Freedom Decree: The UN resolution and the movement to liberate Palestine
Result of the General Assembly vote on a draft resolution on the ICJ advisory opinion on the legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, 18 September 2024
Craig Mokhiber writes in Mondoweiss on 29 September 2024:
On Wednesday September 18, a world that has stumbled to find its voice through eleven months of genocide in Palestine, finally spoke.
The General Assembly of the United Nations, a body unconstrained by the U.S. veto, and in which all countries have a seat, overwhelmingly endorsed the findings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and declared that the occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza is unlawful and must end entirely, that every soldier and settler must be removed, that the apartheid wall must be dismantled, relevant laws repealed, that Palestinians must be compensated and allowed to return home, and that Israeli-imposed racial segregation and apartheid in Palestine must cease.
And it declared that Israel must immediately comply with the provisional measures of the ICJ issued by the court in the genocide case brought against Israel by South Africa.
Despite intense U.S. and other Western efforts to derail the resolution, the vote was not even close. 124 countries voted in favor (two-thirds of the world), while only 14 voted against, including the United States, Israel, and a few right-wing regimes and pacific dependencies of the U.S.. The votes in favor included Western countries like Spain, Belgium, Ireland, and Iceland, as well as U.S. ally Japan, P5 powers China and Russia, and almost the entire global South. Several European states abstained.
When the votes were counted, there was a sense that the UN had, at least for a moment, regained its soul. Conscious of the historic nature of the moment, the Assembly broke into applause. As the gavel came down, delegations celebrated in the aisles and lined up to shake the hand of the Palestinian ambassador.
And historic it was. After a three-decade detour during which U.S. pressure and the Oslo smokescreen diverted the world’s attention while Israel’s repression and dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian people were expedited, the resolution returned the UN to its mandated focus on freedom, on human rights, on equality and on the protections of international law for Palestine.