UN vote ‘despicable’, says Israel – Australia votes against, NZ abstains
Israel has condemned and the Palestinians have welcomed a United Nations General Assembly vote asking the International Court of Justice to provide an opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the swearing in ceremony of the 37th Israeli government at the Knesset, Dec. 29, 2022. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.
The Friday vote presents a challenge for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who this week took office at the head of a government which has set settlement expansion as a priority and which includes parties who want to annex West Bank land on which they are built.
“The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land nor occupiers in our eternal capital Jerusalem and no UN resolution can distort that historical truth,” Netanyahu said in a video message, adding that Israel was not bound by the “despicable decision.”
The Palestinians seek the occupied West Bank for a state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem. Most countries consider Israel’s settlements there illegal, a view Israel disputes citing historical and Biblical ties to the land.
The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) also known as the World Court, is the top UN court dealing with disputes between states. Its rulings are binding, though the ICJ has no power to enforce them.
The UN General Assembly asked the ICJ to give an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s “occupation, settlement and annexation … including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem.”
Members of Netanyahu’s new government have pledged to bolster settlements with development plans, budgets and authorisation of dozens of outposts built without permits.
The cabinet includes newly created posts and restructured roles that grant some of those powers to pro-settler coalition partners, who ultimately aim to extend Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank.
Netanyahu, however, has given no indication of any imminent steps to annex the settlements, a move that would likely shake up its relations with Western and Arab allie s alike.
The Palestinians welcomed the UN vote in which 87 members voted in favour of adopting the request; Israel, the United States and 24 other members voted against; and 53 abstained.
“The time has come for Israel to be a state subject to law, and to be held accountable for its ongoing crimes against our people,” said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule in the West Bank.
Basem Naim, an official with Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, said it was “an important step toward confining and isolating the state of occupation (Israel).”
Netanyahu’s full statement: “Just like the hundreds of distorted UN General Assembly resolutions against Israel over the years, today’s disgraceful resolution will not obligate the Government of Israel.
The Jewish people is not occupying its land and is not occupying its eternal capital Jerusalem. No UN resolution can distort this historical truth.
In recent days, I have spoken with world leaders who changed their votes as a result.
Together with President Isaac Herzog, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan and the personnel at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we have achieved something important. In the UN resolution that was passed in November, the Palestinians had an absolute majority of UN member states that supported their initiative. Those that did not support it – that opposed, abstained or were absent – were in the minority. Now, after our intervention, 11 countries changed how they voted and as a result there has been a turnaround: The countries that supported the Palestinian initiative were a minority of UN members and those that did not support the Palestinians were a majority of UN member states.
I would like to thank President Isaac Herzog, Israeli Ambassador to the UN and the personnel at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their cooperation in bringing about this important achievement. We will continue to fight for the truth.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Ukraine, which had previously voted in favour of the anti-Israel resolution, this time was absent during the vote. There is no comment on the diplomatic discussions that were held.
World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder said: “Today’s vote at the United Nations exemplifies an ongoing pattern of bias against Israel, and we applaud those 26 countries, including the United States, who voted against this shameful resolution that seeks to isolate and demonise the Jewish state.
The text of the measure is as troubling as it is misguided. It exclusively refers to the Temple Mount by its Muslim term, erasing the more than 2,500-year-old connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem.
This measure is a direct outgrowth of the biased Commission of Inquiry on Israel, whose commissioners have made antisemitic comments and who have been unabashed critics of Israel. Referral of this issue to the ICJ is yet another barrier to dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.
Peace in the region can only be negotiated by the two sides directly involved.”
Australia voted against while New Zealand abstained.
Peter Wertheim, co-CEO of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told J-Wire: “Here we go again. The UN has once more embarked on the costly charade of trying to dress up its perennial one-eyed animus against Israel with the veneer of legality. It did not work with the widely dismissed Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice in 2004, and it will not work this time either.
The Australian government is to be commended for voting ‘No’ to this resolution, together with 25 other nations. The large number of No votes and abstentions indicates the deep ambivalence, if not outright opposition, of many nations concerning this resolution.
Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in 1967 in the course of repelling an armed attack from its Arab neighbours, who had openly declared their intention to wipe Israel off the map. Israel has on several occasions offered to hand the Palestinians what amounts to the whole of that territory, after land swaps, in return for a binding and enforceable peace treaty that will end the conflict once and for all, and establish a peaceful process for resolving all outstanding claims. This the Palestinian leadership has been unwilling to agree to.
By refusing to hold the Palestinian leaders accountable in any way for their disastrous decisions which have prolonged the conflict for decades, and by placing all of the blame on Israel, the UN is helping to perpetuate the conflict, not resolve it. The reflexive and uncritical embrace of the Palestinian ‘narrative’ has always been morally untenable, but now more and more nations are coming to realise it.”
Rob Berg, President of the Zionist Federation of New Zealand, added: “The outcome of the UNGA vote was as predictable as night following day. The UN has become a bastion of anti Israel fervour and institutional antisemitism. The resolution once again tries to eradicate any connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem and the land of Israel. It will not bring the conflict any closer to resolution which will only be achieved by both parties sitting down together to negotiate a final agreement. In fact all this does is make the Palestinians less likely to negotiate as they have no incentive to do so as long as the UN continues with its anti-Israel agenda.
Mr Leibler continued, “Sadly, we know that the many opportunities to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have failed as a primary result of the Palestinian refusal to recognise Israel’s right to exist. That is what has prevented Palestinian statehood and the resolution of the conflict. The UN’s determination to do whatever the Palestinians ask of it reinforces Israel’s and the Australian Jewish community’s sincere doubts about any position the UN takes on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like so many other UN actions, this resolution has made peace harder to achieve because it has rewarded Palestinian intransigence. The Albanese Government has seen through the UN’s lies and voted accordingly.”
The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council says the UN General Assembly vote was as predictable as it was odious. It is an utterly contemptible example of the UN’s ridiculous bias and moral bankruptcy.
Its executive director Dr Colin Rubenstein said: “Any anti-Israel campaign, no matter how far removed from reality or how damaging to the cause of genuine peace, still remains guaranteed a majority at the UN General Assembly. This resolution was potentially more damaging than most, pushing a negotiated two-state Israeli-Palestinian resolution even further away.
The Australian government deserves to be commended for its principled “no” vote – in line with our long-standing bipartisan stance in support for a genuine peace. AIJAC also notes some positive trends in UN voting with a majority of UN states refusing to provide support for this ugly, discriminatory and completely unhelpful new resolution – which will both politicise international law and perpetuate the Palestinian leadership’s counterproductive stance of preferring demonisation of Israel in international forums to engaging in genuine negotiations.”
AAP/J-Wire
Peter Wertheim:
The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine Solution (HKOPS) was published on 8 June 2022 but not a squeak has been publically heard from the ECAJ or Australia supporting or trashing that plan – which calls for the division of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria between Israel and the newly created territorial entity of Jordan, Gaza and part of the West Bank.
The ECAJ and Australia are in good company with the UN that has similarly not uttered one word acknowledging the existence of HKOPS.
The UN is now embarking on another journey to the International Court of Justice as a result of a divisive vote in the General Assembly.
What madness drives this decision – when the problem of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria between Jews and Arabs can be resolved in negotiations to implement HKOPS.
I brought Penny Wong’s attention to HKOPS in June last year – but received no reply.
Maybe you with your contacts to Penny Wong can have more success.
Australia’s vote against the referral to the ICJ was commendable – but it can do far more: Assemble a coalition of those UN members voting or abstaining against the UN decision to support the implementation of HKOPS and trash the two-state solution which has gone nowhere in the six years since the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2334.
No surprises from New Zealand, their Labour fueled dispicable behaviour towards Israel is yet again confirmed.
Benjamin Netanyahu knows that from the days of Theodor Meron the legal counsel to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, that Israel occupies the Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem, Meron warned the Israeli government that occupation and subsequent colonisation of the Palestinian Territories was a violation and would attract consequences by the international community.
