The United Nations General Assembly resolution calls for the Court to recommend steps to take against Israel in light of its “occupation” and “annexation.”
By World Israel News Staff
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday slammed the United Nations General Assembly’s “disgraceful” resolution calling on the International Court of Justice in The Hague to weigh in on the legal consequences of the Israeli “occupation” of Judea and Samaria.
The resolution, titled “Israeli practices and settlement activities affecting the rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories”, was passed by a majority of 87 to 26, with 53 abstentions. All the Arab countries that share diplomatic ties with Israel voted in support of the resolution.
The resolution calls for Court to recommend steps against Israel, which is taking measures “aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem” and adopting “discriminatory legislation and measures” including “annexation” of Judea and Samaria, which Israel liberated from Jordan during the defensive Six Day War in 1967.
Netanyahu said the UNGA resolution would not “obligate the government of Israel” as is the case with “the hundreds of distorted” anti-Israel resolutions before it.
“The Jewish people is not occupying its land and is not occupying its eternal capital Jerusalem. No UN resolution can distort this historical truth,” the prime minister said in a statement.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan called the UNGA vote “outrageous” and said it was “a moral stain on the UN and every country that supports it.”
“No international body can decide that the Jewish people are ‘occupiers’ in their own homeland. Any decision from a judicial body which receives its mandate from the morally bankrupt and politicized UN is completely illegitimate,” he said.
Erdan went on to note that the Palestinian have rejected every peace initiative, while “supporting and inciting terror.”
“Instead of pushing the Palestinians to change, the UN is doing the opposite: helping them to harm the only vibrant democracy in the Middle East which recently signed 4 peace agreements with Arab countries. We will not take part in this disgraceful show of lies,” he added.
He also chastized the global body for taking a vote against Israel on Saturday, which is the Sabbath and therefore he was prevented from presenting Israel’s defense.
“The decision to hold a vote that deals with Israel on Shabbat is another example of the moral decay of the UN, which prevents Israel’s position from being heard in a vote whose results are predetermined,” he said.
The office of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas said following the vote: “This vote is a testament to the support of the entire world for our people and their indisputable historical rights. President Mahmoud Abbas thanks all the countries that stood by the Palestinian and their rights, and all the parties that worked to bring about this decision.”