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Sunday, April 17, 2016

Reflexive UN Votes

I often hear people complain about the United States "reflexively" voting against any UN resolution critical of Israel. I think such complaints are overstated -- at the very least, they should explain which part of the Negroponte Doctrine they object to -- but there is a certain abstract sense to them. There's no reason to think that every resolution that is critical of Israel is worth voting against.

But it is telling that there is no equal ire -- indeed, no commentary at all -- on the 150 countries or so who "reflexively" vote for any UN resolution critical of Israel, no matter how outrageous or even outlandish. Those decisions are just taken to be part of the diplomatic fabric of the universe, I suppose. Here's the latest one that got through a UNESCO committee:
 A UNESCO resolution does not recognize a Jewish connection to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount and calls Israel an “occupying power.”
[...] 
The resolution, which condemns Israeli actions in eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, accuses Israel of being an “occupying power,” of “planting Jewish fake graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries” and of “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places,” according to Israeli newspaper reports.
It also criticizes Israel for its decision to build an egalitarian prayer area in the Western Wall Plaza and for “illegal measures against the freedom of worship” at the “Muslim holy site of worship.” The resolutions refers to the cities of Hebron and Bethlehem as solely Muslim, and raps Israeli control over the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb, both in Hebron.
Maybe the United States would be more inclined to favor an "even-handed" approach at the United Nations if "even-handedness" had even the most trivial constituency in its favor in Turtle Bay. But since it doesn't, it doesn't bother me too much that we have basically decided to write that august institution off when it comes to resolutions related to Israel.

1 comment:

  1. “planting Jewish fake graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries”

    “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places”

    In a perfect world, anyone who seriously believes this would be locked up in a padded room for the rest of their lives.

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