In the Media

An edited version of this article was published in The Algemeiner

Less than two miles away from the glitz and glamour of Broadway, there is another show taking place, a show representing the ultimate theatre of the absurd – in which acts of virtue signalling are being made by those without any virtue at all.

Because when the United Nations General Assembly passed yet another “Palestine” resolution on May 10 this year, it demonstrated that the immoral slippery slope that the UN had been on for so many years is no longer a slope, but a cliff over which all common sense, logic, decency and morality have fallen – descending into a never-ending abyss of absurdity.

It’s absurd, because although the UN is nominally the global body in charge of peacemaking and conflict resolution, the resolution, like so many others before it, not only does nothing to bring about any kind of peaceful resolution between Palestinians and Israelis, but actually pushes the prospect of such an outcome even further away.

And what makes this particular resolution even more morally repugnant than previous ones is that it comes in the aftermath of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – butchered at the hands of the Palestinian beneficiaries of this resolution. That can only be seen as rewarding that savagery.

Practically, the resolution itself was effectively meaningless.  It is designed to promote the recognition of a Palestinian state by upgrading the rights of the non-member observer “State of Palestine” in the United Nations – with an eventual goal of achieving full membership and statehood – something that can only be granted through a UN Security Council resolution.

However, that stunt was already tried on April 18 and was vetoed by the United States. In a dig at the US, the May 10 resolution expressed “deep regret and concern” that “one negative vote by a permanent member of the Security Council prevented the adoption of the draft resolution.”

The additional rights granted to the Palestinians are window dressing without any real substance. For example, the Palestinians will now be able to make statements and submit proposals on behalf of a group at the General Assembly and the “State of Palestine” can now be seated among member states in alphabetical order. Truly stunning achievements for the Palestinian national movement.

But for all the self-congratulatory backslapping about another lopsided resolution being passed, the Palestinians still remain observers without the right to vote or be appointed to any major UN body, including the Security Council, UNESCO or the Human Rights Council.

Yet, despite the ineffectiveness of this resolution, its intent was clearly to internationalize the conflict and place further pressure on Israel to accept a Palestinian state, bypassing both negotiations and any obligation on the Palestinians to agree to live in peace alongside Israel.

This has long been the goal of the Palestinian leadership – who have rejected every peace deal or offer ever made to them since even before 1947, often resorting to violence and terror in response.

Unfortunately, 143 countries chose to uphold that rejectionist approach, while only 9 countries showed moral fortitude by rejecting it and a further 25 others abstained.

Among the countries supporting this farce were liberal democracies like New Zealand and Australia which, rather than taking a constructive approach to actually encouraging peacemaking and voting “no” or abstaining, as their natural allies the UK and Canada did, decided to throw in their lot with dictatorships like China, Russia and Iran instead.

They naively argued that supporting the resolution will lead to momentum for their desired goal of a two-state solution. Yet sadly, in doing so, intentionally or not, they endorsed rewarding terror with concessions. If the brutal actions of October 7 were to act as the catalyst leading to the creation of a non-negotiated Palestinian state with no obligation to make peace with Israel – as Palestinian leaders seek – this would be a huge incentive for any disgruntled group anywhere in the world to try to duplicate the October 7 atrocities against civilians knowing that the outcome will be the international endorsement of their goals.

The Palestinian Authority, whose UN ambassador referred to Hamas as his brothers, has not condemned, even once, what happened on October 7 as a terror attack. Yet it is now reaping the benefits of the terror war Hamas unleashed. Hamas, which utterly rejects any peaceful two-state solution, also welcomed the resolution calling it “an affirmation of the international rally around our people.”

Yet this supposed concern for the Palestinian “people” is pretty ironic considering Hamas uses them as human shields and is responsible for the many thousands of Palestinian civilians killed since it deliberately launched its terror war.

The UN is supposed to promote global peace and security, but in reality, is frequently a conduit for the interests and ideologies of the worst dictatorships and human rights violators.

Shamefully, but unsurprisingly, the UN has yet to condemn Hamas – and the Security Council only held its first meeting dedicated to the hostages seven long months after they were stolen.  More and more, the UN is cementing its position as the world’s useful idiot, providing legitimacy to causes that deserve no legitimacy at all.

Justin Amler is a Policy Analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).