PRESS RELEASE
UNGA Condemned Israel Twice Today for 2020 Total of 17, Rest of World 6
NEW YORK, Dec. 21, 2020 – The UN General Assembly condemned Israel today in two separate resolutions, concluding the world body’s 2020 legislation with a total of 17 resolutions that either single out or condemn the Jewish state, and six on the rest of the world combined. There was one resolution each adopted for the regimes of North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Myanmar (to be ratified on Wednesday), and two on Crimea. (Click here for texts and voting sheets.)
“The UN’s assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental watchdog organization.
“It’s absurd that in the year 2020, out of a total 23 of UN General Assembly resolutions that criticize countries, 17 of them—more than 70 percent—were focused on one single country: Israel. Make no mistake: the purpose of the lopsided condemnations is to demonize the Jewish state,” said Neuer.
Today’s Two Resolutions Against Israel
The plenary voted today to ratify two one-sided resolutions against Israel that were adopted in draft form last month by the UNGA’s Economic and Financial Committee, known as the Second Committee.
The resolution entitled “Oil slick on Lebanese shores” singled out Israel as the only country to be censured under the “Sustainable Development” agenda item, and refers to an alleged incident from the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. It was adopted today by a vote of 162 to 7, with 6 abstentions.
A second resolution condemned Israel for allegedly exploiting natural resources of the Palestinians, and in the Golan, adopted by a vote of 153 to 6, with 17 abstentions. The text made no mention of Hamas’ commandeering international aid money to fund terror tunnels, or Palestinians polluting the environment by burning tires, destruction of flora and fauna with arson balloons and kites; and refusal to develop their own water resources and deal with their own sewage as required by the Oslo Accords.
Total of 17 Resolutions Against Israel in 2020
“The UN’s disproportionate assault against the Jewish state undermines the credibility of what is supposed to be an impartial international body. When the General Assembly gives in to politicization and selectivity by discriminating against Israel, it violates the UN Charter’s guarantee of equal treatment to all nations, large and small,” Neuer added.
“We note that the UK and EU states like France, Germany and Spain voted Yes to more than two thirds of the UNGA resolutions singling out Israel in 2020. Yet these same nations failed to introduce a single UNGA resolution this year on the human rights situation in China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Cuba, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria, or on 175 other countries,” Neuer added.
“Today’s farce at the General Assembly underscores a simple fact: the UN’s automatic majority has no interest in truly helping Palestinians, nor in protecting anyone’s human rights; the goal of these ritual, one-sided condemnations is to scapegoat Israel,” said Neuer.
🇪🇺 EU states backed the U.N. General Assembly yesterday in adopting its 17th resolution of the year against Israel.
🇪🇺 EU states introduced 0 resolutions this year on abuses by China, Turkey, Venezuela, Eritrea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Cuba, the Palestinian Authority… https://t.co/qGvXU5um9r pic.twitter.com/PTVeu4bhag
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) December 22, 2020
Slight Progress on UN’s Anti-Israel Bodies: EU States Changed Votes
However, in wake of our global campaign, UN Watch welcomes modest yet notable progress in countries’ diminishing support for discriminatory annual resolutions targeting Israel.
For the first time ever, Germany, Austria and Bulgaria changed their votes and opposed the annual resolution that renews the mandate of the 25-nation “Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People,” one of the UN’s most notorious anti-Israel bodies. Likewise, Iceland and Uruguay moved from voting Yes last year to Abstain. Others who rightly opposed the resolution, as they did in 2019, include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Colombia, Honduras, Hungary, and the United States.
Similarly, Switzerland and Slovenia for the first time ever voted No to the annual resolution that renews the mandate of the UN’s Division for Palestinian Rights, which employs 15 full-time staffers, at a cost to taxpayers of millions of dollars, to organize anti-Israel events worldwide. Regrettably, France did not oppose the resolution, and once again abstained.
For a second year, UN Watch commends the Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, and Slovakia for breaking from EU consensus earlier this month, and voting to oppose the UN resolution funding the UN’s 15-member Palestine division. (Click here to see full voting sheets from the 2020 UNGA session.)
In 2019, 155 German MPs called on the German government to “dissociate from unilateral, primarily politically motivated initiatives and alliances of anti-Israeli Member States, and protect Israel and legitimate Israeli interests from unilateral condemnation” in the UN.
In 2017, the Dutch parliament resolved to “actively oppose UN organizations that devote disproportionate attention to Israel.”
“This month’s vote by the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, and others illustrates that pressure from lawmakers and regular citizens can change anti-Israel voting patterns. UN Watch will continue to rally the public to call for fairness and equal treatment of Israel in the UN. The EU and other democracies must stop supporting the disproportionate amount and biased nature of the resolutions targeting the Jewish state each year,” said Neuer.
In testimony delivered recently in the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem, Neuer explained why the UN resolutions matter. “The UN assault on Israel poisons the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions worldwide. It grants the imprimatur of international legitimacy that fuels the boycott movement. It sends a signal to Hamas and other terrorist groups that the world is with them,” said Neuer.
“We need to demand that democracies like the UK, France and Germany respect the UN’s founding principles—which they claim to believe in—by ending their support for the UN’s obsessive scapegoating of the world’s only Jewish state, and to instead work on protecting human rights for the victims who need it most,” Neuer told the Knesset committee.
Click here for all anticipated 2020 UN General Assembly resolutions singling out Israel.
