The United States stood all alone at the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, as all the remaining members were emphatic in their condemnation of President Donald Trump’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
This included the Russian Federation, who back in 2014 annexed Crimea from Ukraine, and whose Deputy UN Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said Washington’s move is fueling instability in the Middle East.
Clearly, the ambassador is not wholly familiar with his own country’s army’s recent activities in the region in question.
British UN envoy Karen Pierce, whose country, back in 1982, established its annexation of the Falkland islands from Argentina, declared that the US proclamation was in contravention of a 1981 UNSC resolution, which the US under President Reagan supported, and which declared Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights “null and void and without international legal effect.”
Good to know.
Syria requested the UNSC meeting in a letter that called the Trump proclamation “a flagrant aggression on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic, and flagrant violation of the UN charter and the international law regarding Golan.”
German UN Ambassador Christoph Heusgen suggested the Syrian letter was “deeply cynical,” and pointed out that “the Syrian government has over the past eight years grossly violated the international laws of war and is responsible for grave war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Make that 80 years.
On Tuesday, in a televised address from an undisclosed location, Hezbollah boss Hassan Nasrallah called on the Arab countries to withdraw from the Arab Peace Initiative in response to Trump’s proclamation, arguing that “after the Golan, we have to expect, on any given day and hour, that Trump will emerge on the Arab and Islamic worlds and declare recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.”
We told you Mrs. Nasrallah didn’t raise a fool.
The UNSC European members, France, Britain, Germany, Belgium and Poland, agreed with Hezbollah’s concerns about “broader consequences of recognizing illegal annexation and also about the broader regional consequences.”
So what is Israel waiting for? The world is telling her they practically expect annexation of Judea and Samaria (for starters) – do it already, what are they going to do to you, condemn you in the UNSC?
For the record, the UNSC includes five permanent members: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly (listed with end of term year):
Belgium (2020)
Côte d’Ivoire (2019)
Dominican Republic (2020)
Equatorial Guinea (2019)
Germany (2020)
Indonesia (2020)
Kuwait (2019)
Peru (2019)
Poland (2019)
South Africa (2020)