washington. Then Trump could not veto their plans and later take credit for doing the same thing. The U.N. now seems as useless as the League of Nations was when it closed in 1946.

The U.N. already had a small budget and always had little power to act because one leader often vetoes what the whole world decides to do. The U.S. has a big budget and much power but often uses its funds and power to take actions outside the U.S. that the world would not approve. Instead of a Board of Peace fully chosen and controlled by a chairman for life, new rules for a democratic United Earth could give the people of Gaza and the whole world a better chance to improve their lives, our lives, and future lives.

References

The UN is marking its 80th birthday with a plan for change | World Economic Forum

A timeline of the Gaza Strip in modern history | PBS News

A short history of the Gaza Strip takes a long view of today’s conflict

Gaza Strip - Wikipedia

Timeline of Gaza 3500 BCE to 2023 (30-minute video)

General Assembly Adopts Resolution Demanding Israel Immediately End Blockade of Gaza, Open All Border Crossings, Ensure Aid Reaches Palestinian Civilian Population June 12, 2025

Security Council Fails to Adopt Resolution Calling for Permanent Ceasefire in Gaza, Owing to Veto by United States June 12, 2025

4 Reasons Why Israel Bombed Peace Negotiators’ Offices in Qatar

U.S. Aid to Israel in Four Charts | Council on Foreign Relations

Trump doubles down on plan to empty Gaza. This is what he has said and what's at stake | AP News

Humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza slow as hundreds of millions of promised USAID dollars do not arrive | PBS News