European country calls to expel US, Israel from United Nations

Citing UN commission report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, Ireland’s president says Israel and any countries selling arms to Israel should be excluded from the United Nations.

By World Israel News Staff

Ireland’s president has called for Israel to be expelled from the United Nations along with countries that sell arms to the Jewish state.

Irish President Michael Higgins addressed reporters Tuesday afternoon after a United Nations Human Rights Council’s commission of inquiry published a report accusing Israel of genocide in its war against the Hamas terror organization.

Higgins called the report a “very, very important document” and lauded the commission’s chairwoman, Navi Pillay, who is slated to resign from the three-member panel in November.

Citing the report’s claim that Israeli actions in Gaza qualify for four of the five genocidal actions laid out in the UN’s 1948 genocide convention, Higgins said the international community must take action to “stop this carnage” and the “slaughter of civilians.”

One specific step Higgins proposed to sanction Israel was its expulsion from the United Nations, along with the exclusion of any countries that sell arms to Israel.

“I believe myself that the kind of actions that are necessary now are the exclusion of those who are practicing genocide and those who are supporting genocide with armaments,” Higgins said.

“We must look at their exclusion from the United Nations itself, and we should have no hesitation any longer in relation to ending trade with people who are inflicting this at our fellow human beings.”

While Higgins did not name any countries to be excluded from the UN other than Israel, the United States is the largest supplier of military equipment to Israel, accounting for roughly two-thirds of all of Israel’s arms imports prior to the 2023 invasion by Hamas.

Despite plans by the European Commission to impose new sanctions on Israel, Higgins criticized the European Union’s stance on the Gaza war, accusing its members of “deciding to stay silent.”

“I believe the EU will find it extraordinarily difficult to ever be a union in any sense again when some of its strongest members are deciding to stay silent in watching emaciated children in what is a human, manmade, really atrocious infliction on people.”

Tuesday’s report drew sharp criticism not only from Israel, which called it “laundered” Hamas propaganda, but also from international Jewish groups, including the World Jewish Congress, which accused the UN commission of “politically biased work” and of promoting “antisemitic narratives.”