If humanity were a reality show, it would have been canceled in the first season for being too predictable and featuring an unlikable cast of characters. The latest episode in the long-running series 'Who Can Be More Oblivious?' features the Israeli government deciding that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) headquarters in East Jerusalem is no longer an office space, but rather a prime location for the latest expansion of ethno-nationalist real estate. Naturally, the United Nations has responded with its only known defense mechanism: a strongly worded condemnation. It’s the geopolitical equivalent of bringing a wet noodle to a drone fight. The announcement that Israel intends to seize the UNRWA headquarters and replace it with more of those ubiquitous settlements is the kind of news that makes one wonder why we even bother with the pretense of international law. It is a masterpiece of cynical theater. On one side, we have a government that treats the UN like a pesky fly to be swatted with a heavy-duty wrecking ball; on the other, we have a global organization that believes the sheer volume of its press releases can somehow halt the forward momentum of a bulldozer.

Let us look at the UNRWA first. The agency is a curious relic, a 'temporary' humanitarian solution that has managed to survive for over seven decades, essentially becoming a state within a state, or perhaps more accurately, a bureaucracy within a tragedy. It provides services that should be the responsibility of a functioning government, but because nobody actually wants a functioning government in that part of the world, UNRWA remains. It is the perfect scapegoat. For the Israeli Right, it is a nest of radicalization; for the UN, it is a bottomless pit into which they can pour money and moral posturing without ever having to solve the underlying political disaster. The UNRWA is the institutional equivalent of a bandage applied to a limb that is being systematically removed. It thrives on its own permanence, a paradox that serves everyone except the people it is meant to help.

Then we have the Israeli administration, a group of individuals who seem to believe that if they simply delete the physical presence of the UN from Jerusalem, the history of the last eighty years will vanish with the rubble. It is the logic of a petulant child who breaks his toys so no one else can play with them. By seizing this land for settlements, they aren't just violating international norms—they’re leaning into a brand of atavistic land-grabbing that wouldn’t look out of place in the 19th century. They have realized that the 'international community' is a toothless tiger that can only roar in the form of non-binding resolutions. Why follow the rules when the referee is a geriatric committee with no whistle? They see an office building and see an obstacle; they see a refugee agency and see a demographic threat that can be bulldozed into oblivion.

The UN’s 'condemnation' of this move is the cherry on top of this sundae of incompetence. When the UN 'condemns' something, it is an admission of its own irrelevance. It is a ritual. A secretary-general stands at a podium, looks grave, and utters the sacred incantations of 'grave concern' and 'unacceptable provocation.' These words are then transcribed, filed in a basement, and ignored by everyone with an actual gun or a bulldozer. The Left will parade this condemnation as proof of moral superiority, ignoring that their beloved institutions are about as effective at stopping conflict as a 'Please Do Not Enter' sign is at stopping a tsunami. They love the process more than the result, because the process allows them to feel virtuous without actually doing anything difficult. They cling to the UNRWA as a symbol of 'international order' while that very order dissolves like sugar in a rainstorm.

Meanwhile, the Right-wing cheerleaders treat this as a victory for 'sovereignty,' which is their favorite word for 'doing whatever we want because we have the bigger stick.' They ignore the fact that every brick laid in these settlements is another nail in the coffin of any long-term stability. But why care about the future when there are political points to be scored today? Both sides are locked in a symbiotic embrace of destruction. The UNRWA needs the conflict to justify its existence, and the Israeli hardliners need the UNRWA to serve as a convenient villain. They are two halves of the same broken coin. The tragedy of humanity is its inability to share a rock without smashing it. We are watching the slow-motion collapse of the post-WWII order, and it’s happening over a piece of real estate in East Jerusalem. It would be funny if it weren't so incredibly pathetic. We have the technology to reach the stars, yet we are still fighting over who gets to occupy a specific set of offices in a dusty corner of the Levant. The only thing more durable than the conflict itself is the human capacity for believing that this time, the bulldozer or the press release will finally work.