The United Arab Emirates and Israel took the historic step of normalizing diplomatic relations this month. But you would never know how positive this development is for regional peace based on the United Nations’ tepid response, which focused on the Palestinians. The U.N’s continued perseveration about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict underscores how the international organization, whose mission is to promote “international peace and security,” has become an overt champion of one side of a conflict and a detractor of another side. To uphold its mission fairly and justly, this must change.

This was not the first time the U.N. promoted the Palestinian agenda to the detriment of regional peace initiatives. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shocked the Arab world in September 1978 when he became the first Middle Eastern leader to sign a peace agreement with Israel. Three months later, in resolution 33/28A, the U.N. General Assembly condemned Egypt for bypassing the U.N. and for not resolving the Palestinian issue. The General Assembly followed up in December 1979 with resolution 34/65, which again argued that regional security, somehow subordinate to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, would deteriorate with an Egyptian-Israeli deal. Both resolutions drew heavily from reports produced by the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.