United Nations fails again. It gives cover to Hamas while abandoning Israel.

There is an eerie familiarity to how the world is reacting to the war between Israel and Hamas.

In 2014, I was a speechwriter for the Israeli delegation to the United Nations when Hamas terrorists kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers, kicking off 50 days of war. For the past month, I have felt an unsettling sense of deja vu as I’ve watched the U.N. go through the same tepid motions in response to today’s war.

The modus operandi of terrorist groups like Hamas has long been to prey on the weak and defenseless. On June 12, 2014, Palestinian terrorists abducted Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, Naftali Fraenkel, 16, on their way home from school. Israel launched a military operation in the West Bank to locate the boys and found their bodies 18 days later, buried in a shallow grave north of Hebron.

The ensuing war saw an Israeli ground offensive into Gaza. The goal was to stop Hamas’ unceasing rocket fire into Israeli towns and destroy its underground tunnel network. Then, as now, the response from the United Nations and the international community made clear that Hamas would never be held accountable for its actions.

Shortly after the three boys were abducted, our delegation called on the U.N. to denounce the kidnapping. A U.N. spokesperson replied that there was no “concrete evidence” the boys were kidnapped by terrorists.

U.N. agencies then embraced the “both sides” approach. UNICEF, which exists to protect children, posted online: “Recent violent events affecting Palestinian and Israeli children underline the urgent need for stronger protection for children in the region.”

From there, it wasn’t long before U.N. officials were laying the blame on Israel.

Hamas' crimes against Israelis have gotten worse

Nearly a decade later, the U.N. is following the same dance steps. The difference is that Hamas’ crimes have grown exponentially.

The Oct. 7 slaughter of more than 1,200 Israelis was the single-largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and the second-largest terrorist attack since 9/11.

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Since that horrific day, the U.N. has called numerous emergency sessions, held hours of debate, drafted hundreds of pages of draft resolutions – all of which amount to very little.

It has not passed a single resolution to condemn Hamas’ savagery, even though terrorists wore GoPros to document themselves slaughtering, raping and torturing civilians. Similarly, the U.N. has not called for the release of more than 200 hostages, including babies, children and the elderly.

Instead, the U.N. has set its focus on conditions in Gaza, blaming Israel even as Hamas hides behind the civilian population and continues to fire rockets at Israel’s civilian centers.

U.N. officials are pressing for a cease-fire, knowing full well it would give Hamas the chance to regroup, rearm and renew its attacks. Back in 2014, there were a series of short-lived cease-fires, which Hamas breached.

The United Nations was founded in the wake of World War II to maintain peace and security and prevent atrocities like the Holocaust. It is failing to live up to that mission.

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UN provides cover for terrorists

Eight decades later, the U.N. is a clubhouse for dictators and a den of moral equivocation. It is a home for corrupt tyrants to stand in judgment of free democracies, where warmongers like Russia wield a veto and notorious human rights abusers like Iran get tapped to lead human rights forums.

By cultivating the appearance of a virtuous global body, the U.N. dangerously telegraphs to terror organizations and their state sponsors that there will never truly be a price to pay for committing atrocities. Worse, the U.N. gives them cover.

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After Oct. 7, the international outcry shifted from horror for Israel to horror at Israel in less than a week. While it is reasonable to expect Israel to abide by the laws of war, it is entirely unreasonable to expect nothing from Hamas.

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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council that the deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel “did not happen in a vacuum.” These six words were all the world needed to hear to decide that Hamas, genocidal in its intent and brutal in its action, was justified on Oct 7.

In one way, Guterres is right: The attacks didn't happen in a vacuum. Since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, the U.N. has watched the terrorist group steal billions of dollars in international aid, build command centers inside hospitals and store rockets in schools operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

On the U.N. watch, Gaza has become what the Israeli ambassador to the United States calls “the biggest terror complex in the world” – and Hamas has learned repeatedly that they can get away with murder.

Aviva Klompas is the former director of speechwriting at the Israeli Mission to the United Nations and co-founder of Boundless Israel, a nonprofit organization that partners with community leaders in the U.S. to support Israel education and combat hatred of Jews.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hamas once again murders Jews in Israel. And UN tries to justify it