UN General Assembly Affirms Palestinian Sovereignty

On May 6, the UN General Assembly voted 140 in favour to six against to affirm that the Palestinian people have the right to self-determination over their territory. Opposed to the motion were the Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau and the United States. Eleven countries abstained from the vote: Australia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, Serbia and Montenegro, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu.

The resolution was seen as an international rejection of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, a plan which is supported by George W. Bush. The UN resolution stated that "the status of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, remains one of military occupation", and affirmed that "the Palestinian people have the right to self-determination and to sovereignty over their territory and that Israel, the occupying Power, has only the duties and obligations of an occupying Power under the Fourth Geneva Convention…" The resolution also affirmed that the goal of the international community is for the "the attainment of a just and comprehensive negotiated peace settlement in the Middle East resulting in two viable, sovereign and independent States, Israel and Palestine, based on the pre-1967 borders and living side by side in peace and security."

There is nothing new about the resolution, or about the handful of countries the U.S. was able to pressure into voting against it or abstaining. Indeed, in the almost 60 year history of the United Nations, there have been some 500 resolutions from either the General Assembly, Security Council or specific UN agencies on this question. The first such resolution, passed by the General Assembly in 1946, predates the creation of the State of Israel.

Possibly the best known of these resolutions was passed by the UN Security Council in 1967, following the Arab-Israeli war and the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. That resolution calls on Israel to withdraw its armed forces from "territories occupied in the recent conflict" noting "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security…". Each new resolution is dismissed by Israel and its imperialist ally, the U.S., both of whom charge the UN has an anti-Israeli bias. Not a single one of these hundreds of resolutions has ever been implemented by Israel and nor has there ever been any tangible reaction from the UN, except for continued resolutions and censure.