“The Voting Behavior in United Nations Institutions towards the Palestinian Cause between 2005-2021”

Date:5 may 2022

“The Voting Behavior in United Nations Institutions towards the Palestinian Cause between 2005-2021”

By/ Lawyer Dr. Salah Abdal-Aty

Introduction:

The United Nations and its institutions have played and still an important role in the Palestinian cause, and in this context, the United Nations issued a number of important resolutions in favor of Palestine, whether issued by the General Assembly or the UN Security Council, which stipulate the right to self-determination, the protection of the rights of refugees, the state and the rest of the Palestinian national rights, and criminalize the occupation’s violations. Despite the importance of those resolutions, the occupation state refrained from implementing them. On the other hand, the international community still unable to hold it accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people, and fails to implement decisions related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Heading to the United Nations represents a Palestinian right and entitlement that contributes ending the Israeli occupation, which won’t happen without challenges, headed by an Israeli rejection and the American veto. For this reason and others, the diplomatic workforce must be based on the illegality of the Israeli occupation or the protection of the authority rather than the protection of the rights of the Palestinian people, and on the relevant United Nations resolutions that emphasize the illegality of aggression, settlement, siege and land seizure through war. In addition to activating the “United for Peace” to ensure the protection of civilians within the framework of exercising the right to self-determination, especially in light of the increasing effectiveness of international solidarity campaigns with the Palestinian cause.

This does not mean that we will wake up the next day to find an international system that has been established to protect civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories, but it is another station and course of the political, diplomatic and legal struggle work in the context of the national struggle to end the occupation, in addition to the right of the Palestinians to exercise all forms of resistance guaranteed under international covenants.

Everyone is aware that the Palestinian demand to impose and enforce United Nations resolutions related to the Palestinian cause collides with multiple obstacles, including the Israeli rejection and the American veto in the Security Council, which complicates the possibility of its actual implementation. Nevertheless, the facts confirm the importance of the diplomatic and human rights struggle in the United Nations as part of the diplomatic battle.

Many regional, international and even Palestinian political variables and the change in the balance of power and the international political map, have played a role in influencing the Palestinian cause and the voting behavior of states in the United Nations regarding the Palestinian cause and rights. Therefore, and in view of the lack of studies on voting behavior at the United Nations, this study on the voting behavior of states in light of regional and international changes, analyzes and provides ways to remedy the decrease in the number of votes in support of the rights of the Palestinians.

First: Study environment:

The United Nations affirms that the Palestinian people live under occupation, and that the Palestinians live in a state of frustration and lack of political solutions, however, these assertions lack a vision for a political solution to progress towards enabling the Palestinians to obtain their rights.

Despite the importance of this, the correction in favor of issues that concern the Palestinian people in the face of the occupation has witnessed a noticeable decline in the volume of international and European interaction with it in light of the rush of many Arab countries to normalize with the occupation, where resolutions related to Palestine received the support of about 136 votes years ago, while at the present time it hardly receives no more than support 99 votes[1].

The internal Palestinian factor and the decline in the ability of the Palestinian political system to deal with the challenges facing the Palestinian cause also played a role in the decline in the voting behavior of many states in the United Nations and its institutions regarding the Palestinian cause.

Second: Study importance:

The importance of this study stems from the widening challenges and acceleration of conspiracies targeting the Palestinian cause and rights, especially during the “ Trump” term, were he recognized occupied and united Jerusalem as the capital of the occupation, he froze his country’s funding to UNRWA, increased in the number of Arab countries normalizing with the occupation, in addition to neglecting the Palestinian file at the expense of the conflict with China, Russia and the rest of the files.

The importance of the study also lies in light of the weakness of the official Palestinian influence tools in utilizing the spaces that Palestine occupies in the international community.

Third: Study objectives:

The study aspires to achieve the following objectives:

1. A deeper understanding of the voting process in United Nations institutions.
2. Monitoring the most prominent decisions submitted regarding the Palestinian cause during the study period.
3. Determining the changes in the voting behavior of states during the study period.
4. Identifying and analyzing the causes and contexts of change in the voting behavior of states during the study period.
5. Presenting possible scenarios to the decision-maker that would restore the balance of correction in favor of the Palestinian cause, thus enhancing the status of the Palestinian cause in the international community.

