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A top United Nations committee voted last week in favor of a draft resolution seeking the opinion from the International Court of Justice on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, which was called a “diplomatic and legal breakthrough.”
The draft resolution calls on the International Court of Justice to offer its opinion on Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory.”
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, embraced the vote and said “nothing justifies standing with Israeli occupation and annexation, its displacement and dispossession of our people,” according to Middle East Eye. “Our people are entitled to freedom. This occupation will need to end.”
He continued: “There will come a day, a day when our people will bring the flag of Palestine over the churches of Jerusalem and to the mosques of Jerusalem and Haram al-Sharif.”
The UN’s decolonization committee voted in favor of the draft 98-17. Fifty-two countries abstained from the vote at the UN headquarters in New York. Ukraine voted in favor of the resolution along with Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.
The resolution claims that Israeli occupation violates the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. The Associated Press noted that the draft resolution will be headed to the General Assembly, where it is virtually certain to be approved.
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The Trends Journal has long reported that there is a double standard in the U.S. when it comes to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory. (See “BLINKEN IS SHINING EXAMPLE OF HYPOCRISY, PALESTINIAN LIVES AND LAND DON’T MATTER” and “EU’S BORREL ADMITS KILLING PALESTINIANS DON’T COUNT.”)
Israeli forces have also conducted violent raids in the region that have drawn the ire of humanitarian groups. (See “ISRAEL KILLS 4 PALESTINIAN TEENS,” “4 KILLED, DOZENS WOUNDED IN ISRAELI WEST BANK RAID” and “ISRAEL RAIDS AND RANSACKS HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS AND CHURCH.”)
We have noted that the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice, and the High Contracting Parties to the Convention have all affirmed that this is occupied territory, and Israeli settlements there are illegal.
But whenever international bodies criticize Israel on any subject, the knee-jerk reaction by the U.S. and Israeli politicians is that the criticism is based on anti-Semitism. (See “AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: ISRAEL’S TREATMENT OF PALESTINIANS AMOUNTS TO APARTHEID,” “ISRAEL RAIDS AND RANSACKS HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS AND CHURCH” and “UNPROVOKED, ISRAEL BOMBS GAZA KILLING 43, WOUNDING HUNDREDS.”)
Furthermore, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch Israel have stated that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians meets the internationally accepted definition of apartheid.
The draft resolution noted that Israel’s prolonged occupation of the Palestinian territory since 1967 intended to alter the demographic composition, “character, and status of the holy city of Jerusalem.”
The resolution wants the court to issue a non-binding opinion on how Israel’s policies “affect the legal status of the occupation, and what are the legal consequences that arise for all states and the United Nations from this status.”