The UN Must Revoke Israel’s Membership and Sanction Apartheid Regime

By Tazeen Hasan

As the world watches in horror, the United Nations warns that 14,000 babies in Gaza could die in the next 48 hours if humanitarian aid does not immediately reach the besieged enclave (as of May 22, 2025). This is not a famine caused by drought or natural disaster—it is a man-made catastrophe, manufactured by Israel’s deliberate blockade of food, medicine, and aid into a civilian population. The time for routine resolutions and muted statements has long passed. The United Nations General Assembly must immediately call an emergency session and move to revoke Israel’s UN membership under Article 6 of the Charter, symbolically but decisively.

While such a move would require ratification by the Security Council—a step certain to be blocked by the United States—this symbolic action would still carry historic moral weight. It would communicate that the majority of the world refuses to grant legitimacy to a regime that systematically violates the UN Charter, perpetrates apartheid, and now flirts openly with genocide. If the UN could expel South Africa’s apartheid regime from international institutions, then why does Israel enjoy impunity despite even graver crimes?

In parallel, the international community must go beyond words and adopt real economic measures. Sanctions against Israel—targeting not only military and political leaders but also settlers engaged in systematic violence—are an essential step toward ending impunity. The United Kingdom’s recent decision to suspend free trade negotiations with Israel and sanction key Israeli settlers is a model of principled diplomacy. The move sends a clear message: there will be consequences for violating international law and deliberately starving a civilian population. Canada, and all nations that claim to support human rights, must follow suit. Ottawa cannot remain silent while its allies move forward to uphold international norms.

While sanctioning individual settlers is a welcome step, we must not lose sight of the broader reality: settler violence is not a fringe phenomenon—it is state-sanctioned and systematically enabled. The expansionist settler-colonial project has been embedded into Israeli state policy, particularly under the dominance of far-right political actors. Figures such as Itamar Ben Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have played central roles in normalizing and incentivizing settler aggression through legal protections, military cover, and financial subsidies. Any serious attempt to curb settler violence must therefore include targeted sanctions on these senior Israeli officials, who are not merely complicit but architecturally responsible for the ongoing colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian lands.

This is not about politics—it is about the survival of innocent children and the credibility of international law. If Israel refuses to allow the entry of aid and continues to commit collective punishment against civilians, it must face diplomatic isolation and economic penalties.

The foundational promise of the post-war international order was “never again.” But in Gaza, “never again” has become again and again, as the world stands by and fails to uphold the basic rules that were meant to protect the vulnerable from state-led atrocities. The General Assembly has the power to act—and history will not judge kindly those who chose silence over justice.

If we fail to act now, we are not just betraying the children of Gaza—we are dismantling the very fabric of international law.