Fourth: Key issue:

This research attempts to answer the following main question: To what extent have international, regional and Palestinian conditions played a role in influencing voting behavior in favor of the rights of the Palestinian people?

This question includes a number of the following sub-questions:

1. What are the most prominent decisions submitted regarding the Palestinian cause between 2005/2021?
2. What are the changes in the voting behavior of states during the study period?
3. What are the reasons behind the change in the voting behavior of states during the study period?
4. How to influence states to regain their vote in favor of the Palestinian cause?

Fifth: Study methodology:

The study relies on the descriptive analytical approach in terms of reviewing the voting behavior in the United Nations with regard to the Palestinian cause, analyzing this behavior to find out its details, the reasons behind the decline in the voting process, and measuring its repercussions on the Palestinian cause and rights.

Sixth: Study delimitations: During the time period from 2005 to 2021.

Seventh: Study Axes: The first axis: the most prominent decisions issued by the United Nations institutions regarding the Palestinian cause, and monitoring the change in international attitudes towards decisions during the study period. The second axis: analysis of the change in the voting behavior of states and its causes, especially those that supported the Palestinian cause in earlier stages.

The first axis

United Nations resolutions on the Palestinian cause.

The change in raising Palestinian issues and the international voting track.

1. General Assembly:

Although the General Assembly embodies the broadest and legitimate representation of states, it lacks any serious powers to take binding decisions, and its role is limited to providing non-binding recommendations to the Security Council[2].

The repeated uses of veto led to the General Assembly to issue recommendations on outstanding issues and to establish committees and mechanisms working to activate the collective security system, based on Resolution 377 “Uniting for Peace” issued in 1950[3].

The Korean War gave a new dimension to this issue, as it called on the General Assembly to convene in an emergency session in order to save peace based on the decision of “Uniting for Peace” by taking the role of the Assembly in place of the Council, where the General Assembly approved by a two-thirds majority of the United Nations forces to cross the 38° line dividing the North and South Korea, and later, to override the Soviet Union’s repeated veto, South Korea was granted permanent membership in the United Nations.[4]

We believe that the mechanism “Uniting for Peace” may be one of the important options for the Palestinian people that must be tested, in light of the widespread support for the justice and rights of the Palestinian people in the General Assembly, it also constitutes a bypassing the obstacle of the American veto, which require concerting Arab and Palestinian diplomatic efforts to persuade members of the General Assembly to support Palestinian demands and to impose sanctions on Israel.[5]

The research shows a set of resolutions related to the Palestinian cause issued by the General Assembly as follows:

1. Resolutions of the General Assembly relating to the Palestinian cause:
2. The most prominent permanent resolutions of the General Assembly related to the Palestinian cause between 2005 to 2010:

It is clear from the above table; that during the time period between 2005 to 2010 that the General Assembly of the United Nations has kept on raising permanent issues related to the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination; Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and Israeli practices. These decisions received an average vote of 160 from member states; This voting block did not differ much from the previous years for the time period referred to above despite the increase in the number of member states, which required an increase and a rise in the global support for the rights of the Palestinian people.

1. General Assembly resolutions related to the Palestinian cause between 2011 – 2015:

It is clear that the General Assembly has kept on raising the permanent issues related to the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination; Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and Israeli practices, despite the Israeli attempts that succeeded in some years to change the permanent schedule of meetings of the United Nations General Assembly by deleting some issues and draft, and which confirms this conviction is that the decisions received an average vote of 130 member states. This means that the voting mass is less than the previous years for the time period referred to above.

iii.      Permanent resolutions of the General Assembly related to the Palestinian cause between 2016 to 2020:

It is clear from the above table that during the time period from 2016 to 2020, the voting behavior on United Nations General Assembly resolutions has witnessed a noticeable decrease in the voting behavior in favor of issues related to Palestinian affairs and rights; On the other hand, the number of states (abstaining from voting) increased, which indicates the decline of Palestinian diplomacy and its failure to maintain stability. This voting behavior was accompanied by an increase in the scope of Arab normalization on the one hand, and an increase in African diplomatic relations with the Zionist entity, and countries that have traditional attitudes toward the Palestinian cause are often satisfied with the role of negative neutral.

