The UN stands before an existential crossroads. Crippling financial and bureaucratic challenges, the failures and complicity of UNRWA, controversial special rapporteurs, and what I have long regarded as a maniacal focus on Israel have all contributed to the institution’s rock-bottom standing.
As the race to select the next secretary-general gets underway and the annual General Assembly kicks off this month, the UN faces a critical choice: reform itself or continue its depressing drift into irrelevance.
The candidates include Rebecca Grynspan, the Jewish former vice president of Costa Rica; Rafael Grossi, the Argentinian director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile; and María Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuador’s former foreign minister.
There is at least some room for optimism. Most of the candidates on the shortlist have conceded that the UN is broken and in need of urgent reform.
But after two years serving as Israel’s International Spokesperson at the United Nations, I thought it would be more instructive to approach the institution from a different direction: Less through another scathing speech or biased resolution, but through the building itself.
Its headquarters tells you almost as much about the institution as headlines do. Walk through its corridors and you can see, literally, how countries have sought to cultivate influence, project values, and leave their mark on this institution.
Walking the halls
So join me on a walk through the United Nations headquarters, situated on Manhattan’s East River.
After passing through the airport-like security and before entering the visitors’ lobby of the General Assembly building, you’ll find yourself in a vast outdoor plaza flanked by 193 flags of member states arranged in alphabetical order. At least here, every country is symbolically equal. The only alphabetical discrepancy you will find concerns Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Under UN alphabetical seating conventions, these two flags would normally stand side by side, and by extension, their delegations would sit next to each other during General Assembly debates. The story may be unverified, but I’ve heard from a credible source that years back, the Islamic Republic, which doesn’t recognize the existence of the State of Israel, filed a request to change its official name at the UN from “Islamic Republic of Iran” to “Iran (Islamic Republic of).” The result is that Iraq and Ireland find themselves playing the role of diplomatic mechitzah (buffer) between Tehran and Jerusalem.
Back to the outdoor plaza. To your right is a bronze sculpture of an oversized Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver, with its barrel twisted into a knot. Known as “Non-Violence,” the sculpture was donated to the United Nations by Luxembourg in 1988.
The artist, Carl Fredrik Reuterswzrd, forged the original in 1980 after his close friend, John Lennon of Beatles fame, was murdered outside his Central Park residence.
Every piece of art you see inside the United Nations represents a donation from a member state. That is where the tour gets interesting.
Diplomacy on display
Take one of the official tours, and you can see the soft power and influence exerted by the likes of Iran, China, and especially Qatar.
Inside the visitors’ lobby, you’ll notice three things: a life-size bronze statue of Nelson Mandela donated by South Africa in 2018; and a model of Sputnik, gifted by the Soviet Union to the UN in 1959. Then, the intricately woven silk portraits of every secretary-general hang together in a remarkable collection, donated by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1997.
Tehran has spent decades trying to project influence through the international system. Its gifts to the UN are a small but revealing example of how that influence can become woven into the institution itself.
Continue through the first set of security turnstiles, and you encounter the most opulent wing of the UN: the East Lounge. Except nobody at the UN calls it that.
To insiders, it’s the “Qatari Lounge,” named for the tiny Gulf state that designed and gifted the space in 2013. It is where diplomats rehearse speeches, hold high-level meetings and, occasionally, take a power nap on one of the exquisitely designed sofas. I spent plenty of time there, most recently when I gave an interview to CBS News as the Islamic Republic was launching missiles on its Gulf neighbors.
Once rested, leave the Qatari Lounge and take the nearest elevators up one level to the floor of the Security Council and General Assembly.
On the way to the chamber, you’d be forgiven if you missed Israel’s sole gift to the United Nations. It is an entrance stone, or lintel, from a synagogue in Kafr Yasif, in the Western Galilee, depicting a menorah, lulav, and shofar. Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s foreign minister and a former prime minister, gifted this stone to the UN in 1999 to mark Israel’s 50th anniversary as a member state.
Accepting the gift, Kofi Annan, then secretary-general, offered a reflection that now seems particularly poignant. He said the menorah symbolized Israel’s mission to be a “light unto the nations,” while the UN had its own mission “to shine a light on suffering and injustice.”
Today, the UN is surrounded by reminders of the ideals it was created to uphold, alongside reminders of the countries competing to shape what those ideals mean in practice.
For a pick-me-up, walk to the North Delegates Lounge, a spot where diplomats, staff, and guests can grab an espresso or tea, and relax on one of its many couches.
On the wall is a magnificent carpet, measuring 5x4.5m., donated by the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN in 2005. Woven into the rug is an excerpt from the poetry of the renowned 13th-century classical Persian poet Sa’adi:
“All human beings are members of one frame,
Since all, at first, from the same essence came.
When time afflicts a limb with pain,
The other limbs cannot at rest remain.
If thou feel not for other’s misery,
A human being is no name for thee.”
It is a sobering sentiment. Yet, given the regime that donated the carpet, also an uncomfortable one.
To the right of the carpet is another masterpiece donated by the People’s Republic of China in 1974. The intricately woven tapestry shows the Great Wall of China careening through mountainous terrain for miles.
Currencies on influence
The point is not that these objects are sinister. They are stunning and meaningful expressions of national culture. They are also expressions of national power.
And that is something worth remembering as the UN chooses its next secretary-general.
We often hear about the sway of the United States at the UN. Washington is the single largest contributor to the UN, providing billions of dollars annually through membership and peacekeeping budget dues, amounting to almost a quarter of the UN’s overall budget. Its permanent seat on the Security Council gives it another formidable source of influence.
But money and a Security Council veto are not the only currencies of influence at the UN.
Countries have spent decades cultivating relationships, sponsoring initiatives, donating artwork, funding spaces, building diplomatic networks, and embedding their national narratives within the institution.
The next secretary-general will inherit an institution shaped by generations of governments seeking to influence it, sometimes gift by gift.
A new secretary-general should therefore do more than promise to make the UN less irrelevant. They should ask a more fundamental question: who has been allowed to shape this institution, and why?
But first, they might want to take a tour.■
Jonathan Harounoff is the author of Unveiled: Inside Iran’s #WomanLifeFreedom Revolt and served as Israel’s international spokesperson at the United Nations from 2024-2026