Rising from their seats on 18th September 2024 in New York, the UNGA passed the “State of Palestine” and mostly 29 Islamic nations sponsored resolution calling for the Jewish state of Israel to vacate from Judea Samaria within the next one year.
The resolution called for Israel to “end without delay its unlawful presence” in “Occupied Palestinian Territory” and for UN members to place embargo on arms that Israel might use in Judea Samaria. It called for Jewish communities in Judea Samaria to be dismantled, the Jews there to be ethnic cleansed and for a boycott of Israeli economic activities originating from Judea Samaria. It says Israel is to also pay reparations to Palestinians for the damage caused by its occupation, bring down the security wall and cease from any building construction in Judea Samaria. It demanded that Israel return land and other “immovable property”, as well as all assets seized since the occupation began in 1967, and all cultural property and assets taken from Palestinians and Palestinian institutions.
The resolution asserted that it is using the ICJ Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024 which said Israel’s presence in Judea Samaria is an unlawful occupation as a legal backbone to support its statements.
The resolution passed with a resounding 124 votes in favor, 43 abstentions and 14 against. Most of the European nations like Britain and Germany who are supposed allies of Israel abstained. USA, Czech Republic, Argentina and a few other nations who voted ‘nay’ watched while the likes of modern Japan and the rest of them brazenly showed how devoid of moral character they are as they answered ‘yeah’.
Feeling very proud of himself for such diplomatic feat and clapping for such a momentous achievement, Riyad Mansour who represented the Palestinians in that forum threatened that since it is most likely that Israel won’t pay attention to the resolution, he will be following up with a stronger one. Wonder what will be stronger than this one. Maybe he meant the “From the river to the sea thing” or should it be the UN arming Hamas?
Well, Mansour stated that the vote is a turning point “in our struggle for freedom and justice…….It sends a clear message that Israel’s occupation must end as soon as possible and that the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination must be realized.”
The Japanese said they were voting yes for they love and like to stand with the ICJ and will be working for negotiations to end the war in Gaza.
Israel, represented by Danny Danon, of course condemned the vote as “a shameful decision that backs the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic terrorism.” He said so after censuring the UN for not condemning Hamas, having a prolonged bias and prejudice against Israel and stated that the resolution will only be encouraging and rewarding terror.
Of course after the votes, the media houses and other organizations took it up and words like “Historic achievement! Israel made a pariah state! More isolation for Israel in the UN! filled their news even though they were blunted by pagers detonating in Lebanon.
The hype about isolation of Israel should be taken with a pinch of salt for it is nothing new with the resolution. Since the 1970s when the UN sold its soul to the devil by adopting the Arabs narrative of a ‘Palestinians” because of the Arabs oil blackmail and the OIC voting bloc, the Jewish state has been on that isolation thing. In the UN, Israel already has about 120 nations who by the virtue of the voting caucus they belong to which has zero to do with right, wrong, justice or truth of any proposed resolution, is already automatically in a position to be voted against in its conflicts with the Arabs. From the 22 nations of the Arab League to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation which is about 66 nations and then the Non-Aligned Movement nations whose bulk membership is made up of the above two organizations, Israel is already out. When one adds China and Russia who oppose virtually everything US supports in UN, it is understandable how those nations get to pass those resolutions against Israel.
The Europeans abstention and the Japanese sudden love of ICJ advisory opinions could be understood from the angle of the fact that for most of them, they can only relate to the Israel Arab conflict with the slogan, “two state solution”. It has become their god, sanity and anchor any time this conflict is mentioned. As a comfortable slogan, they are loath to even countenance an analysis of it or have it be questioned at all. Doing so will destroy their zone of comfort. Anything that appears to challenge or change that their slogan means that they will be left hanging so they will fight to retain that one policy they clung to in what they call a complex problem without been forced to think of other ideas. Like the UN, they do not want to walk back from the path they had walked on for years even if the route had been wrong. So when they saw Israel talking of not allowing any Palestine state in Judea Samaria recently in the Knesset, they panicked, started acting up and throwing tantrums with that yes vote and abstentions.
And so, it should not come as a surprise that Israel may even get up to 170 nations against two in that UN circus voting for the resolution. For a circus is what it was as Danny Danon said.
Now, let’s talk turkey.
The Japanese and some others claim that they are supporting the resolution because they want to stand on international law and legality. However, the ICJ advisory opinion the resolution claims gave it such lawful authority under international law has no legal legitimacy or judicial root. ICJ advisory opinions are already non-binding and hence not law. This is because as the ICJ itself noted, its advisory opinions are based on contentious proceedings. Those opinions are passed based on the questions, limitations and premises those that asked for the opinions posed and UNGA is notorious for that. There are no legal representatives from the opposing parties arguing their cases and presenting evidence and facts in court for the judges to use in passing the opinions unlike in the case of judgments. The judges can just cherry pick based on political and other interests or request any information that can suit the premise they want to use and then pass those opinions. That’s why they said the opinions are non-binding and hence not law and the requesting entity are free to use it as they deem fit.