Second: The most prominent resolutions of the Security Council related to the Palestinian cause between 2005 to 2016:

1. The most prominent resolutions of the Security Council related to the Palestinian cause between 2005 to 2016:

Over the time period from 2005 to 2020, Palestinian diplomacy did not succeed in overriding the American veto to many of the resolutions presented to the Security Council related to Palestinian rights and affairs. Although the administration of Barack Obama tried to perform behavior other than veto, it used a new tactic in the council, by obstructing the access of any project for public discussion in the Council, or what is technically known as (procedural veto); This was reinforced by the fierce behavior of the administration of Trump, to which he added public threats to countries to prevent them from voting in favor of Palestine.

Third: Resolutions of the Human Rights Council related to the Palestinian cause:

1. Human Rights Council:
2. The most prominent resolutions of the Human Rights Council related to the Palestinian cause between 2005 to 2010:

At this stage, the Palestinian diplomacy succeeded in a limited way by moving the International Human Rights Council to raise and vote effectively on issues of Israeli violations and the rights of the Palestinian people. In a way that ensured the Council continuation to condemn Israeli policies and procedures, and perhaps the most dangerous thing that could be recorded during this period was the contribution of Palestinian diplomacy to the postponement of the vote on Judge Goldstone’s report on the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009. Despite the approval of the report later, but this behavior shocked the countries of the world that support the Palestinian cause and all the free people and human rights activists in Palestine and the world.

1. The most prominent resolutions of the Human Rights Council related to the Palestinian cause between 2011 to 2015:

The previous and other decisions coincided with the launch of the State 194 project as a basic project for Palestinian diplomacy and with an escalation of Israeli violations in the occupied Palestinian territories. With the Palestinian accession to a number of basic human rights treaties, the pace at which resolutions related to the Palestinian cause and Palestinian rights are put to the council’s table has become more important, where the resolutions received a significant voter turnout, but this did not prevent some states (such as the United States of America and Canada) from voting against these resolutions, which included the formation of international fact-finding committees on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although there was a pattern of a rise in the number of abstaining states due to the composition of the elected council, the Palestinian and Arab performance, and the nature of consultations on decisions.

• The most prominent resolutions of the Human Rights Council related to the Palestinian cause between 2016 to 2020:

The study period witnessed the continuation of the Palestinian focus on bringing Palestinian issues to the table of the Palestinian Human Rights Council, especially war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations of the Israeli occupation, which are escalating in light of the transition of the United States from the level of bias to the level of partnership, and despite all the pressure exerted by the occupation state and the United States, but the Human Rights Council continued to condemn and criminalize the Israeli occupation, which led to American and Israeli resentment reaching the point of accusing the Council of non-neutrality and anti-Semitism; However, the period from 2016 to 2020 compared to the previous period and despite the formation of a commission to investigate the crimes of the occupation against the peaceful demonstrators in the Great Return March and the Council’s issuance of a number of important decisions in favor of Palestine, the voting behavior in favor of decisions related to the Palestinian cause decreased. This indicates a decline in the success of Palestinian diplomacy.

second axis

Monitoring the change in international attitudes towards decisions during the study period:

Although the majority of the votes of members in the various United Nations institutions were in favor of supporting the steadfastness of the Palestinian people, some resolutions were voted on in a negative way, in other words, the number of votes in support of resolutions related to the Palestinian cause decreased, especially among members of the United Nations General Assembly and members of the Council human rights.

In this axis of the study, the researcher shows the ratio of voting on the resolutions issued by the Human Rights Council, the UN Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations, and shows the ratio of voting on them and the extent to which the ratio of voting in favor of the Palestinian cause varies, increase and decrease.

First: Determining the ratio of voting in favor of the Palestinian cause in the institutions of the United Nations.

The maximum number of votes supporting the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly in 2006 reached 170, while in 2020, the maximum number of votes did not exceed 169, knowing that this ratio of votes was only available in one resolution, while the majority of votes on the rest of the resolutions did not exceed 155 votes.

Looking at the number of votes supporting the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in 2018 and 2017, we find that the ratio of votes is much lower compared to the number of votes in support in 2006, where the ratio of votes in support of resolutions did not reach 160, and given the number of resolutions issued and voted on during that period, we find that a group of these resolutions did not exceed 90 votes in favor, meaning that there are approximately 80 votes belonging to 80 member states of the United Nations General Assembly that did not support draft resolutions that guarantee the rights of the Palestinian people.

