UN votes 124-14 to strip Israel of right to self-defense in Gaza, West Bank
UN votes 124-14 to strip Israel of right to self-defense in Gaza, West Bank
The resolution also calls on member states not to sell arms or military equipment to Israel that would be used in Gaza, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem.
The United Nations General Assembly voted 124-14 on Wednesday to strip Israel of the right to self-defense in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.
The test of the resolution was based on the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion in July that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory was illegal.
The resolution also calls on member states not to sell arms or military equipment to Israel that would be used in Gaza, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem.
Among the 43 countries that abstained were Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Some 12 of the 27 European Union countries abstained, including Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden.
Why list a select 15 abstainers in the summary rather than the 14 voting against? Besides the obvious ones (Israel, US, Czechia), there's Hungary, Argentina, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Palau, Nauru, Malawi, Tuvalu, Tonga and Micronesia.
Why do all the Polynesian countries support Israel so strongly?
They nearly always follow USA in voting, so Israel gets supported indirectly.
Cheap votes to buy or bully. Simply too poor to afford a conscience.
The COFA states are very strongly aligned with the US and pretty much always vote with them. I don't know much about, say, Tonga, but I'm guessing it's a way of signaling cooperation to the US as well.
Besides the obvious Genocide Joe administration countries like Palau, Tuvalu, and Micronesia do not evoke much significance.
Rather I found listing the more mainstream countries still silently supporting israel and refusing to condemn their obvious violation of international law more interesting.
On closer consideration Hungary might be of relevance, since they are allegedly responsible for the recent israeli supply chain terror attack on Lebanon.
Palau, Tuvalu, and Micronesia do not evoke much significance
Well, that's why I kinda sorted the list by "relevance". Still, you should at least mention top 5-6 opposers if you're going to bother with any abstainers.
Why is Czechia obvious?
It is possible none of us will live to see Czechia vote against the interest of Israel as all parties support it and there is pretty much no organized pro-Palestine movement. Israel says we're their top partners in the eastern hemisphere, which means a lot because most countries are in the eastern hemisphere, including itself. At least, aid toward them is not nearly as popular among politicians and citizens as for Ukraine (we have a sizable, well-behaved Ukrainian minority already and took the most refugees per capita at the height of the crisis).
As for why pretty much every politician is either oblivious or bootlicking Israel: see my comment under a post about the shredder escapade 4 months ago
Out of the 11 countries that recognise Taiwan, 4 appear in this list. Paraguay, Palau, Nauru and Tuvalu. I think it's fairly plausible that some of these 14 countries did not willingly vote against.
"Rights" can only be taken away by force, if there is no method to ensure compliance, this is yet another meaningless resolution.
The UN is a diplomatic organization. It is a forum to discuss things and literally has no actual means to enforce anything. Its goal is not enforcement, it's to discuss.
Exactly. Every time the UN does something, people say "they can't enforce it".
Well, that's the whole point of the UN. To resolve things without using force.
It's a good design, designed by people who learned from the horrors of WW2.
It's sad to see how many people nowadays forget those lessons and are itching for global war.
And prevent such global wars like WWII. Funnily enough, the state of Israel was funded exactly by an UN resolution, and now Israel is trying to discredit the same institution that's responsible for the existence of their state.
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It was never about self defence.
Ever since 1948, Israel has been systematically killing everyone in their 'promised land'.
Honestly it would be an open and shut case here in the US.
My neighbor throws grenades into my window, me running into their house with my friends and shooting everyone there who looks like they might have had a grenade is not self-defense...
More like, im occupying my neighbor house while having him locked on the basement, he throws a rock at me and I'm just go around killing everyone I see.
It's not self defense when they're the ones attacking.
The headline is genocide apologia and should be banned.
The entire article is utter apologetic trash, doing its absolute best to show how unpopular this decision is (despite being hugely popular) and focusing on "Hamas terrorism concerns" without any consideration at all given to Palestinians.
Israel is illegally occupying Palestine. The violence they commit is the furthest possible thing from self defense.
What a shitty title and crappy biased article. That's not what the resolution was about.
Here's the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/09/19/un-resolution-israel-palestinian-territory-countries-vote/
U.N. General Assembly demands Israel end occupation of Palestinian territory The nonbinding resolution says Israel must end its “unlawful presence” within a year, pull out military forces, halt settlement expansion and evacuate settlers.
What was i expecting?
Is this just symbolic? Does it levy any penalties for not complying?
The resolution has declaratory power only but provides international backing to those countries that want to take additional steps against Israel.
They never had that right to begin with. A foreign military force has no right to self defense from the occupied people.
We need to expel Israel from the UN. These religious fanatics have no place in the civilized world.