Kenneth Hammond:
You may not know that Meron changed his 1967 opinion in 1968 in a Memo sent to Israel’s US Ambassador Yitzchak Rabin which stated:
” Our consistent line has been and continues to be to avoid discussions about the administered territories with foreign elements based on the Geneva Convention. This is why we have preferred to solve problems pragmatically and with a positive spirit. […] You realize what security and political interests dictated this line. Express recognition on our part of the applicability of the Geneva Convention would highlight serious issues with respect to the Convention in terms of blasting homes, deportations, settlements etc. Moreover, when we have to leave all options regarding borders open, we must not acknowledge that our status in the administered territories is simply that of an occupying power. Therefore, we have always stressed the unique features of our situation: lack of recognized borders, Jordan’s status as an occupier in the West Bank, etc. In short, our policy with respect to the administered territories is to try and prevent blatant clashes with the Geneva Convention without getting into the issue of its applicability. The truly difficult problem is, of course, East Jerusalem, because here, if the government had adhered to the Geneva Convention and the 1907 Hague Regulations, it would not have been able to make far-reaching changes on the administrative and legal level, such as land confiscations etc
“You may not know that Meron changed his 1967 opinion in 1968 in a Memo”Meron did advise that ‘civilian settlement’ of the occupied territories would contravene the 4th Geneva Convention. But he also advised that, if the government decided to establish settlements in the occupied territories, in particular The Golan Heights, it was essential that it be done by the army in the form of Nahal camps that would not point to the establishment of permanent civilian settlements.”
He left no doubt that he was proposing government transfer of settlers into the occupied lands in question, saying: “Even if we settle an army and not civilians, we must, from the point of view of international law, have regard to the question of ownership of “the land that we are settling.”
Sounds like Meron was the John Yoo of his day and country.
Meron implicitly included himself among those persons who were trying to argue and promote settlements in the West Bank, although he admitted that they had been rejected by the international community and that, in truth, some of Israeli’s actions had been inconsistent with those claims. Here’s some of his argument:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d442In terms of settlement on the [West] Bank, we are trying not to admit that here too it is a matter of “occupied territory”. We argue that this area of the Mandate on the Land of Israel was divided in 1949 only according to Armistice Lines, which, under the Armistice agreements themselves, had merely military, not political, significance and were not determinative until the final settlement. We go on to say that the agreements themselves were achieved as a temporary measure according to Security Council action based on Article 40 of the United Nations Charter. We also argue that Jordan itself unilaterally annexed the West Bank to the Kingdom of Jordan in 1950 and that the Armistice Lines no longer exist because the agreements expired due to the war and Arab aggression. We must nevertheless be aware that the international community has not accepted our argument that the [West] Bank is not “normal” occupied territory and that certain countries (such as Britain in its speeches at the UN) have expressly stated that our status in the [West] Bank is that of an occupying state. In truth, even certain actions by Israel are inconsistent with the claim that the [West] Bank is not occupied territory.
His comments on the possibility of settlement in the Jordan Valley establish that he hadn’t rejected the idea at all. He explicitly left the door open to further discussion once he had been fully briefed on the details of the plan:
“On the possibility of settlement in the Jordan Valley, the legal situation is even more complicated because we cannot claim to be dealing with people returning to their homes and we have to consider that problems of property will arise in the context of the Hague Regulations. I cannot go further into this question without having a lot more detail.”
The legal subterfuges that Meron suggested didn’t fool anyone. The Jewish Agency and the Government of Israel had established frontier fortresses along confrontation lines and employed them to expand the boundaries of the Jewish State, into occupied territory.
Meron’s role was two-fold, explain the law and suggest ways in which Israel could circumvent its International obligations.
Peter Wertheim sums it up precisely for what it is and in doing so shows this ongoing debacle by the Palestinians and the UN as something far more simple in solution than the tortuous gameplaying of decades infers. It could have been settled decades ago.