The one they passed recently against Israel lacks truth, morality, justice or respect for international law. It is an UNGA politically motivated pressure tool.
On the ICJ advisory opinion passed against Israel, the fact is that it has nothing to do with provisions of international law. The premise they used is the same UN resolutions which are non-binding and not law. The UN told them to use its resolution which said that Israel is an occupier of Palestinian territories since 1967. They went ahead and used that premise without defining and showing how that occupation is a fact based on its definition by article 42 of The Hague Regulations of 1907 and the heading of section 3 where that definition is gotten from.
Talking about the illegality and bias of the opinion, one of the judges of the ICJ, Judge Sebutinde condemned it and said that the judges are hurting the court’s judicial credibility and legitimacy. She asserted the following ““In rendering its Advisory Opinion, the Court should have been careful to guard its judicial character and integrity by ensuring that the nuanced and more complex issues that require resolution through negotiation such as the competing territorial claims of the parties in former British Mandatory Palestine, and unresolved permanent-status issues such as a possible two-State solution, security, borders, refugees and the status of Jerusalem are left to the negotiation framework…” She condemned the opinion for assuming erroneous premises in its occupation claims and applicable laws from the information given to it by UNGA when she noted that the court “misapplied the law of belligerent occupation and has adopted presumptions implicit in the question of the General Assembly without a prior critical analysis of relevant issues. These issues include the application of the principle of uti possidetis juris to the territory of the former British Mandate, the question of Israel’s borders and its competing sovereignty claims, and the nature of the Palestinian right of self-determination….”
Thus the legal integrity of that ICJ opinion is in question for both its lack of judicial and moral credibility. Since the UNGA resolution is based on an ICJ opinion that lacks legal roots, the Japanese and others claiming international law and legality as their reason for supporting the resolution have nothing to support their stance.
Actually, one should not expect the UN to be fair. An association which violates the article 80 of its own charter just to do Israel in should not be expected to be fair or stand by truth and justice.
What one should have expected is of the Israeli representative to stand on that podium and forget about talking of Hamas, October 7 and about UN condemning them since they do not care. Since Israel own the whole territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea indigenously, nationally and legally under international law and the Palestinians have zero claim, Danny Danon ought to have concentrated on talking about bow Israel is going to start acting on those its territories from now on.
He should have told the UN that Israel will not allow their plan to ethnic cleanse its people from their own indigenous homeland in Judea Samaria to come to pass.
Israel will not allow the Palestinians to have an inch of land in that place from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to go forming anything like a Palestine state on it. They have zero of such rights and thus will have none. Israel does not have a problem with Riyad Mansour and his people doing a self-determination, freedom and justice, it just cannot happen in any land belonging to the Jewish state. They are welcome to do it in Norway, Spain or Iran.
Israel has had enough of the UN trying to make it a scapegoat for its own mistakes in accepting the Arabs Palestine narrative and getting stuck with it. It cannot bear the consequences of the UN mistakes.
It will not allow the Arabs imperialism and colonialism which subjugated, almost sent into extinction and took over the lands of every other indigenous nationalities in the Middle East from Iran to the Atlantic to happen to it. The Jewish state, as the last surviving indigenous nation there will not allow the Arabs to achieve that with their imperial weapon of Palestinian ideology/Palestinianism they deployed since 1964.
Nobody should ask it for solution to the issue of Palestinians. Since no one asks Syria, Lebanon, and every other nation who have Palestinians living within their territories for the solution to that problem, then no one should expect Israel to be the one providing that answer. If the UN wants to solve the problem, they should come together with the Arabic nations and devise means to solve that problem they created by themselves but it will not be at the expense of Israel or its own territories.
Israel will be drawing a new policy on how to solve its own Palestinians problem just as many other nations like Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, etc have devised theirs. If Israel cannot tolerate that problem anymore, it will look for alternative means including deporting and expelling the whole lot of them who are a source of trouble to it from Judea Samaria and Gaza.
Netanyahu will soon be addressing the UNGA next week. Hope he will not repeat the same thing that Danon did by talking about Hamas terrorism, why UNGA should condemn Hamas, those tons of food and medications Israel sends to Gaza or about how the IDF limits civilian casualties in Gaza to an unprecedented ratio of 1:1. He should forget those speeches about being able to vaccinate all the kids in Gaza against polio, meningitis, Covid-19 or about victims of October 7th. He should know that UNGA does not and will not care. He should rather use that opportunity to reset the narrative and paradigm. His classical speeches will only be used as support for Israel’s main case of addressing this Palestinianism issue later.
Those nations and diplomats who made their career out of peddling that two state solution nonsense and who got the jitters and then supported the resolution should know that the ship has sailed on that one and won’t be coming back.
Now is the time and not later.