As for 2013 to 2016, we find that the voter turnout on United Nations resolutions related to the Palestinian cause was more than 170, while in 2020 and 2019, the maximum vote ratio did not exceed 169 votes, except in some resolutions, the number of votes was only 170 and did not exceed this number, while the maximum number of votes of members in the Human Rights Council at the United Nations between 2006 and 2021 reached 46 votes, with resolutions supporting the rights of the Palestinian people.

However, by looking at the number of these votes and the ratio of votes, we find that it has witnessed a sharp decline in recent years, as resolutions were issued by the Council in 2021, and the number of votes for states supporting the resolutions was only 24 votes, 22 votes less than before[6]. The researcher believes that this sharp decline in the number of votes supporting the rights of the Palestinian people is a dangerous matter, and there is also a fear of condemning the resistance of the Palestinian people, in light of the attempts to confuse legitimate resistance with terrorism.

As for the UN Security Council, despite the clear belief of most of its members in the legitimate Palestinian rights, the American veto continued to confiscate all resolutions supporting the Palestinian cause, thus blocking the way for the international community to fulfill its obligations.

The State of Palestine is unable to protect its citizens from the violations and crimes of the occupation, and hence the responsibility lies with the international community to provide protection to the Palestinian people who are under Israeli occupation.

Perhaps the Palestinian cause, as the fairest cause in the universe, requires mobilizing and unifying the efforts of all Palestinian and societal forces and the free world to form a front against projects that undermine Palestinian rights and work to test the uniting for peace to bypass the selectivity and politicization of the work of the Security Council, and to ensure the replacement of the logic of interests and brute force with the logic of international human rights law and the rules of international humanitarian law and public international law as a basis for action at the international level

Second: The reasons for the decline in the ratio of votes in favor of the Palestinian cause before the United Nation Institutions:

In an attempt to analyze and explain the reasons for the decline in the vote in favor of the Palestinian cause at the United Nations and the decline in the number of abstained states in most cases, a number of reasons appear to us, the most important of which are:

• Singularity in managing public affairs, the state of political division, the weakness of the authority and the PLO, the absence of a clear Palestinian political position represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the authority’s representatives to various countries and ambassadors to the United Nations, and the failure to develop a strategy to work to win the votes of the member states.
• Neglecting the Palestinian Authority and not relying on the opinions of international legal scholars and senior politicians in setting plans.
• A group of Arab countries rushed to normalization.
• The rise of the right and populism in Europe and the United States.
• The decline of Palestine’s relationship with African countries, and the increase in Israeli attraction to these countries.
• The Palestinian cause is no longer a central issue that receives unanimity from African and Latin American countries as it was.
• The blatant American support and bias for the occupation state.
• The verbal support of the European countries for Palestinian rights.
• The exploitation of the inexperience of the Palestinian Authority and the weakness of the Palestinian diplomatic representation.
• The Palestinian feeling and the feeling of some countries about the uselessness of international mechanisms in general and international protection in particular.
• The Palestinian National Authority continues to link all diplomatic tracks with the negotiation with the occupier.

Conclusion:

Although the occupation state has committed, throughout its history, war crimes and crimes against humanity, its leaders and soldiers have always been and still go unpunished, and hundreds of relevant international resolutions have not been implemented, but the conflict is still going on in every international and regional body with the Israeli occupation, which is trying forbid countries from supporting Palestinian rights.

Despite the outstanding activity of Israeli diplomacy and the breakthroughs in Africa, the continent still supports the Palestinian cause by voting on resolutions related to the Palestinian cause, and the abstention of several African countries from voting in favor of the Palestinians, for example, in the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. On the other hand, the major bloc that voted in favor of Palestine can’t be ignored.[7]

In addition to Palestine’s heading the Group of 77 + China at the United Nations, which had a positive impact in strengthening Palestine’s position among the countries that make up a large bloc in the United Nations, but this development did not benefit Palestine in a way that enables it to express and protect the interests of the group’s countries.

The state of the Palestinian division allowed for more regional interference in the Palestinian issue, which in turn affected the collective performance of the Palestinians, and their regional and international relations.

Also, the decline of left-wing governments and parties in Latin America and the rise of right-wing governments and their declaration of support for Israel also played a role in the decline in the level of voting, although the Palestinian cause had no role in these political transformations.

