A top United States envoy to the United Nations says his country’s support for Israel has existed across White House administrations and will not change even with a Trump-led government in Washington. Israel is a democratic ally of the US in the Mideast and surrounded by tough neighbors, said Robert Wood, the alternate representative for special political affairs in the UN.
“Israel lives in a very difficult neighborhood. It has been under siege from basically most of the states around it in one way or another. And it’s our democratic ally in the region. It is a democracy,” Wood told PassBlue during an interview on Nov. 27.
The Mideast has limited examples of fully functioning democracies, and most countries there have varying degrees of authoritarian, military or monarchical systems — including Israel. Israel and Tunisia, a North African nation, are the two most-democratic countries in the region. While Israel is considered a stronger democracy than Tunisia, Palestinians in the West Bank and other Israeli-occupied territories are subjected to military rule and a punishing blockade.
Wood, who has the rank of ambassador, said that the US and Israel share a historical friendship and that the US will continue to protect Israel in the UN Security Council through its veto as well as support the country with millions of dollars in military support in its war in Gaza and regionally. The US has been actively backing Israel despite the rising civilian death toll and other casualties caused by Israeli military operations in Gaza since the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas. At least 44,000 people — mostly women and children — have been killed in the Palestinian enclave in the last 14 months.
Several UN agencies and international nongovernmental organizations have warned in the past and more recently of famine looming in parts of the Gaza Strip, but Wood said humanitarian access has improved. The UN and other experts say otherwise. The World Food Program said on Dec. 2 that for more than 50 days, barely any food has entered besieged areas of North Gaza. Food is also scarce in central Gaza, where a bag of wheat flour can cost as much as $200 and a tray of eggs about $100.
“I don’t think things have gotten worse,” Wood said. “I think we actually saw some improvement in the situation.”
He was responding to a question by this reporter about why the US continued to supply arms to Israel despite reports from major international charities that the Israeli government had failed to meet most, if not all, the criteria outlined by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a 30-day ultimatum issued this fall.
In October, President Biden’s administration imposed a 30-day deadline to force Israel to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza or risk losing US military aid. On the Nov. 12 deadline, the US said it would not stop arms flows to Israel.
A group of eight humanitarian organizations released a “Gaza Scorecard,” in which they monitored US humanitarian demands and found that Israel failed to comply with almost all the criteria listed for continued arms support. The UN recorded throughout October the lowest number of aid trucks getting into Gaza since the first month of the war a year earlier.
“There were individual cases where things that we’d wanted to see happen didn’t happen,” Wood said. “But in totality, it was clear to us that there were improvements being made. We stress to our Israeli partners the need to provide unhindered humanitarian access, so that we can help ameliorate what is an extremely dire humanitarian situation.”
Wood said the US would still work for a ceasefire in Gaza while blaming many failed negotiation attempts on Hamas. The US has vetoed four draft ceasefire resolutions in the Security Council since the Oct.7 massacre, repeatedly citing “Israel’s right to defend itself” as a main reason.
Wood, with his boss, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the permanent representative to the UN, will sit in the Council for the last time in December as their country leads the monthly rotating presidency. It also marks their final participation in the UN body before the incoming American administration takes over the US-UN mission’s reins.
This month, the US mission will build on its work on human rights and sustainable development in addition to the Council’s regular agenda items on the Mideast, Sudan, Haiti, Ukraine, Libya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Afghanistan, among other matters.
Each month, PassBlue profiles UN ambassadors as their countries assume the Council presidency. It’s the last rotating presidency of US diplomats appointed by President Joe Biden, whose term ends Jan. 20. In this interview, Wood, 64, confirmed he is retiring after two years working at the US mission in New York City. He talked to PassBlue about USUN’s work in Gaza and Haiti and what it has been like sitting behind his country’s nameplate in the Council.
The interview has been edited for clarity and condensed for brevity.
PassBlue: What will the US be focusing on for its signature events in December?
