New research by Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the international law department at the Kohelet Policy Forum and published in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece (September 14, 2016), confirms a flagrant double standard and gross bias in the treatment of Israel at the U.N.
“Israel is referred to as the ‘occupying power’ 530 times in U. N. General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions. Yet, in seven major instances of past or present prolonged military occupation – Indonesia in East Timor, Turkey in northern Cyprus, Russia in areas of Georgia, Morocco in western Sahara, Vietnam in Cambodia, Armenia in Azerbaijan, and Russia in Ukraine’s Crimea – the number is zero.”
Since 1967, “General Assembly (GA) resolutions have referred to Israeli-held territories as ‘occupied’ 2,342 times, while the territories mentioned above are referred to as ‘occupied’ a mere 16 times combined. The term appears in 90% of resolutions dealing with Israel, and only in 14% of the much smaller number of resolutions dealing with all the other situations. Similarly, U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions refer to the disputed territories (Judea and Samaria) in the Arab-Israeli conflict as ‘occupied’ 31 times, but only a total of five to all seven other conflicts combined.”
Other UN bodies demonstrate this bias too. For instance, in April, 2016, UNESCO adopted a resolution called “occupied Palestine.”In the words of Guy Milliere, the “poisonous, fraudulent, biased” resolution “eliminates all traces of Jewish presence in Jerusalem and Judea in ancient times at a stroke of a pen.”
In his new article titled Unsettled: A Global Study of Settlements in Occupied Territories, Professor Kontorovich shows that settlements by other states far “eclipse Israel’s.” Yet, the term “settlements” referring to Israeli civilian communities in Judea and Samaria has been applied to Israel256 times in the UNGA and 17 times in the UNSC. Neither body has ever used the word in relation to any other country with settlers in occupied territory.
Kontorovich concludes that U.N.’s double standard negates the assertion that it represents global justice. The U.N. has in fact done little to prevent wars, end hunger, or pursue justice – not in Syria, Darfur, Bosnia or Rwanda and is a major purveyor of anti-Semitism.