Perhaps the foregoing indicates the decline and weakness of the national movement and the decline in the relations of the Palestinian parties with Arab and African parties in Europe, Latin America, China and other countries, which has led and will lead to the weakening of the Palestinian movements and the absence of integration between official and popular work.

The speech and practices of the authority have been characterized by duplication and contradiction between adhering to Oslo and the option of negotiations with the leaders of the occupation and coordination with them, and the use of international mechanisms, which created a clear contradiction between the strategy of agreements and negotiations and recognition of the legitimacy of the occupation, and between the strategy of internationalizing the conflict and extracting more decisions.

The lack of good interaction with regional and international variables and the absence of reconciliation contributed to negatively affecting the status of the Palestinian cause and in turn affected the ratio of voting in favor of the Palestinian cause.

First: Results:

1. The decline in the ratio of voting in the United Nations in favor of the Palestinian cause, especially in recent years, is a dangerous indicator that should be remedied.
2. That the United States of America sided in most cases against the rights of the Palestinian people.
3. The efforts of the Israeli occupation state, the United States of America and some of the countries that support it to change some concepts in international law, which caused a decline in the voter turnout.
4. The Palestinian diplomacy did not work to form a wall against the Israeli incursions in Africa, Europe or Latin America, the role of official diplomacy was absent, and digital and popular diplomacy declined.
5. The principle of the internationalization of the conflict is still shrouded in ambiguity, in light of the lack of sufficient knowledge of its international and regional legal and human rights framework.
6. The Palestinian leadership dealt with the United Nations with a kind of seasonality.
7. The authority or organization has not on any occasion requested to provide support and work hard to activate protection, boycott and accountability pathways at the national, regional and international levels.
8. Delaying and slowing down the process of holding the occupation leaders accountable.
9. The continuation of the repercussions of exclusivity in managing public affairs and the continuation of the internal Palestinian division.

Second: Recommendations:

1. Building a national strategy based on the internationalization of the conflict.
2. The need for the Palestinian Authority to work to win over the member states of the United Nations in its favor.
3. The necessity for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to intensify and invest its diplomatic efforts with African and Asian countries to win the vote at the United Nations and to strengthen the Palestinian effort and its integration with the Arab effort in the United Nations General Assembly.
4. The necessity of developing the political skills of representatives of the Palestinian Authority around the world.
5. Activate all international mechanisms to provide protection for Palestinian civilians, and ensure Israel’s accountability for its crimes.
6. Calling on the Security Council to assume all its responsibilities in addressing the Israeli war crimes, and the heavy damage they caused to the civilian population.
7. Calling upon the states of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to work on obligating the Israeli occupation to respect and implement its provisions within the occupied Palestinian territories.
8. Public and practical confrontation based on knowledge and agreement of the American-Israeli plan.
9. The need for the Palestinian leadership to officially dismantle the provisions and restrictions of the Oslo Agreement.
10. Building strategic directions in which roles are integrated to ensure a distinguished level of work with all international actors and free people around the world and mobilize all national, international, institutional and popular energies and expertise in order to move independently at the level of the United Nations.
11. The Palestinian leadership must continue to join international bodies and agreements in accordance with a national plan and a comprehensive national strategy based on the use of all means and diplomatic and political movements and tools aimed at isolating, boycotting and holding the Israeli occupation accountable.

References:

• Ashraf Seyam, Uniting for Peace resolution. Is it a Possible Way to Protect Palestinians, Birzeit University, 2011.
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[1] Palestine Newspaper, Have supporters of the Palestinian cause retreat at the United Nations?, December 4, 2018, https://cutt.us/OD1qO

[2] Saleh Zaid Qasila, International Criminal Protection Guarantees for Human Rights, 2nd Edition, Dar Al-Nahda Al-Arabiya, Cairo, 2009.

[3] Nasser Al Rayes, The Palestinian Prisoners and the Palestinian National Strategy to Be Implemented for their Protection, Third Annual Conference entitled Strategies of Resistance, 2014.

[4] Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Korean War.

[5] Ashraf Seyam, The Union for Peace Decision, Is it a Possible Way to Protect Palestinians, Birzeit University, 2011.

[6] List of countries that voted “in favor” and “against” the Jerusalem decision, Sky News Arabia, 12/21/2017. bit.ly/2NrzWQq

[7] Arab Foreign Ministers to Confront Israeli Plots in Africa, Al-Hayat Al-London, 6/3/2019. bit.ly/2RXGdC9