Wood: We’re going to have two signature events in the council. The first one on Dec. 3 is going to be on women, peace and security, focusing on the transforming power of what we call intergenerational dialog between young and senior female peacekeepers. On Dec. 19, we are going to have a session on artificial intelligence and its effects on international peace and security. This is going to build on our work over the last four years, including through our landmark General Assembly resolution on the governance of artificial intelligence, with a focus on human rights, sustainable development and capacity building.
In the days between, we’re going to be dealing with several issues: Russia’s ongoing assault on Ukraine; Haiti; and the broader Middle East. Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, over the last three years, has been focused on the link between armed conflict and food security. We’re going to have a side event on that on Dec. 9. This is an important and signature priority for her, and it will certainly be one of her many legacies here.
PassBlue: How do you feel about the new ceasefire agreement in Lebanon?
Wood: It was a lot of work, but the real hard work begins now with the implementation. This is a big deal for the region that’s desperate for an end to fighting. We hope that this will have a spillover effect in Gaza. The president [Biden] talked about the importance of giving everything he has up to the last second that he is in office, so he and the team are going to continue to try to see if it’s possible to bring about a ceasefire and a hostage release agreement with Israel and Hamas. It took a lot of extraordinary work, and we just want to see how the implementation of this [Lebanon] agreement will be as smooth as possible. There will be hiccups. That’s always how these things work.
PassBlue: Why has a ceasefire been so difficult to get in Gaza?
Wood: People speculate on why we have not been able to do that, and it’s certainly not because of our unwillingness to work extremely hard. The problem has been Hamas. There have been times when we thought we were close, and all of a sudden, it didn’t happen. The problem is Hamas is elusive, noncommittal, says things but doesn’t agree to them. It becomes very difficult to get an agreement. As I said in my statement, after unfortunately having to veto the Security Council resolution [on Nov. 20], Hamas had rejected agreement after agreement after agreement. Diplomacy is the only way we are going to see an agreement that will release the hostages — seven of whom are Americans — and bring about this ceasefire and scaling up of humanitarian assistance that needs to happen as soon as possible.
PassBlue: Since Oct. 7, 2023, the US has blocked four Gaza ceasefire resolutions, and you cast two of them. How do you feel being the physical face of these vetoes?
Wood: We feel that while we don’t want to veto any resolution at the UN on Gaza because of the suffering that’s going on, we’ve taken those decisions because we thought it was what was required to bring about a durable end to the conflict. Our concern about an immediate, unconditional ceasefire [in the Nov. 20 draft resolution] was that if you have an unconditional ceasefire, there’s no incentive for Hamas to come to the table, no incentive for Hamas to release the hostages. It’s rewarding them for the acts that they’ve carried out. Also one of the big problems with that recent [10 elected Council members] E10 text was the de-linkage of a ceasefire and a hostage release. We made clear since the conflict began, that there has to be this linkage otherwise, again, no incentive for Hamas to negotiate seriously.
PassBlue: Why is defending Israel so important to the US, given all the Netanyahu government has done in its war in Gaza? There have been reports of Israel using starvation as a tool of war, contrary to humanitarian and international laws. UN experts are saying Israel might be committing genocide, Israeli’s airstrikes have killed at least 44,000 Gazans, and 90 percent of its population of two million has been displaced more than once. In light of so many human casualties, environmental calamities and economic ruin, why does the US continue to support Israel?
Wood: Our support for Israel goes back decades. Let’s look at what happened on Oct. 7. Innocent Israelis were attacked and murdered; women and children were raped and babies were burned. I think that any nation that suffers that kind of attack is going to respond. Now, we continue to and will always support Israel’s right to defend itself. What we’ve said, however, is that how Israel goes about defending itself is important. We have been working extremely hard to get Israel to do some of the things that we believed are needed concerning the use of force and the need to open up humanitarian corridors, but Israel lives in a very difficult neighborhood.
