UN anti-Jewish bias hinders end to Arab-Jewish conflict
The United Nations (UN) needs to end its ongoing deceptive misrepresentation of the Arab-Jewish conflict in former Palestine – as it once again prepares to celebrate its self-proclaimed International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People – but not the Jewish People – on 29 November.
The UN trumpets this date in the following terms:
Pursuant to General Assembly resolution 32/40 B of 2 December 1977, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is observed annually on or around 29 November, solemnly commemorating the adoption by the Assembly, on 29 November 1947, of resolution 181 (II), which provided for the partition of Palestine into two States.
This statement fails to mention that the Jews accepted Resolution 181(II) – whilst the Arabs rejected it and went to war to try and wipe out the nascent Jewish State of Israel that was subsequently declared on 14 May 1948.
Arab acceptance of Resolution 181 (II) would have ended the Arab-Jewish conflict.
This statement is also false and misleading: Resolution 181(II) only dealt with the partition of 22% of the territory of Palestine located west of the Jordan River.
The remaining 78% of the territory of Palestine located east of the Jordan River (today called Jordan) had alreadybecome a sovereign Palestinian Arab State 18 months earlier – on 25 May 1946 – with not one Jew living there. This Jew-free area in the major part of Palestine had been achieved because article 25 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine provided that the Jewish National Home could not be extended east of the Jordan River.
Maintaining its International Day of Solidarity in 2021 without acknowledging that the Arabs-only State of Jordan has existed in 78% of former Palestine for more than 75 years continues to destroy the UN’s neutrality and credibility to broker an end to the Arab-Jewish conflict.
The continuing flagrant violation of Article 80 of the UN’s own 1945 Charter by its member States highlights the rapidly-increasing anti-Jewish bias that is infecting the UN and its agencies.
Article 80 preserves the right of the Jewish People to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in former Palestine west of the Jordan River – including Judea and Samaria (West Bank) – as authorised by article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine.
Israel’s first Prime Minister – David Ben-Gurion – then the Representative of the Jewish Agency – emphasised the importance of the insertion of Article 80 into the UN Charter in evidence before the UN Special Committee for Palestine at Lake Success, New York on 7 July 1947:
“Article 80 was adopted for this very special reason of Palestine… This is the special Article of the Charter which applies to Palestine. It was introduced only because of Palestine.”
Article 80 prevents any argument being made that the rights granted to the Jewish People under the Mandate for Palestine died with the demise of the League of Nations on 19 April 1946. Those rights remain as alive and exercisable today as they were when unanimously adopted by all 51 Member States of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922.
The UN’s continuing failure to recognise the Jewish People’s legal entitlement to settle in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) disqualifies the UN and its agencies from having any role in ending the Arab-Jewish conflict.
Acting in violation of article 80 of its own Charter ensures the UN has lost any hope of adopting a balanced and principled position to resolve a conflict which has lasted for 100 years and shows no signs of ending.
Continuing to hold this annual day of solidarity is a charade, a farce and engenders hatred of the Jewish People.
David Singer is a Sydney lawyer and a foundation member of the International Analysts Network
Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.
