NEW YORK, December 2, 2020 — Today the UN General Assembly is slated to adopt five one-sided resolutions targeting Israel, including a Syrian-sponsored text that calls Israel's presence on the Golan "a stumbling block" standing in the way of "lasting peace in the region," as well as two resolutions renewing the mandate of a committee devoted to promoting anti-Israel propaganda worldwide, and its 15-member supporting staff department. (See details below.)

The resolution which renews the mandate of the 25-nation "Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People" refers to the "Nakba" (catastrophe) of Israel's founding.

Created in the aftermath of the 1975 "Zionism is racism" resolution, the UN's Palestine committee and its supporting staff division are vestiges of a discredited policy that has seen the world body routinely aligned against Israel.

These UN bodies, costing millions of dollars annually, serve to perpetuate antagonism, not to resolve disputes.

Today's resolutions on the Palestinians fail to say a word about terrorism and other gross human rights abuses committed by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Nor do they even attempt to promote democracy, accountability and the rule of law to actually help Palestinians living in the areas ruled by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

Adoption of the resolutions comes one day after the UN held its annual international Palestinian solidarity day, featuring an anti-Israel exhibit.

The late U.S. Ambassador Richard Schifter, the State Department’s former top human rights official who recently passed away at age 97, had repeatedly called for the dismantling of the UN's two Palestinian entities, advocating that EU countries lead the charge to vote against the renewal of their mandates.

In 2019, Brazil and the Czech Republic for the first time joined the list of countries voting against the renewal of the Palestinian committee. Also, several other European countries for the first time voted against renewing the mandate of the UN's Palestinian division, including the Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia. Brazil also voted against the resolution.

To urge EU countries to vote against the biased resolutions, UN Watch has launched a global petition campaign.

TODAY'S 5 RESOLUTIONS TARGETING ISRAEL

Below is the list of five resolutions that will be adopted today that target Israel, with excerpts and analysis.

1. “Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” 

Excerpt: “Noting with deep regret the passage of 52 years since the onset of the Israeli occupation and over 70 years since the adoption of resolution 181 (II) on 29 November 1947 and the Nakba without tangible progress towards a peaceful solution…”

Analysis: Biased committee is one of the veteran pillars of the UN’s anti-Israel infrastructure. It is the only GA human rights committee devoted to a single cause. Its reports systematically turn a blind eye to Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians. Committee’s mandate concerns Israeli actions only and is inherently prejudiced and one-sided.

2. “Division for Palestinian Rights of the Secretariat”

Excerpt: “Requests the Division, in particular, to continue to monitor developments relevant to the question of Palestine, to organize international meetings and activities in support of the Committee’s mandate … to liaise and cooperate with civil society and parliamentarians, including through the Working Group of the Committee, to develop and expand the ‘Question of Palestine’ website…”

Analysis: The DPR serves the biased special committee and is dedicated to spreading anti-Israel propaganda the world over. Its 15-member staff is grossly disproportionate to the UN’s other four divisions which cover enormous geographical regions. The DPR’s work is counter-productive to the peace process and seeks to coordinate international boycotts against Israel instead of seeking bridges for peace. Excludes from its events any NGO that declines to swear fealty to its hardline politics.

3. “Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine”

Excerpt: “Reaffirming the illegality of Israeli settlement activities and all other unilateral measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the City of Jerusalem and of the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole, including the wall and its associated regime, and demanding their immediate cessation…”

Analysis: Blames Israel only for lack of peace. Text is redundant to several other resolutions and serves no effect other than demonization. References to terror fail to name its perpetrators, whereas Israel is named and blamed throughout.

4. “Special information program on the question of Palestine of the Department of Public Information of the Secretariat”

Excerpt: “Recalling the advisory opinion rendered on 9 July 2004 by the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences of the construction of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory…”

Analysis: The program is one more example of how the neutral UN secretariat is forcibly co-opted by the anti-Israeli forces at the UN. The program eschews a balanced approach by overtly choosing the Palestinian over Israeli narrative, ignoring terrorism against Israeli men, women and children, and other daily realities of Israeli life. Resources devoted to anti-Israel propaganda are taken away from other worthy causes.

5.  "The Syrian Golan"

Excerpt: “Deeply concerned that Israel has not withdrawn from the Syrian Golan, which has been under occupation since 1967…”

Analysis: This resolution is redundant to the resolution already adopted this year entitled “The occupied Syrian Golan”. the text is oblivious to genocidal massacres taking place now in Syria and its security implications for Israel and the civilians of the Golan Heights. Ignores Syria’s history of shelling Israeli communities, its leader’s calls for a “war of annihilation” against Israel, and Syria’s 1967 aggression that led to its loss of the territory.

The CEIRPP is composed of 25 UN member states, including Belarus, Cuba, Pakistan, Turkey and Venezuela. In addition, Syria, Libya, Iraq and China participate as observers. 

It is one of the veteran pillars of the UN’s anti-Israel infrastructure, aimed at undermining, discrediting and demonizing Israel.

The secretariat for the CEIRPP, the staff that helps to organize and implement its work, is the DPR that is described below.

The Committee convenes at UN headquarters in New York multiple times a year and holds international conferences attended by NGOs, parliamentarians, academics, UN officials and media.

It plans training sessions for Palestinian officials, as well as seminars and workshops that promote the Palestinian narrative of victimhood and UN prejudice against Israel. 

The CEIRPP has also created a powerful network of more than 1,000 anti-Israeli NGOs from around the world, granting them special status with the Committee. These include the Palestine Childrens Relief Fund and Churches for Middle East Peace. The UN committee also publishes reports that turn a blind eye to Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians.

The DPR is part of the UN Secretariat that helps the CEIRPP fulfill its mandate and gives the Palestinians an entire UN department of staff that no other people or sovereign state has. Its staff of approximately 15 employees is grossly disproportionate to the UN’s other four divisions which cover enormous geographical regions.

The DPR works together with CEIRPP to organize an annual International Day of Solidarity for the Palestinian People, and maintains UN web-based information systems devoted to the Palestinian side of the conflict.

The DPR’s work is counter-productive to the peace process and seeks to coordinate international boycotts against Israel instead of seeking bridges for peace. Even more, it excludes from its events any NGO that declines to swear fealty to its hardline politics.