The UN is Biased in Favour of the Arabs

The UN is regularly attacked by the pro-Israel lobby as being pro-Arab. Whilst it is true that there are 22 Arab members of the General Assembly, these countries alone cannot account for the overwhelming support Palestinians receive from the international community.

The only countries that usually vote against Assembly resolutions supporting the humanitarian, national and legal rights of the Palestinian people are Israel, the Marshall Island, Micronesia, Palau and the US.

For example, the 150-majority vote acknowledging the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion on the Wall and demanding Israel’s compliance with it was obviously not solely comprised of Arab states. There were another 128 votes to account for. The percentage of states that voted in favour of that Assembly resolution was 90%. This figure goes up to 96% if one does not include the 10 abstentions from the vote in that calculation. This is a huge majority by any stretch of the imagination.

Votes in favour of Palestine at the Assembly regularly cut across ideological, cultural and religious boundaries. Emerging powers such as India, Brazil and South Africa, as well as established powers such as China, France, Russia and the UK, usually vote in favour of resolutions on Palestine - and they all voted in favour of the resolution condemning Israel’s Wall, as did the European Union.

Excluding the US, members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the African Union also voted in favour of that resolution. So did members of the Non-Aligned Movement, the League of Arab States and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

It would therefore be difficult to describe the UN as biased in favour of the Arabs. Rather, Israel’s unlawful policies and practices in the occupied territories are leading to its isolation, outside the US.

For further reading:

See UN General Assembly resolution ES-10/15