It has been under siege from basically most of the states around it in one way or another. It’s a democratic ally in the region. We share a lot of bonds and history, and it’s important to emphasize that Israel didn’t start this war. So, our support for Israel is ironclad and has been across administrations; it’s in the Congress, and it’s across the United States. That will not change because of that close bond and friendship that we have.
However, that doesn’t mean we agree all the time. We haven’t seen eye to eye on some issues regarding the Gaza conflict, but I think our influence with them has helped move them in a better direction. But at the end of the day, Israel is a sovereign state, and it’s going to make the decisions that it feels is in its national interest. All we can do is be supportive, and where there are problems between our two countries on a given situation or conflict, we do not hesitate to make it very clear where we stand.
PassBlue: The UN and other international assessments disagree that humanitarian aid surged in Gaza during the period of the US ultimatum, from mid-October to mid-November this year. How did the US make its assessment?
Wood: I don’t think things have gotten worse. I think we saw some improvement in the situation. There were individual cases where things that we’d wanted to see happen didn’t happen. But when we looked at some of the other actions that were taken by Israel in totality, it was clear to us that there were improvements being made.
PassBlue: Moving away from Gaza, China and Russia won’t agree to the US-Ecuador proposal for a peacekeeping mission in Haiti. Reports say that the soldiers in the Kenyan-led multinational security support mission, or MSS, can’t stem the gang violence in the country because it doesn’t have enough resources. There has even been a massacre since its deployment. What’s the US planning to do now that the hope for a peacekeeping mission is being quashed?
Wood: I don’t know that it’s been quashed. We’re very happy that the MSS is on the ground. It will need to be augmented. There’s no question. There are plans for additional police to go to Haiti. I think the gangs are just trying to take advantage of what they perceive to be some kind of interregnum period between when you see more forces coming to support the Haitian police. I think it’s very important for the international community to stand with not only Haiti but with the troops that are led by Kenya. This is a difficult assignment, and Kenya stepped up to try to provide some assistance to its Haitian brothers with the support of the international community.
Certainly, we believe in some type of UN peacekeeping operation, and we are going to continue to work here with all the important players, including Ecuador, to try to do what we can to see that happen. We’ve heard pleas from the Haitian leadership. We want to help bring about free and fair elections in Haiti and to return the country to stability that it hasn’t had for quite some time. We’re going to continue to push for that, as will others, despite Russian and Chinese differences of opinion over this.
PassBlue: US-made weapons are fueling the violence in Haiti, so why is the US not controlling the flow of arms to Haiti?
Wood: It’s not about controlling arms. We have been trying to do what we can to deal with the situation of illegal guns getting into the hands of these gangs in Haiti, and we will continue to work to identify individuals who are responsible for fomenting gang violence, and we will continue to sanction people we believe are involved in the gun-running and unrest in Haiti. That is a process.
PassBlue: We’ve learned you might be retiring. Have you always had this step in the pipeline or is it a response to the change of power in Washington?
Wood: I have been thinking about this for quite some time. When I was offered the job a couple of years ago, I turned it down because I just retired, and my wife wasn’t thrilled about me relocating to New York. My two years are up, and I’m becoming an old man. I need to move on and do other things. It has been an extraordinary two years here for me. I will miss friends and colleagues, particularly in the press corps, but throughout the State Department, the US government and the United Nations. It has been an extraordinary time, and it’s always important to know when it’s time to move on. I was planning to do that pretty much regardless of the outcome of any election.
PassBlue: What has been the most gratifying work for you in those two years?
Wood: Wow, gratifying work. Getting up every day and being able to serve your country here in New York. I always tell my colleagues here that it never gets old to sit behind your nation’s nameplate in the Security Council, defend your country’s interests and work with others to promote our shared interests. That to me means more than any specific achievement. I leave very satisfied professionally.
PassBlue: What’s the most frustrating/greatest disappointment for you?
