The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that the Israeli government end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months — but half of the countries that voted against are from the Pacific.
Affirming a recent International Court of Justice opinion that deemed the decades-long occupation unlawful, the opposition from seven Pacific nations further marginalised the region from world opinion against Israel.
Earlier this week several UN experts and officials warned against Israel becoming a global “pariah” state over its almost year-long genocidal war on Gaza.
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The final vote tally was 124 member states in favour and 14 against, with 43 nations abstaining.
Pacific countries that voted with Israel and its main ally and arms-supplier United States against the Palestinian resolution are Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Tonga and Tuvalu.
Kiribati, Samoa and Vanuatu abstained while Marshall Islands and Solomon islands voted yes. Australia abstained while New Zealand and Timor-Leste also supported the resolution.
The Palestine-led resolution, co-sponsored by dozens of nations, calls on Israel to swiftly withdraw “all its military forces” from Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Palestine is a permanent observer state at the UN and it described the vote as “historic”.
Devastating war
Like the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion in July, which found the occupation “unlawful”, the resolution is not legally binding but carries considerable political weight.
The court’s opinion had been sought in a 2022 request from the UN General Assembly.
The UNGA vote comes amid Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, which has killed more than 41,250 Palestinians.
The United Kingdom, which recently suspended some arms export licenses for Israel, abstained from yesterday’s vote, a decision that the advocacy group Global Justice Now (GJN) said shows “complete disregard for the ongoing suffering of Palestinians forced to live under military-enforced racial discrimination”.
However, other US allies such as France voted for the resolution. Australia, Germany, Italy and Switzerland abstained but Ireland, Spain and Norway supported the vote.
“The vast majority of countries have made it clear: Israel’s occupation of Palestine must end, and all countries have a definite duty not to aid or assist its continuation,” said GJN’s Tim Bierley.
“To stay on the right side of international law, the UK’s dealings with Israel must drastically change, including closing all loopholes in its partial arms ban and revoking any trade or investment relations that might assist the occupation.”
NEWS: UN General Assembly adopts resolution demanding that Israel brings to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory without delay and within the next 12 months.https://t.co/Vj0Ve1lLBi pic.twitter.com/2rKKvDNDqd
— United Nations (@UN) September 18, 2024
BDS welcomes vote
The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement welcomed passage of the resolution, noting that the UN General Assembly had voted “for the first time in 42 years” in favour of “imposing sanctions on Israel”, reports Common Dreams.
The resolution specifically calls on all UN member states 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 resolution’s passage came nearly two months after the ICJ, or World Court, the UN’s highest legal body, handed down an advisory opinion concluding that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and must end “as rapidly as possible.”
The newly approved resolution states that “respect for the International Court of Justice and its functions . . . is essential to international law and justice and to an international order based on the rule of law.”
The Biden administration, which is heavily arming the Israeli military as it assails Gaza and the West Bank, criticised the ICJ’s opinion as overly broad.
Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement that “the Biden administration should join the overwhelming majority of nations around the world in condemning these crimes against the Palestinian people, demanding an end to the occupation, and exerting serious pressure on the Israeli government to comply”.
“We welcome this UN resolution demanding an end to one of the worst and ongoing crimes against humanity of the past century,” said Awad.
Turning ‘blind eye’
Ahead of the vote, a group of UN experts said in a statement that many countries “appear unwilling or unable to take the necessary steps to meet their obligations” in the wake of the ICJ’s opinion.
“Devastating attacks on Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory show that by continuing to turn a blind eye to the horrific plight of the Palestinian people, the international community is furthering genocidal violence,” the experts said.
“States must act now. They must listen to voices calling on them to take action to stop Israel’s attacks against the Palestinians and end its unlawful occupation.
“All states have a legal obligation to comply with the ICJ’s ruling and must promote adherence to norms that protect civilians.”
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and subsequently annexed the entire holy city in 1980, reports Al Jazeera.
International law prohibits the acquisition of land by force.
Israel has also been building settlements — now home to hundreds of thousands of Israelis — in the West Bank in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bans the occupying power from transferring “parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.
PSNA calls for sanctions against ‘rogue state’
Meanwhile, New Zealand’s Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) says the exploding-pager attacks in Lebanon this week were another attempt by the “rogue state Israel” to provoke a wider Middle East war and has called on the government to impose sanctions.
National chair John Minto said in a statement: “It comes after several previous, highly-inflammatory Israeli actions aimed to do the same thing:
- The assassination of Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr in Beirut;
- The assassination of Hamas Leader Ismail Hanniyah who was negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Israel. The assassination took place in Iran in a flagrant breach of Iranian sovereignty; and
- The Israeli missile attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria which killed several top Iranian officials
The New Zealand government had previously urged all parties to refrain from actions that would escalate Israel’s war on Gaza into a wider Middle East war.
“With this latest attack our government must condemn Israel,” Minto said.
“Israel is an out-of-control rogue state which is an imminent danger to peace and security the world over”
