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The United Nations General Assembly Votes to Remove Jews from Jerusalem's Old City
The most recent UN General Assembly resolution on Israel and the Palestinians is a radical strike at Israel and would push Jews out of the Old City of Jerusalem.
On September 18th, the UN General Assembly voted to hand the Old City of Jerusalem, home to Judaism’s holiest sites, to what it calls the “State of Palestine.”
The text of the resolution is quite radical. It begins with four pages of preambular attacks on Israel, in which Hamas and Palestinian terrorism are never mentioned. Then we get the 19 paragraphs that call for action.
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These include a demand that Israel withdraw “all its military forces from the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including its airspace and maritime space,” which is obviously suicidal. All countries are asked to boycott Israel diplomatically and economically in paragraph 4d by:
(ii) Abstaining from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the Territory, including with regard to the settlements and their associated regime;
(iii) Abstaining, in the establishment and maintenance of diplomatic missions in Israel, from any recognition of its illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including by refraining from the establishment of diplomatic missions in Jerusalem, pursuant to Security Council resolution 478 (1980) of 20 August 1980;
(iv) Taking steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including with regard to the settlements and their associated regime.
Then comes paragraph 5, asking all countries:
(a) To take steps to ensure that their nationals, and companies and entities under their jurisdiction, as well as their authorities, do not act in any way that would entail recognition or provide aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
(b) To take steps towards ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel, the occupying Power, in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;
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(c) To implement sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against natural and legal persons engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in relation to settler violence.
The text then calls for a special international conference and a group of UN reports on all of this, to ensure that no subject takes more time in the United Nations system than these constant assaults on Israel. So it has been, and so apparently it will be forever.
It is very well worth noting that the so-called “Occupied Palestinian Territory” includes anything beyond the 1949 armistice line. The Old City of Jerusalem is according to this resolution illegally occupied by Israel. This resolution would return the Old City, including the Western Wall, to its pre-1967 status, when Jordan had conquered it and Jews were not allowed in it. Of course the resolution does not say “the Old City should be judenrein,” but merely asks for the creation of conditions that would guarantee it would be. Any Jew who had moved there since 1967 would have to go, and a Palestinian-run Old City would be as welcoming—and as likely to protect Jewish sites—as was Jordan from 1948 to 1967.
Given that text, it is worth pausing to look at the vote. The numbers, 124 yes, 14 no, and 43 abstentions, show the usual UN majorities against Israel but hide the peculiarities of the vote.
Who voted with Israel and the United States? Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Malawi, Paraguay, and the tiny Pacific island nations of Fiji, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Tuvalu. That’s it, and it’s an honor roll. American Jewish organizations should be calling and thanking the ambassadors of those nations.
What of all the nice, decent, democratic U.S. allies? They split. Many abstained, including Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. They understood that this was a completely one-sided, unfair, and unrealistic resolution but nevertheless lacked the guts to vote no. Not only the Israelis lose from these abstentions; so does anyone who thinks the United Nations might ever play a more useful role in the Middle East. (The one piece of good news here was that India abstained; ten years ago it would certainly have voted yes.)
But worse, far worse, were those Western democracies who actually voted for the resolution. They include Belgium, France, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain. They have voted to remove Jews from the Old City. They have indulged a great expression of antisemitism, and agreed to apply to Israel standards of conduct that are applied to no other nation. They voted yes on a resolution that does not mention Hamas, Palestinian terrorism, or the Israeli hostages. This is a hall of shame.
The resolution for which they and, in all, 124 countries voted pulls us back to 1975, when the General Assembly voted to call Zionism a form of racism. As someone who had the honor to work for Daniel P. Moynihan, I am reminded of his words then, when he called that vote an “infamous act” and said “Not only will people begin to say, indeed they have already begun to say that the United Nations is a place where lies are told.” Well, that was 1975; we’ve all known that very clearly now for 50 years. And we’ve understood that more lies are told about Israel than about any other country.
This newest resolution adds more venom, more injustice, and more prejudice to the UN’s many assaults on Israel. It adds a call to push the Jews out of the Old City of Jerusalem, which is as clear as if it had been said in so many words. Moynihan said the 1975 resolution also brought us “the realization that if there were no General Assembly, this could never have happened.” A somber thought, then and now. The actions of the General Assembly gives it pride of place in the history of antisemitism.
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