Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday slammed the United Nations General Assembly over its “disgraceful” resolution a day earlier calling on the International Court of Justice in The Hague to provide an opinion on Israel’s “occupation.”
The resolution, titled “Israeli practices and settlement activities affecting the rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories”, calls for Court to take measures against Israel over its policies that are “aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem”. The global body also slammed Israel’s “discriminatory legislation and measures” including “annexation”.
Israel has not extended sovereignty over the West Bank, a territory that it liberated from Jordanian occupation in the Six Day War in 1967, in which four of Israel’s Arab neighbors attacked the Jewish state and suffered a swift and crushing defeat.
The vote passed by a majority of 87 to 26, with 53 abstentions. All the Arab countries that share diplomatic relations with Israel voted in favor of the resolution. Ukraine abstained, after it voted in support of a similar resolution in November, prompting ire from Jerusalem.
Netanyahu said the UNGA resolution would not “obligate the government of Israel” as is the case with “the hundreds of distorted” UN resolutions against it.
“The Jewish people is not occupying its land and is not occupying its eternal capital Jerusalem. No UN resolution can distort this historical truth,” the prime minister said.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan called the General Assembly resolution “outrageous” that was “a moral stain on the UN and every country that supports it.”
“No international body can decide that the Jewish people are ‘occupiers’ in their own homeland. Any decision from a judicial body which receives its mandate from the morally bankrupt and politicized UN is completely illegitimate,” he said.
The Palestinian leadership, Erdan said, has rejected every peace initiative, while “supporting and inciting terror.”
“Instead of pushing the Palestinians to change, the UN is doing the opposite: helping them to harm the only vibrant democracy in the Middle East which recently signed 4 peace agreements with Arab countries. We will not take part in this disgraceful show of lies,” he added.
The office of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas said following the vote: “This vote is a testament to the support of the entire world for our people and their indisputable historical rights. President Mahmoud Abbas thanks all the countries that stood by the Palestinian and their rights, and all the parties that worked to bring about this decision.”
Photo: File
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