{"id":272601,"date":"2024-09-02T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2024-09-02T11:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=272601"},"modified":"2024-08-30T05:54:18","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T04:54:18","slug":"suspending-israel-from-the-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/09\/suspending-israel-from-the-un\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspending Israel from the UN"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Featured image via Adobe Stock<\/p><\/div>\n

Members could employ the same mechanism used in 1974 to freeze apartheid South Africa out of the General Assembly.<\/em>
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28 Aug 2024 <\/em>– Israel\u2019s devastating onslaught on Gaza, now approaching the one-year mark, and increasing settler outrages in the West Bank are giving fresh urgency to moves to suspend the Jewish state from the United Nations General Assembly.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a push by some Palestinian civil society groups to suspend Israel from the UN lacks a key element: a country to lead the initiative. Yet, the calls to oust Israel may intensify during the opening session of the General Assembly in Sep 2024.<\/p>\n

Palestinian civil society has long been calling for such a step, and the Gaza war, along with the two major pronouncements from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) about Israel this year, have given the initiative new traction.<\/p>\n

The idea is to use the same mechanism against the Jewish state that was used in 1974 to freeze apartheid South Africa\u2019s participation in the General Assembly. The action contributed to the white minority government\u2019s isolation and its eventual collapse.<\/p>\n

It was the new, democratic South African state that brought the genocide application<\/a> against Israel in the ICJ, resulting in an interim judgment by the court in January broadly supporting South Africa\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/x.com\/SaulStaniforth\/status\/1828831951035457860<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then in July, the court \u2014 responding to a General Assembly request \u2014 delivered an advisory opinion finding<\/a> that Israel\u2019s occupation of the Palestinian territories amounted to colonization, racial discrimination and apartheid.<\/p>\n

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC<\/a>) is leading the drive for Israel\u2019s suspension, Maren Mantovani<\/a>, the international outreach coordinator of the Stop the Wall<\/a> campaign, told PassBlue. The organization is based in Ramallah, the Palestinian capital in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an ongoing, concerted effort by Palestinian civil society to push the UN to uphold its mission . . . and to define and enact the precise modalities to end Israel\u2019s crimes and violations,\u201d Mantovani said.<\/p>\n

Saleh Hijazi<\/a>, a BNC adviser on apartheid-free policy, said he expected calls for Israel\u2019s suspension to intensify next month with the opening of the 79th\u00a0<\/sup>session of the General Assembly. UNGA, as it is known, begins on Sept. 10.<\/p>\n

(The Palestinian delegation at the UN said<\/a> on Aug. 22 that it was also planning to soon initiate an \u201cactionable resolution\u201d in the General Assembly, \u201cdemanding within a time frame the end of this illegal occupation and all other issues contained\u201d in the ICJ advisory opinion.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been in a number of international forums over the past few months, including a joint meeting between the Organization of Islamic Co-operation and the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, where sanctions, including diplomatic [measures] and suspending Israel from UNGA, were a big part of the discussion,\u201d Hijazi said by email.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed, civil society organizations, movements and grassroots groups the world over support such a call and see it as necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those who have expressed support is Balakrishnan Rajagopal<\/a>, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that the Global South . . . increases pressure for meaningful action to stop the genocide in Gaza, end the occupation of Palestine and ensure that perpetrators of grave crimes are brought to justice,\u201d he said in an email. \u201cOne of those actions could very well be based on the precedent set by the action taken against apartheid South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craig Mokhiber<\/a>, an international human rights lawyer who formerly worked for the UN, wrote in a message to PassBlue that \u201cit would be hard to imagine a country more deserving, as a minimum, of suspension from the UNGA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe precedent of the suspension of apartheid South Africa is well established,\u201d he noted. \u201cThe UNGA should move at once to suspend Israel, and to direct the Organization to use its resources and mechanisms to combat Israel\u2019s apartheid and gross violations of human rights, just as it did in South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that no country had more consistently violated the principles of the UN Charter than Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael is today on trial in the World Court for genocide, its leaders are the subject of arrest warrant requests in the ICC [International Criminal Court] for crimes against humanity, the ICJ has found it is perpetrating apartheid and that its decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territory is unlawful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/x.com\/CraigMokhiber\/status\/1827155887980421279<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The council of the League of Arab States resolved at a meeting in Cairo in July to pursue the idea of suspending Israel, but so far no UN member state has taken any formal steps to do so.<\/p>\n

The South African government, which has placed Palestinian solidarity front and center of its foreign policy, has yet to discuss the suspension issue, said Clayson Monyela<\/a>, the spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, South African nongovernmental organizations are confident that Pretoria would be in the vanguard of the effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect South Africa would fully support it at all levels,\u201d Bram Hanekom, a board member of Africa4Palestine<\/a>, said in a phone interview with PassBlue. \u201cIt\u2019s a domestic issue for us, it speaks to morality, it speaks to justice, it speaks to our own history.\u201d<\/p>\n

But South Africa is heavily dependent on its trade relations with the United States and needs to avoid alienating lawmakers in Washington even more than it has already \u2014 not only by bringing the genocide case, but also by failing to condemn Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine and by maintaining close ties with Iran and China.<\/p>\n

So pushing for Israel\u2019s suspension would come with \u201cserious risks,\u201d Hanekom said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing this incredible balancing act as a country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mideast analyst Mouin Rabbani<\/a> cites Washington\u2019s global clout when he says the Palestinian campaign might have symbolic importance, but it is unlikely to result in its proclaimed goal of another victory like the one against South Africa in 1974.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are fundamental differences between the situation you had with South Africa in the 1970s and the situation with Palestine now,\u201d Rabbani said in a phone call.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe South African suspension came in the context of the Cold War, where you had very clear voting blocs and any anticolonial resolution had a virtually automatic majority,\u201d he added. \u201cThe situation now is very different, where there aren\u2019t really solid blocs the way you had in the 1970s, and an additional consequence of that is that individual governments are much more susceptible to US and European lobbying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, Washington is far more invested in Israel than it was in South Africa 50 years ago and would be \u201cmuch more energetic\u201d in opposing moves to suspend the Jewish state, Rabbani said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother factor is, you don\u2019t have the kind of universal global revulsion against the very existence of the Israeli regime the way you had towards the white minority regime in South Africa \u2014 its very existence was seen as beyond the pale in most of the world. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve yet reached that situation with Israel.<\/p>\n

People tend to put a lot of blame and responsibility on [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, or this Israeli government, and the realization that the problem here is one of the regime, rather than of an individual leader, still has some ways to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mokhiber described Israel as holding \u201cthe world record for breaching UN resolutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[It] has been found responsible for gross and systematic violations of human rights and humanitarian law by successive UN commissions of inquiry and independent special procedures. Worse, it has killed more UN staff than any party in history (and by a wide margin), has detained and tortured UN staff, and has regularly attacked, slandered and obstructed the Organization and its duly-mandated operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither the Israeli mission to the UN nor the Palestinian delegation responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

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Anton Ferreira worked for 23 years as a correspondent and desk editor at <\/em>Reuters. He started in Hong Kong and later worked long-term assignments in the Mideast, Latin America, New York City, Washington and South Africa. Ferreira is now based in South Africa.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – passblue.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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