Part of any international sanctions is to leave something for the perpetrator to lose.
Otherwise, they can do literally everything without any further consequences whatsoever - it won't get worse for them.
Also, as rightfully mentioned, part of UN's goal is restoring peace between nations, which is harder to do when they are not members. That's the problem with Palestine, and it will get worse if Israel leaves too.
Good time to expel Iran as well
Iran, if compared to most big countries except maybe India, Egypt and Latin American ones, is a paragon of humanism. They are at war with so many other countries because they behave like they are supposed to, while those others behave like Israel right now.
Of course murder, torture and rape of protesters is not something I'd sign under. It's just that some things come down to numbers and make Iran better.
Germany abstaining is actually a big deal.
The defense of Israel is one of our "Reason of State" and not voting in favour of Israel is a serious signal that politicians are fed up with Netanyahus bullshit.
Germany often abstained in critical UN votes regarding Israel and Palestine. E.g. here or here.
And german "intellectuals" are already in the "it is not binding" mode... Germanies political and media class is lost, completly detached from the constituency, who is against the genocide by a large margin.
And nobody will obey that decision.
ICJ has made some rulings about Artsakh too. Should have been not so hard to sanction the beheading savages out of occupying a small country and expelling its residents. By the way, in the UN charter a "country" does not only refer to UN members, that distinction is intentionally made clear in a few places.
UN is less useful than Holy Roman Empire.
I think many will obey the decision, just not the USA, Canada, terf island, the E.U., you know the usual culprits for not following international law.
Is terf island GB?
implying that other countries do follow international law
It’s not a decision to obey. It’s just a boring skit they put on once in a while. I feel like the kids’ Model UN has more actual impact on society than the UN and its toothless performative bullshit
Legislative bodies get their "teeth" by the state monopoly on violence. The UN having teeth would have to mean UN forces, and it'd even have to mean those forces being among the strongest in the world.
It's a diplomatic tool, not anything else. It encourages communication and collaboration and discourages conflict.
Shoutout to the libs wetting their pants over non-Russian weapons being used against Ukraine
I’m not sure what could be worse than literally bulldozing all of Palestine to the ground and killing the survivors that crawl out. And that is not hyperbole. Literal bulldozers are going in a line through Palestine.
Maybe PugJesus can enlighten us?
Good
Israel and Kyle Rittenhouse can agree on one thing, it's totally cool to kill people and then pretend you were defending yourself
Please yankee, don't make everything happening in the world about you
I'm not trying to make it about me, I'm trying to say that what Israel was doing was not self-defense
Weird that the comments and the top level post are calling out the countries which abstained but apperently no one cares about the 'against' votes.
I think it may be due to the "against" votes coming from the obvious places (Israel, USA) and a bunch of tiny places most people couldn't point in a map.
The "curious" ones for me are Panama and Argentina. Curious as in I wonder what their statements to vote against would be
Argentina is an obvious one. Milei is a giant US bootlicker.
That is a very misleading headline. Carpet bombing over 30.000 civilians to death is not self defense, not even close to it.
Looks like israel doesn't have the right to defend itself.
There's a difference between defending oneself and engaging in collective punishment and genocide. I am Jewish and the descendent of holocaust survivors. Not in my name.
You're awesome - have a great day. Thank you.
I mean yes, but this ruling is fhat they can't do either. Since these regions are illegally occupied, their inhabitants have the right to resist said occupation and, therefore Israel doesn't have the right to defend itself in the same way it would against an independent country.
in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.
Yup. Israel is treating them like land that's free to colonize, when in reality a nation (albeit one with unstable government, and only recently UN-recognized) lives there.
Similarly, Japan can't claim it's "defending itself" if it hypothetically performs violent acts in Lebanon.
Israel has been murdering Palestinians for decades now. It's a country founded on mass murder and genocide.
It's a country founded on 19th century White Colonialist ideology (this bunch of people who see themselves as Whites being Jewish rather than Christian makes no different to their victims) which, unlike the places from were such thinking hailed, has never evolved away from it, quite the contrary: just like Apartheid South Africa, with time they just become more violent and oppressive against those they see as lesser races, only Apartheid South Africa was forced to stop whilst Israel just kept doubling down on it and getting more violent.
It's not by chance that most Israelis and their leadership say that they "have Western Values": they do have Western Values it's just that they're 19th century Western Values.
Given that its ‘defence’ is indiscriminately bombing civilian populations and blowing the limbs off children, they shouldn’t be allowed to. Israel shouldn’t have committed war crimes similar to the Nazis.
Given that its ‘defence’ is indiscriminately bombing civilian populations and blowing the limbs off children, they shouldn’t be allowed to. Israel shouldn’t have committed war crimes similar to the Nazis.