We find it noteworthy, if not surprising, that with all the well-documented systematic human rights abuses committed by governments around the world – including, but not limited to, China, Cuba, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Zimbabwe – not one resolution condemning any of them is planned by the UN General Assembly.
Yet last week the UNGA adopted six condemnatory resolutions against Israel and plans fifteen more by the end of its annual session this month.
One of the six resolutions already passed said Israel should return the Golan Heights to Syria. A second declared that Israel must cede its jurisdiction over Jerusalem. A third called for a peaceful settlement of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians but admonished Israel as the “occupying power” to “comply strictly with its obligations under international law.” (This despite the fact that the Security Council resolution ending the 1967 Six-Day War generally called for negotiations to resolve land disputes, which Israel has been prepared to do for decades and the Palestinians have not.)
Another resolution proclaimed 2014 the “International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” and urged the GA’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People to “organize activities to be held during the year.”
Still another one praised the UN’s Division of Palestinian Rights for its role in “raising international awareness of the question of Palestine and the peace process.”
UN Watch has raised the monitoring of this sort of charade to a fine art. Its president, Hillel Neuer, captured the moment: “The UN’s drumbeat of excessive, disproportionate and one-sided condemnations of Israel causes polarization, threatens to push the parties further apart and is counterproductive to the already fragile peace process.”
We would only add that encouraging the Palestinians to embrace a fictive reality that allows them to dispense with any need to negotiate directly with Israel does them no favors.