New Zealand participates in “planned assault on Israel” at UN

Last week, the United Nations General Assembly’s decolonization committee, which includes all 193 member states, adopted nine resolutions against Israel, and zero on the rest of the world. New Zealand voted for 8 and abstained on one.

In contrast, Australia voted no to 6 of the resolutions and abstained on 2, the United States voted no to all 9 resolutions, and Canada abstained on 2 and voted no to the rest.

The resolutions came just days after more than 400 rockets were indiscriminately fired from Gaza into Israel, killing one and injuring dozens. The United Nations made no comment on the terror from Gaza and neither did any New Zealand minister or ambassador.

Yet, in the words of UN Watch executive director, Hillel Neuer, “The UN’s planned assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal, … the world body now adds insult to injury by adopting nine lopsided condemnations, whose only purpose is to demonize the Jewish state.”

One of the resolutions — drafted and co-sponsored by Syria — falsely condemns Israel for ‘repressive measures’ against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights and demands Israel hand the land and its people to Syria. Mr Neuer called it “obscene”, saying

“After the Syrian regime has killed half a million of its own people, how can the UN call for more people to be handed over to Assad’s rule? The timing of [the] text is morally galling, and logically absurd.

[The] resolutions claim to care about Palestinians, yet the UN is oblivious to the dozens of Palestinians who have been slaughtered, maimed and expelled by Assad’s forces, and more than 3,000 victims killed since 2011.[The] farce at the General Assembly underscores a simple fact: the UN’s automatic majority has no interest in truly helping Palestinians, nor in protecting anyone’s human rights; the goal of these ritual, one-sided condemnations is to scapegoat Israel.

The UN’s disproportionate assault against the Jewish state undermines the institutional credibility of what is supposed to be an impartial international body. Politicization and selectivity harm its founding mission, eroding the UN Charter’s promise of equal treatment to all nations large and small,” Neuer added.”Hillel Neuer

Another resolution praised the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which the Israel Institute of New Zealand has shown to be inefficient, corrupt, antisemitic, and perpetuating of the conflict. New Zealand, despite giving approximately $1m each year to UNRWA has never raised a single concern about the aforementioned practices.

And New Zealand has consistently followed the automatic majority at the UN in disproportionately condemning Israel, rather than finding an independent voice. This is despite New Zealand leaders speaking of a need for UN reform – except the focus seems to only be on the Security Council veto and not the undermining anti-Israel bias.

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