UN to condemn Israel 9 times, rest of world 0
U.S. to change vote on Golan resolution
Abdullah al-Mouallimi of Saudi Arabia, Vice-Chair of the UN's Fourth Committee, addressed its debate on UNRWA on
November 9, 2018.
GENEVA, Nov. 16, 2018 – A United Nations General Assembly committee today will adopt nine resolutions against Israel, and zero on the entire
rest of the world.
The texts condemn Israel for "repressive measures" against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights, reinforce the mandate
of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and renew the mandate of the UN's "special committee to investigate Israeli
practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the Occupied Territories." (Click here for texts and voting sheets updated throughout the day.)
All 193 UN member states belong to the Special Political and Decolonization Committee, or Fourth Committee, that each
year adopts the texts with large majorities. Countries' votes are repeated in December when the GA plenary formally
ratifies the texts.
“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.
“Days after the Hamas terrorist group assaulted Israeli civilians with a barrage of 460 rockets — while the UN's General
Assembly and Human Rights Council stayed silent — the world body now adds insult to injury by adopting nine lopsided
condemnations, whose only purpose is to demonize the Jewish state."
“While France, Germany, Sweden and other EU states are expected to support 15 out of a total of 20 resolutions to be
adopted against Israel by December, the same European nations have failed to introduce a single UNGA resolution on the
human rights situation in China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Cuba, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria, or on 175
other countries," said Neuer.
"One of today's resolutions — drafted and co-sponsored by Syria — falsely condemns Israel for ‘repressive measures’
against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights. It’s obscene,” said Neuer.
The resolution condemns Israel for holding on to the Golan Heights, and demands Israel hand the land and its people to
Syria.
“It’s astonishing,” said Neuer. “After the Syrian regime has killed half a million of its own people, how can the UN
call for more people to be handed over to Assad’s rule? The text is morally galling, and logically absurd."
UN Watch applauded Ambassador Nikki Haley for announcing yesterday that the U.S. will vote against the Assad-backed
Golan resolution, intead of abstaining as America always did in the past.
“Today’s resolutions claim to care about Palestinians, yet the UN is oblivious to more than 3,000 Palestinians who have
been slaughtered, maimed and expelled by Assad’s forces.”
“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.
“The UN’s disproportionate assault against the Jewish state undermines the institutional credibility of what is supposed
to be an impartial international body. Politicization and selectivity harm its founding mission, eroding the UN
Charter's promise of equal treatment to all nations large and small,” Neuer added.
Click here to see the virtually identical 20 UN General Assembly resolutions targeting Israel in 2017, as well an additional one
last year on the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem.