The UN Once Again Shows its Anti-Israel Bias

The United Nations Security Council adopted a one-sided presidential statement on February 20th, which raked Israel over the coals for announcing further construction and expansion of settlements in the West Bank and giving legal status to settlement outposts. The presidential statement also expressed opposition to “confiscation of Palestinians’ land, demolition of Palestinians’ homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians.” But the presidential statement made no mention of the recent murders of innocent civilians in Israel by Palestinian terrorists.

The presidential statement was authored by the United Arab Emirates in coordination with what the UN calls the “Observer State of Palestine” after deciding not to pursue their draft resolution that the United States reportedly refused to accept.

Israel was facing yet another wave of terrorist attacks over the past several weeks

Security Council presidential statements have only symbolic value. They express the unanimous sentiment of the fifteen Security Council members but do not carry any legal weight. For that reason, the Biden administration supported the presidential statement as a more acceptable alternative to a formal Security Council resolution. In that way, the Biden administration avoided being put into same position as the Obama administration was in December 2020 when it abstained, rather than veto, the infamous Security Council Resolution 2334, allowing it to go into effect.

Resolution 2334, which purported to be legally binding under international law as opposed to a presidential statement, declared that “the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.” Resolution 2334 demanded that “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

At least the February 20th presidential statement did not reiterate this Israel bashing language from Resolution 2334 as the draft resolution circulated by the United Arab Emirates had done. A small step in the right direction but hardly enough to make the presidential statement a balanced one.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan had sent a letter last week to the Security Council’s president for February urging the UN’s most powerful body to “insist on an end to Palestinian terror and to the incitement and hate speech.” His plea fell on deaf ears.

Ambassador Erdan sent his letter as Israel was facing yet another wave of terrorist attacks over the past several weeks. On January 27th there was a Palestinian terrorist attack at the entrance to a synagogue in Jerusalem, in which seven civilians were shot dead including a 14-year-old. Three civilians were injured. The next day, a thirteen-year-old terrorist conducted another shooting attack in Jerusalem, injuring two civilians. On February 10th, a Palestinian terrorist rammed a group of people with a car in Jerusalem killing three civilians, including two children aged six and eight. An Israeli teenager was stabbed in the back by a young Palestinian terrorist in Jerusalem's Old City on February 13th.

Palestinians celebrated in the streets the murders of these Jews

Palestinians celebrated in the streets the murders of these Jews.

While this mayhem was going on, Palestinian terrorists launched rockets from Gaza into Israel, intentionally targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The Security Council’s presidential statement did not mention any of these terrorist attacks. It merely condemned terrorism in abstract terms and “recalled the obligation of the Palestinian Authority to renounce and confront terror.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas does not seem to have recalled that obligation. He has refused to condemn the most recent barbaric Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians. Instead, Abbas complains when Israel retaliates. The Palestinian Authority still pays money to jailed terrorists and to the surviving families of terrorists no longer alive to commit more murders – the “pay to slay” policy.”

After the Security Council’s February 20th meeting concluded, the Palestinian UN representative Riyad Mansour spoke to the press. He praised the Security Council presidential statement as a good first step but insisted that more needs to be done by the Security Council against Israel. I asked him whether the Palestinian Authority condemns the spate of recent terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, including specifically the murders that took place outside the Jerusalem synagogue. He responded that he did not represent the Palestinian Authority but rather the so-called “State” of Palestine. After then condemning terrorism against civilians in general, he immediately pivoted to declaring that the Palestinians were the real “victims.”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk followed up the Security Council’s adoption of the anti-Israel presidential statement with an anti-Israel statement of his own. He criticized proposed legislative reforms to Israel’s judiciary currently being considered in the Knesset that are intended to make the judiciary more democratic.

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I suggest that the High Commissioner deal with the protection of human rights in Syria, the murder of women and protesters in Iran, the persecution of the LGBTI+ community in the Palestinian Authority

“Breaking from decades of settled practice, such a law would drastically undermine the ability of the judiciary to vindicate individual rights and to uphold the rule of law as an effective institutional check on executive and legislative power,” Mr. Türk said.

The judicial reform proposals have a long way to go before becoming law and may undergo significant modifications during the legislative process. Therefore, Mr. Türk’s criticisms are premature. More importantly, the UN’s double standard was once again put on display. Palestinian President Abbas has tightened his control over the Palestinian judiciary to the point that it has become an appendage of his authoritarian government apparatus. We have not heard Mr. Türk speaking out against Abbas’s infringement on any semblance of independence of the Palestinian judiciary from Abbas’s control with the same conviction that he expressed against Israel.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Erdan’s response to Mr. Türk’s criticism of Israel’s internal deliberations over potential reforms to its judiciary was swift and to the point.

"The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who is responsible for the UN Human Rights Council, one of the most distorted and anti-moral bodies in the world, is the last one who can teach Israel what democracy is,” Ambassador Erdan said. “I suggest that the High Commissioner deal with the protection of human rights in Syria, the murder of women and protesters in Iran, the persecution of the LGBTI+ community in the Palestinian Authority, and the long list of terror organizations and grave injustices by regimes which he and the Human Rights Council routinely ignore, before he intervenes and preaches morality to the only democracy in the Middle East."

Do not hold your breath, Ambassador Erdan. The United Nations will not treat Israel fairly until hell freezes over.

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