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UN WATCH BRIEFING
UN to condemn Israel 9 times, rest of world 0

Nikki Haley to vote No on Golan resolution:
'The U.S. will no longer abstain'
Abdullah al-Mouallimi of Saudi Arabia, Vice-Chair of the UN's Fourth Committee, addressed its debate on UNRWA on November 9, 2018.
 

GENEVA, Nov. 15, 2018 –  A United Nations General Assembly committee is set to adopt nine resolutions against Israel tomorrow, and zero on the entire rest of the world.

The texts, obtained by UN Watch, condemn Israel for "repressive measures" against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights, reinforce the mandate of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and renew the mandate of the UN's "special committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the Occupied Territories." (Click here for the nine draft resolutions.)

All 193 UN member states belong to the General Assembly's Special Political and Decolonization Committee, known as the Fourth Committee, that each year adopts the texts with large majorities. Countries' votes tomorrow are then repeated in December when the GA plenary formally ratifies the texts.

“The UN’s planned assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

“Days after the Hamas terrorist group assaulted Israeli civilians with a barage of 460 rockets — while the UN's General Assembly and Human Rights Council stayed silent — the world body now adds insult to injury by adopting nine lopsided condemnations, whose only purpose is to demonize the Jewish state."

While France, Germany, Sweden and other EU states every year support 15 out of a total of 20 resolutions adopted against Israel, the same European nations have failed to introduce a single UNGA resolution this year on the human rights situation in China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Cuba, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria, or on 175 other countries.

One of tomorrow's resolutions — drafted and co-sponsored by Syria — falsely condemns Israel for ‘repressive measures’ against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights. It’s obscene.

The resolution, drafted originally by the genocidal Syrian regime, condemns Israel for holding on to the Golan Heights, and demands Israel hand the land and its people to Syria.

“It’s astonishing,” said Neuer. “After the Syrian regime has killed half a million of its own people, how can the UN call for more people to be handed over to Assad’s rule? The text is morally galling, and logically absurd.”

UN Watch applauded Ambassador Nikki Haley for announcing today that the U.S. will vote 'No' on the Assad-backed Golan resolution, instead of abstaining as America always did in the past. (See statement below.)

Tomorrow’s resolutions claim to care about Palestinians, yet the UN is oblivious to the more than 3,000 Palestinians who have been slaughtered, maimed and expelled by Assad’s forces since 2011.

Tomorrow’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.

The UN’s disproportionate assault against the Jewish state undermines the institutional credibility of what is supposed to be an impartial international body. Politicization and selectivity harm its founding mission, eroding the UN Charter's promise of equal treatment to all nations large and small.

Click here to see the texts and voting sheets of the virtually identical 20 UN General Assembly resolutions targeting Israel in 2017, as well an additional one last year on the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem.

Nikki Haley on the United States Changing its Vote from Abstain to No on the Annual UN Resolution on the Golan Heights

U.S. Mission to the UN Press Release

November 15, 2018

The annual United Nations resolution entitled “The Occupied Syrian Golan” is scheduled for a vote on Friday, November 16. In previous years, the United States has abstained from voting on this resolution. However, given the resolution’s anti-Israel bias, as well as the militarization of the Syrian Golan border, and a worsening humanitarian crisis, this year the United States has decided to vote no on the resolution.

“The United States will no longer abstain when the United Nations engages in its useless annual vote on the Golan Heights. If this resolution ever made sense, it surely does not today. The resolution is plainly biased against Israel. Further, the atrocities the Syrian regime continues to commit prove its lack of fitness to govern anyone. The destructive influence of the Iranian regime inside Syria presents major threats to international security. ISIS and other terrorist groups remain in Syria. And this resolution does nothing to bring any parties closer to a peace agreement. The United States will vote no,” said Ambassador Haley.

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