The extraordinary UN debate over The US recognition of Jerusalem was indeed extraordinary. Never has this council been convened over the actions of one state recognizing the capital of another, something which is, in every other example in history, a pretty benign decision.
But some of the speeches made at the debate indicate that the UN is still schizophrenic as to the actual legal status of Jerusalem.
When it comes to the areas to the east of the Green Line, it is considered "occupied Palestinian territory."
But when it comes to the west of the same line, it is still not considered Israeli. In that case it is "corpus separatum" - a completely separate territory that was envisioned as an international city under UNGA 181, which was never implemented.
So we saw the representative from Uruguay say "Yesterday a communiqué was issued by my government affirming our support to resolution 181 establishing a Jewish state with Jerusalem as corpus separatum."
And Sweden, which was one of the countries behind the special session, said "We requested this meeting, along with 7 others due to the repurcussions of the statement made by US president. We clearly disagree with the capital of Israel as Jerusalem and the move of the embassy. It contradicts international law; Jerusalem is a final status issue. Already in 1947, the UN attributed to Jerusalem a special legal and political status as corpus separatum.."
The representative from France said "France recognizes no sovereignty over Jerusalem."
And Nickolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, invoked UNGA 181 in his speech as well.
However, the other UNSC resolutions invoked over Jerusalem during the debate - especially 252, 478 and 2334 - do not refer to UNGA 181, and are more concerned over territories liberated by Israel in 1967. No one seems to be considering those territories to be part of the "corpus separatum" that appears to animate the UN's insistence that even the western part of the city not be under Israeli sovereignty.
If all of Jerusalem was a corpus separatum, then Bethlehem and many other towns considered "Palestinian" would no longer be considered Palestinian at all, but all part of the international city envisioned by UNGA 181.Yet no one claims that Bethlehem is anything but "Palestinian," which itself is a peculiar legal status given that no one can point to any date when the land was legally recognized to be transferred from Jordanian control to Palestinian control.
We see here that even within the context of a single debate, the hypocrisy and latent antisemitism of the world community is exposed. If "east Jerusalem" is Palestinian than "west Jerusalem"is Israeli; if "west Jerusalem"is an international city than so is all of the area up through Bethlehem. But the UN and its members use literal doubletalk to avoid these contradictions.
There is only a single thread of consistency within these two definitions. One is designed to wrest control of the western side of the city from Jews, and the other designed to wrest control of the eastern part of the city from Jews.
After all, otherwise why would an embassy on the west side of the Green Line be cause for an extraordinary debate to begin with?
And once you understand that, everything else makes sense. Legal definitions and UN resolutions are simply fig leaves for the UN's and its member states' antisemitism.