Over four decades ago, Abba Eban – Israel’s legendary foreign minister and UN ambassador – quipped, “If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.”
What was true then remains true today, possibly even more so. This will become apparent next week when the UN General Assembly is expected to vote on the most recent Palestinian Authority resolution demanding that within six months, Israel, in accordance with a ludicrous advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice in July, “ends its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
This resolution, which is not binding, will – just as Eban said long ago – easily pass. The General Assembly, which to this day has scandalously not passed any measure condemning Hamas for October 7, will once again pass a one-sided pro-Palestinian resolution aimed at embarrassing and isolating Israel.
The PA will applaud this as a great diplomatic victory, yet it will be just another hollow achievement at the UN that will do nothing to further the Palestinian-declared goal of statehood.
This resolution is another shot in the long Palestinian diplomatic war against Israel aimed at weakening and delegitimizing the Jewish state. Ever since then-PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, infamously carrying a pistol, spoke at the UN in 1974, the Palestinian situation has not significantly changed. In fact, as the situation in Gaza attests, it has only gotten worse – despite the PA winning vote after vote in the UN General Assembly.
If the Palestinians had spent the same energy over the past half-century building up the areas under their control in the West Bank and Gaza rather than demonizing Israel on the world stage, their situation today would be markedly different and much better.
But they did not do so and chose a different path, proving, once again, that they are more concerned with tearing down the Jewish state than with building a Palestinian state of their own.
The Palestinians and those countries voting for their resolution next week know it will have no practical impact. Instead, what these moves are meant to do is chip away at Israel’s legitimacy, isolate it, turn it into a pariah, and make it the equivalent on the world stage of last century’s apartheid South Africa.
The resolution is expected to come to a vote on September 18, just days before many of the world’s leaders descend upon the UN for the annual high-level General Assembly debate. The timing is anything but coincidental, with the Palestinians keen on ensuring that their issue is the focus of attention and that the world does not get distracted by other matters, such as the ongoing war in Ukraine and the unspeakable suffering in Sudan.
While it is clear that this resolution will pass – and with a massive majority – that does not mean that Israel should not fight it.
Israel cannot win the numbers game at the UN, but when looking at the final roll call, it is important to see which states vote for Israel or abstain. It is important to focus on what has been termed the UN’s “moral majority” – those democracies with moral standing whose voices actually matter.
This is where Israel’s diplomatic focus needs to be channeled: working to prevent those countries from supporting this Palestinian resolution by convincing them that by doing so, they are not forwarding the prospects of a diplomatic solution but rather pushing those prospects back.
No substantial consequences
The reason is simple: One-sided anti-Israel UN resolutions like these do not change anything on the ground, but they do reinforce Palestinian intransigence by raising expectations among Palestinians that they can continue with maximalist demands, show no flexibility, and wait for the world to deliver Israel.
These types of resolutions feed the illusion that the international community can and will force Israel’s hand. If that is the case, why should the Palestinians have to make any compromises or tough choices?
So they don’t. Rather, they just sit back and wait, chalking up one useless UN victory after another while nothing moves on the ground. It’s a losing strategy but one the Palestinians go back to repeatedly, which the world – through the UN – predictably plays along with each time.
Sadly, this year will be no different.