Wood: You can always say, I wish I had done this a little differently. You deal with the challenges that you’re dealing with at the time, and you look for the best solutions that fit with where your policy frameworks are. So I usually don’t look back and say, I wish we had done this differently. We’ve done what we’ve done, what do we do next? How do we improve upon things? But if there’s anything I would say, I wish there was some way to prevent what had happened in Gaza and in Ukraine. Our job here is to try to promote the shared interests of the international community, to try to find the best ways to solve some of these very intractable conflicts. If it were easy, we would have solved them.
People always complain that the Security Council doesn’t do anything. The Council does pass a lot of resolutions. We do on some of the bigger issues of war and peace. It’s more challenging, but I think it reflects where the world is and how divided the Council is. We have to continue to work through that, and that’s going to be important going forward not just for the United States but for other countries, particularly those on the Council.
PassBlue: President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Elise Stefanik as the next US ambassador to the UN, pending Senate approval. Any advice to her if she makes it to Turtle Bay?
Wood: If she asked me, I would provide her advice privately. I wouldn’t do it in an interview. If she asked, I would say, the UN is a complicated instrument, but it can be used to promote the shared objectives that the United States has with other countries around the world. And it’s an institution that while not perfect, serves a greater purpose, and our job, whether it’s Democratic or Republican administration, has been to try to improve it, to make it more fit for purpose, more effective in delivering for not only the American people, but for taxpayers around the world.
US Alternate Representative for Special Political Affairs in the UN: Robert Wood, 64
Since: February 2021
Languages: English, German, Spanish and French
Education: B.A., journalism, City University of New York
His story, briefly: Wood’s diplomatic career spans three decades in the Department of State and the former US Information Agency. He assumed his current position, with ambassador rank, in 2021, after Biden appointed him. Before that, he was the permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament and the US special representative for Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Issues in Geneva. Prior to Geneva, Wood held positions in various diplomatic settings, including as the deputy chief of mission to the European Union from August 2013 to July 2014 and as the deputy permanent representative to International Organizations in Vienna, from 2010 to July 2013. He is married to Geeta Gouri.
Country Profile
Head of State: President Joseph Biden
Secretary of State: Antony Blinken
Type of Government: Federal, constitutional republic
Year America Joined the UN: 1945
Years in the Security Council: One of the five permanent members (Britain, China, France, Russia and the US)
Population: 335 million (2023)
CO2 emissions per capita: 14.21 tons (world average: 4.8 tons per person)
We welcome your comments on this article. What are your thoughts on the US support of Israel?
Related Posts
Damilola Banjo is an award-winning staff reporter for PassBlue who has covered a wide range of topics, from Africa-centered stories to gender equality to UN peacekeeping and US-UN relations. She also oversees all video production for PassBlue. She was a Dag Hammarskjold fellow in 2023 and a Pulitzer Center postgraduate fellow in 2021. She was part of the BBC Africa team that produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, “Sex for Grades.” In addition, she worked for WFAE, an NPR affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. Banjo has a master’s of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an undergraduate degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
![[Re]Group - A Playbook for Turbulent Times -Subscribe Now](https://passblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/re-group_unf2026_square_600.500@2x.webp)
Linda and Robert have been a serious danger for the world peace under the leadership of genocide Joe. On many fronts they have failed from Haiti to Sudan to Ukraine and to the Middle-East. No success story anywhere and the Biden administration is going into history as a vast disappointment from inside and outside the US. This is the reason why the Americans have voted out the Biden -Harris administration in almost every county during th elections where they lost the Presidency, the Senate and the Congress. Because of their actions the UN Security Council is completely paralysed and has become useless because of the blatant double standard methods the US has used to cover-up Israel. In terms of democracy we do not think that US has any lesson for anybody after having elected Trump a convicted felon and a president Joe Biden extending a pardon to his son Hunter Biden in the court room! Where is the independance of the judiciary branch the backbone of any democratic system? Joe, Kamala, Blinken, Austin, Linda and Robbert, please remain reassured that the world will not miss you and without you it will become a better place for the whole humanity!