United Nations acts illegally in violation of its own Charter

The United Nations General Assembly – in adopting Resolution A/79/L.23 on 3 December 2024 calling for Israel to withdraw from Gaza and Judea and Samaria (West Bank) - continues to act illegally in flagrant violation of article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

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Article 80 was inserted in the United Nations Charter in April 1945 after the Jewish Agency for Palestine submitted a Memorandum to the United Nations Conference on International Organization held in San Francisco requesting:

“In view of the unique character of the Palestine Mandate and the special rights of the Jewish people thereunder, no action should be taken at the San Francisco Conference which would be inconsistent with or prejudicial to the special rights of the Jewish people under the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate, and all such rights shall be expressly reserved and safeguarded”

Article 80 reserved and safeguarded the right of the Jewish people under the Balfour Declaration and articles 6 and 25 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in any part of the 22% of the Mandate territory located west of the Jordan River – today known as Israel, Gaza and Judea and Samaria (West Bank) - whilst denying the Jewish people any such rights in the 78% of the Mandate territory located east of the Jordan River – today known as Jordan.

Israel’s first Prime Minister – David Ben-Gurion – then the Representative of the Jewish Agency – emphasised the importance of the insertion of Article 80 into the UN Charter in evidence before the UN Special Committee for Palestine at Lake Success, New York on July 7, 1947:

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… there is also Article 80, and Article 80 was adopted for this very special reason of Palestine. Article 80 speaks also about trusteeship agreements: “… until such agreements have been concluded . . . “ - and they are not yet concluded, and we do not offer to conclude a trusteeship agreement - “nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.” This is the special Article of the Charter which applies to Palestine. It was introduced only because of Palestine.”

UN Secretary-General – Antonio Guterres – totally ignores article 80 – denigrating and delegitimising Israel with frequent statements such as the following:

“I call on Israel to put a stop to all settlement activities immediately. Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of international law and United Nations resolutions. They undermine the prospect of achieving a two-State solution by systematically eroding the possibility of establishing a contiguous, independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian State”

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Such statements reek of Jew-hatred and are being made by him in direct contravention of article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Guterres has failed to acknowledge – let alone answer - multiple requests by me to comment on him and the United Nations continuing to act illegally in violation of article 80 of its own Charter.

Israel has the legal right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) - and no claims to the contrary by Guterres or any member states of the United Nations voting to deny such claims are worth a pinch of salt.

Guterres and the organisation he heads are leading the world into a rapidly expanding regional conflict that can be hopefully avoided by acknowledging the undeniable primacy of Article 80 of the UN Charter.

Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades

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