The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution Wednesday that effectively bars Israel from self-defense in any of the territory it captured in a defensive war in 1967, including in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.
The resolution refers to a ruling earlier this year by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) — led by a judge from Lebanon, which is in a state of war with Israel — in which it declared Israel’s presence in Gaza, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and eastern Jerusalem to be illegal under international law. (Israel angrily rejected the ruling, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring: “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land.”)
The UNGA resolution demands that Israel withdraw all of its settlements from the West Bank within a year– including from towns that were Jewish before the Jordanian military expelled local residents in Israel’s independence war in 1948. It demands that Israel cease military activity in Judea and Samaria, and even demands that Israel get rid of passive measures, such as the “wall” (a fence, for most of its length) that keeps suicide bombers out of Israel.
Notably, the resolution never mentions the word “terror” once, nor does it acknowledge that Israeli military activity in the area is a reaction to attacks on Israeli communities and Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorist organizations.
As the Jerusalem Post noted, the resolution also calls for an arms embargo against Israel regarding any weapons that would be used in Gaza, the West Bank, or eastern Jerusalem, and calls for a boycott of Israeli goods from those areas.
The resolution passed with 124 votes in favor, 14 votes against, and 43 abstentions. Several European Union nations voted in favor of the resolution. The resolution has no binding effect at all, but is merely considered advisory.
The Palestinian Authority brought the resolution to the UNGA, violating the Oslo Peace Accords. Israel’s foreign minister had vowed earlier to “break and dissolve” the Palestinian Authority if it sought such resolutions against Israel.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.