UN condemns Israeli treatment of Palestinians
The United Nations has condemned Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people following a three-day debate on the Middle East yesterday.
The UN general assembly adopted four resolutions criticising Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians on the same day that the Israeli government attacked Yasser Arafat’s main headquarters in Gaza City.
Each of the resolutions received more than 100 votes from about 160 delegate nations.
The main resolution of the four was one backing the Palestinians’ right to an independent state on land invaded by Israel in 1967.
Shortly after that invasion, which has become known as the Six Days War, the UN passed a resolution urging Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders, but Israel has refused to comply for the past 34 years.
The United States, Israel’s strongest supporter on the international scene, either opposed or abstained from the four anti-Israel motions before the general assembly yesterday.
Before the resolutions were passed, Israel’s UN Ambassador, Yehunda Lancry, said he had to break his country’s usual silent objections to the annual resolutions because of "the carnage of Palestinian terrorism in Jerusalem and Haifa" in the past few days.
He appealed to the 188 nations in the general assembly to "detach themselves from resolutions which would endow Palestinian terrorism with an international legitimacy".
However, the assembly ignored his plea and passed all four resolutions.
