The United Nations lost its way decades ago. Last week’s opening of the 64th General Assembly is a good time to offer suggestions on what the U.N. needs to do to get back to its fundamental roots.

First and foremost, the United Nations needs to focus on solving problems rather than placing blame where it does not belong. That alone would help restore its original mission of “maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.” B’nai Brith International has been at the U.N. from the world body’s inception. As a leading non-governmental organization we have watched as the U.N. has veered and careened from its mission. It is well past time, and more necessary than ever, to retool.

It is easy — and understandable — to dismiss the U.N. as a constructive force for conflict resolution. Most regrettably — and to the detriment of other serious global issues — the U.N.  is obsessed with Israel. The heavy Israel-focus is nothing more than a red herring meant to appease those hostile to the Jewish state. Most recently, last week’s Goldstone Report is a one-sided and incomplete picture of Israel’s defensive operations in the Gaza Strip between December 2008 and January 2009.

The report’s omissions and conclusions are telling. The team’s mandate from the United Nations Human Rights Council began with the premise that Israel committed “war crimes.” Not surprisingly, the findings do not deviate from that pre-determined conclusion.

Last year’s session of the General Assembly, the U.N.’s main deliberative body, was led by Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, the former foreign minister of Nicaragua. He spent a good deal of his term lambasting Israel, and it appears the new General Assembly president probably won’t be much better. Former Libyan Foreign Minister Ali Treki will preside over the new session. His anti-Israel record is an open and hate-filled book. At the Security Council in 2003, Treki condemned all forms of terrorism — except terrorism against Israelis, which he sought to legitimize as “resistance.”

In 2008, the General Assembly adopted more than 20 resolutions that specifically attacked Israel (usually with regard to the Palestinian issue, but also on the Golan Heights, Lebanon, and nuclear weapons). Many of these resolutions have been brought up year after year, entrenching the de-legitimization of Israel at the U.N. Typically, these resolutions are opposed by Israel, the United States, and a handful of Pacific island countries. In contrast, states like Iran, North Korea, and Myanmar (Burma) have few or no resolutions passed against them. In order to be taken seriously, the General Assembly needs to focus on the real, and numerous, human rights violators of the world.

Another point of failure is the Committee for the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP). For more than 30 years, the committee has functioned as an Israel-bashing forum. Last year, CEIRPP was especially active. Since the General Assembly created this committee, it can and should eliminate it entirely. The United Nations is a member of the Quartet, the international body seeking to broker a Middle East peace. But it’s a contradiction for the U.N. to host the one-sided, anti-Israel CEIRPP and still maintain credible Quartet membership. The U.N. cannot have it both ways. Unquestionably, the most serious threat to world peace today lies in a nuclear Iran; this should be the world body’s primary focus. We believe that the most likely deterrent at this point lies in the imposition of stricter sanctions as Tehran refuses to stop uranium enrichment. Now that the International Atomic Energy Agency has again issued a report critical of Iran’s level of cooperation in allowing nuclear inspections, the U.N. Security Council must impose tough sanctions that are adhered to by all nations. Any resistance within the Security Council must be overcome.

As we have long noted, the Human Rights Council is perhaps the greatest embarrassment to the United Nations. Incredibly, the council is even more one-sided in the number of resolutions against Israel relative to other countries than the General Assembly. For the council to have any hope of legitimacy, it must rid itself of the special rapporteur on the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” (the post currently occupied by Richard Falk). Because of the biased mandate against Israel in his job description, and his own anti-Israel proclivities, Falk reports only on Israeli actions, not on violations committed by Palestinians against Israelis and other Palestinians. The deck is stacked from the outset.

Next, the council needs to end the permanent agenda item against Israel, which ensures that Israel is unfairly attacked every single session. Where’s the focus on true human rights violators: What about Sudan? Congo? Iran? Venezuela? Syria? Zimbabwe?

The United Nations needs solid leadership to shepherd through these changes. If Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is re-elected, he needs to ratchet up his leadership and redirect the organization.

We recognize that many of the obstacles Ban faces are entrenched in the U.N. system. But he needs to better translate personal openness to fair treatment of Israel into principled and vocal direction for U.N. agencies and programs.

We are hopeful that the secretary-general, if determined, can make an impact. In 1945 in San Francisco, B’nai Brith believed in the promise of the United Nations, but we’ve been sadly accustomed to it not living up to that promise. The United Nations can still be an important force for change, but it will not be able to do so unless it drops its all-encompassing anti-Israel agenda. The United Nations must serve the purpose it set out to do; the job it is not doing adequately now.