NEW YORK, Dec. 21, 2020 – The UN General Assembly condemned Israel today in two separate resolutions, concluding the world body’s 2020 legislation with a total of 17 resolutions that either single out or condemn the Jewish state, and six on the rest of the world combined. There was one resolution each adopted for the regimes of North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Myanmar (to be ratified on Wednesday), and two on Crimea. (Click here for texts and voting sheets.)“The UN’s assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental watchdog organization.“It’s absurd that in the year 2020, out of a total 23 of UN General Assembly resolutions that criticize countries, 17 of them—more than 70 percent—were focused on one single country: Israel. Make no mistake: the purpose of the lopsided condemnations is to demonize the Jewish state,” said Neuer.
I have a simple question: Who cares?
162 UN member states recognize Israel, with several more having trade relations. The 31 states that don't recognize Israel is also pretty much a list of the worst human rights abusers on Earth:
Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia, Tunisia, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Pakistan, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia.
As we have seen this year, the Arab world is starting to finally recognize that Israel is a fact and pretending it doesn't exist doesn't help anyone.
Israel is not a pariah state. It is respected by most of the world.
Everyone sees these lopsided votes and the absurd number of resolutions. Most of the anti-Israel resolutions are repeated year after year. Yes, it is outrageous that so many European nations keep voting to condemn Israel, but this seems to be more from inertia and some misguided idea that this helps them maintain relations with Arab nations than anything else. In other words, the reason the Europeans keep voting for these is because they know it is all theater.
The fact that the world keeps playing out this charade year after year shows that no one is taking the UN General Assembly seriously.
The UN has been creating these resolutions for decades. Abba Eban famously said at least fifty years ago, "If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions." Yet the continuous orgy of anti-Israel resolutions hasn't hurt Israel in any serious way.
In the end, the UN votes don't delegitimize Israel. They delegitimize the UN.