PRESS RELEASE
UN Watch: “Resolutions absurdly call for Golan residents to be handed over to murderous Assad regime”
UN CHIEF REJECTS INTERPRETER’S ‘HOT MIC’ CRITIQUE OF ISRAEL BIAS
GENEVA, Nov. 25, 2013 – The U.N. General Assembly today condemned Israel in six resolutions (see full texts below), the most significant of which declares 2014 a “Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian people,” reports Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch.
“We’re concerned about a new year that will bring escalated politicization of influential UN agencies worldwide, doing nothing to help Palestinians or Israelis on the ground, while inflicting yet further damage to the world body’s effectiveness and credibility,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.
The one-sided resolutions were adopted in tandem with the UN’s observance yesterday of its annual “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” UN Watch expressed disappointment that the highly politicized event was praised by UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant on Twitter as equivalent in importance to the International Day on the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Today’s annual resolutions endorsed the UN’s infrastructure of anti-Israel demonization, including a special UN staff division and committee of member states dedicated to promoting an anti-Israel narrative through events held around the world.
“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,” said Neuer.
“The UN’s lopsided adoption of an expected 21 resolutions on Israel, and only four on the rest of the world combined, eclipses the plight of millions of human rights victims in places like China, Russia, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia, whose critical issues are being treated with indifference, and—given the UN’s recent election of those countries to its Human Rights Council—with contempt.”
Neuer noted the absurdity and hypocrisy in several of today’s resolutions:
- Golan Resolution: “This is the second UNGA resolution this month devoted to the residents of the Golan Heights, who in reality enjoy normal lives, versus only one resolution on neighboring Syria which, according to the UN itself, has murdered more than 100,000 of its own people,” Neuer said. “At a time when Israeli hospitals are treating Syrian refugees fleeing mass slaughter, it is irrational for the UN to condemn Israel—and to do so 20 times more than Syria. And for the UN to demand today that Israel hand residents of the Golan over to Assad’s murderous rule is both immoral and absurd.”
- Palestinian Resolutions: “It’s far from clear why the UN’s only resolution in the world for self-determination is devoted to the Palestinians, when Israel has already acknowledged that right, and after the UN already recognized a ‘State of Palestine’ last year,” Neuer said. “Yet the UN has failed to adopt any resolution supporting self-determination for oppressed peoples such as the Tibetans, whose basic rights as a minority, let alone as a nation, are brutally and systematically trampled by China,” said Neuer.
UN CHIEF REJECTS INTERPRETER’S ‘HOT MIC’ CRITIQUE OF ISRAEL BIAS
In his message to yesterday’s UN ceremony for Palestinians, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized Israel only. “We regret that the Secretary-General failed to condemn the recent spate of Palestinian terror attacks, including those that took the lives of 19-year-old Eden Atias and 20-year-old Tomer Hazan,” said Neuer.
In a related development, Ban has categorically rejected the now-famous UN interpreter’s criticism of anti-Israel bias, caught on an open microphone. His spokesperson responded to a reporter’s question seeking the UN chief’s views on the gaffe — the video of which Prime Minister Netanyahu played to his cabinet meeting last week — saying on November 19th that “the Secretary-General respects the right of the Member States as they move forward on their resolutions” which, he insisted, “need to be upheld by all countries.”
“Given that Ban Ki-moon has himself criticized the singling out of Israel by UN bodies such as the Human Rights Council, we are disappointed that he is rejecting and refusing to acknowledge the simple truth of the UN interpreter’s candid and entirely correct observations,” said Neuer.
“After all, if the secretary-general could voice disappointment at the Human Rights Council’s ‘decision to single out Israel as the only specific regional item on its agenda, given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world,’ why can’t he endorse the virtually identical sentiment expressed by the interpreter at this year’s absurd amount of General Assembly resolutions singling out Israel?” asked Neuer.
TEXT AND VOTING RESULTS OF TODAY’S RESOLUTIONS
Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People
Vote: 110 to 7 (Australia, Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau, United States), with 56 abstentions (EU and others)
“Decides to proclaim 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, and requests the Committee to organize activities to be held during the year, in cooperation with Governments, relevant organizations of the United Nations system, intergovernmental organizations and civil society organizations.”
The Syrian Golan
Vote: 112 in favour to 6 against (Canada, Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau, United States), with 58 abstentions (EU and others)
“Demands once more that Israel withdraw from all the occupied Syrian Golan to the line of 4 June 1967 in implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions…”
Division for Palestinian Rights of the Secretariat
Vote: 108 to 7 (Australia, Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau, United States), with 59 abstentions (EU and others)
“Considers that, by providing substantive support to the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in the implementation of its mandate, the Division for Palestinian Rights of the Secretariat continues to make a most useful and constructive contribution to raising international awareness of the question of Palestine…”
Special information programme on the question of Palestine of the Department of Public Information of the Secretariat
Vote: 163 in favor (including EU) to 7 against (Australia, Canada, Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau, United States), with 7 abstentions (Cameroon, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Togo, Tonga)
“Considers that the special information programme on the question of Palestine of the Department is very useful in raising the awareness of the international community concerning the question of Palestine…”
Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine
Vote: 165 in favor (including EU) to 6 against (Canada, Israel, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau, United States), with 6 abstentions (Australia, Cameroon, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Tonga).
“Expressing grave concern about the extremely detrimental impact of Israeli settlement policies, decisions and activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, including on the contiguity, integrity and viability of the Territory …”
Jerusalem
Vote: 162 in favour (including EU) to 6 against (Canada, Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau, United States), with 8 abstentions (Australia, Cameroon, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Togo, Tonga).
“Reiterates its determination that any actions taken by Israel, the Occupying Power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever, and calls upon Israel to immediately cease all such illegal and unilateral measures…”
