The United Nations General Assembly concluded its activities for 2021 over the weekend, and this year, too, Israel was the target of a cascade of condemnations and resolutions against it, well beyond and completely disproportionate to other countries.
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The two latest condemnations were issued on Friday due to the automatic anti-Israel majority in the UN. In one resolution, pertaining to an event in 2006, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed "concern that Israel did not acknowledge its responsibility for the oil spill" off the Lebanese coast and failed to clarify how it intends to compensate the Lebanese government for it.
The second resolution condemned Israel for "exploiting the natural resources of the Palestinians, and on the Golan Heights." It should be noted that the text makes no mention of Hamas' commandeering of international aid money to fund the construction of terror tunnels rather than to rebuild destroyed infrastructure; environmental pollution caused by Palestinian tire burning; destruction of flora and fauna with arson balloons and kites; and refusal to develop their own water resources and deal with their own sewage as required by the Oslo Accords.
In total, the General Assembly passed 14 anti-Israel resolutions in 2021, while the other 194 countries in the world were hit with a grand total of four resolutions of condemnation – against North Korea, Iran, Myanmar, and Russian activity in Crimea. Meanwhile, a draft resolution against the Syrian regime highlighting its crimes against humanity was deferred.
UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental watchdog organization, harshly criticized the United Nations.
"The UN's assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
"It's absurd that in the year 2021, out of some 20 UN General Assembly resolutions that criticize countries, 14 of them – 70% – were focused on one single country: Israel. Make no mistake: the purpose of the lopsided condemnations is to demonize the Jewish state," said Neuer.
Neuer also blamed the UN establishment, not just its member states, for the anti-Israel bias, noting that just last Thursday a resolution on 'The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination' was adopted by a vote of 168 to 5, with 10 abstentions. Out of hundreds of self-determination claims worldwide, the UNGA singled out one – the claim against Israel – while omitting Palestinian obligations to dismantle terrorist infrastructure before a state is to be created.
"The UN's disproportionate assault against the Jewish state undermines the credibility of what is supposed to be an impartial international body. When the General Assembly gives in to politicization and selectivity by discriminating against Israel, it violates the UN Charter's guarantee of equal treatment to all nations, large and small," Neuer added.
"We note that while France, Germany, Sweden and other EU states have supported nearly all of the 14 resolutions adopted against Israel during this General Assembly session, the same European nations have failed to introduce a single UNGA resolution on the human rights situation in China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria, or on 170 other countries," said Neuer.
"Where's the supposed EU concern for international law and human rights?" he asked.
"Today's farce at the General Assembly underscores a simple fact: the UN's automatic majority has no interest in truly helping Palestinians, nor in protecting anyone's human rights; the goal of these ritual, one-sided condemnations is to scapegoat Israel," said Neuer.
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