A US-sponsored draft resolution that would have condemned the militant Islamic group Hamas, which controls Gaza, failed to win the required two-thirds majority in the UN General Assembly on Thursday. The draft received 87 votes in favour, 58 against, 32 abstentions and 16 …
A US-sponsored draft resolution that would have condemned the militant Islamic group Hamas, which controls Gaza, failed to win the required two-thirds majority in the UN General Assembly on Thursday.
The draft received 87 votes in favour, 58 against, 32 abstentions and 16 countries did not vote.
Background
The state of Israel was formed on 14 May 1948, to be a home to the Jewish diaspora across the world. The war in 1967, fought between Israel and the neighbouring states of Egypt (known at the time as the United Arab Republic), Jordan, and Syria, left Israel in control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, two territories home to large Palestinian populations. These two areas have been the site of extreme conflict between Israeli troops and Palestinian militant groups since the 1967 war.
Israel left Gaza in 2005 but soon after, Hamas was elected in Gaza. Hamas, called a terrorist organisation by several countries, refuses to recognise Israel’s statehood and demands that Palestinians be allowed to regain occupancy of Israel. They have frequently endorsed the use of violence to achieve these aims. Since Hamas came to power, Israel has held Gaza under a blockade.
The Palestinians have been known to send rockets and bombs known as improvised explosive device (IEDs) into Israel, with the Israeli Defence forces retaliating with air strikes and an ongoing blockade.
Analysis
The United Nations General Assembly refused to pass a resolution which condemns the actions of the militant outfit Hamas in the recent incident of violence against Israel. In remarks before the vote, Ms. Haley characterized the resolution as an opportunity for the 193-member states of the General Assembly to put themselves on the side of “truth and balance.”
Though the body has voted many times to condemn Israel, never once has it passed a resolution critical of Hamas, an organization Ms. Haley described as one of the “most obvious and grotesque cases of terrorism in the world.”
Since 2007, Hamas has exercised political control over the Gaza Strip, a sliver of land along the Mediterranean Sea where about two million Palestinians live in grinding poverty. This year, a series of anti-Israel protests along Gaza’s border with Israel turned violent, with Israeli security forces killing seven Palestinians in a single day in October.
Hamas militants have fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, often hitting civilian areas. They also have employed a new kind of weapon: kites armed with incendiary devices, sometimes painted with Nazi symbols, that have burned Israeli farmland.
Before the assembly voted on the text, the 193-member world body had narrowly voted to require a two-thirds majority for approval as sought by Arab nations, rather than the simple majority urged by the United States.
Hamas officials hailed the failure of the resolution as a “great victory,” calling it a “slap in the face” of the American administration and Israel and an affirmation of what they called the legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance against Israel.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of Hamas’s Politburo, said the rejection of the resolution constituted international recognition of Hamas’s “right to fire rockets and confront the aggression.” Representatives of the Fatah movement led by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, which rivals Hamas, also praised the outcome.
Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador, characterized the vote as a victory that had been “hijacked by a political procedure.” He praised the members that supported the measure, and said those that did not should be ashamed. The resolution, which would have condemned the use of rockets and other weapons against Israeli civilians and demanded a cessation of violence by Hamas and other militant groups, was largely symbolic. It would have had no bearing on negotiations toward a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The peace process has been paralyzed while the Trump administration completes a long-awaited and secretive proposal, led by President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Counterpoint
The US has lost its historic role as a ‘neutral’ mediator in the Israel-Palestine Peace process. The Palestinians have lost faith in the Trump administration’s ability to be a neutral arbiter and have signalled that they may refuse to negotiate regardless of what Mr. Kushner’s plan offers them. It is therefore unclear if the US is using its position as a Permanent member of the UN to push Pro-Israel resolutions in the General Assembly.
Assessment
Our assessment is that though resolutions adopted by the General Assembly are non-binding, they carry sufficient political strength and are seen as a barometer of global opinion.
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